Following the Way of Jesus! (2)

Jesus the Teacher - The Resurrection of the Dead

Matthew 22:22–33 (ESV)

The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

President William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901), was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901, one of four to be assassinated - Abraham Lincoln (1865, by John Wilkes Booth), James A. Garfield (1881, by Charles J. Guiteau), William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy (1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald).

McKinley was shot at point bland range by a Detroit mill worker named Leon Czolgosz in the afternoon of September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, New York.

Those standing by immediately attacked the shooter, and the wounded President, noting this ordered that this should be stopped: “don’t let them hurt him.” Later, at the Hospital, he said of his assassin, “It must have been some poor misguided fellow...He didn’t know, poor fellow, what he was doing. He couldn’t have known.”

Whilst lying, wounded, McKinley’s thoughts turned to his wife: “My wife,” he said to one of his aides, “Be careful how you tell her—oh, be careful!” McKinley’s wife was a chronic invalid, she suffered from phlebitis and epileptic seizures which shattered her health and thius was compounded by grief, caused by the loss of two baby daughters. McKinley had cared for and supported her tenderly for many years and his compassion for her even at this moment of crisis is a testament to his loving concern.

McKinley actually lived for 8 days, after he was shot, but one bullet could not be located and gangrene set in around his wounds, leading to blood poisoning, which sealed his fate.

McKinley was a Christian man, converted aged 16 and a lifelong, devoted member of the Methodist Church. His last words before death were, “Good-bye, good bye, all. It’s God’s way. His will, not ours, be done. Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee.” At this, his wife Ida started crying out, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" to which McKinley replied weakly but with gentle tenderness, "We are all going!”

“Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee” was the hymn sung as the Titanic sank on April 15th, 1912 and 1500 of the 2,142 passengers lost their lives on a ship that its designers, Edward John Smith, claimed, "Not even God himself could sink”!

Just 2 hours and 20 minutes, proved that man’s attempt to control their destiny and become as Willian Ernest-Henley in Invictus, boldly declared “the Master of my fate...the Captain of my soul” so evidently, a feeble and futile boast!

Death, you see, however it finds us is a sad but inevitable reality that none of us can escape. We know this, but as Woody Allen said: “I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

And that’s thing about death isn’t it. We discuss it in hushed tones; we hide away from it and hope it won’t overshadow us but it does - "We live in a death-denying society, and that needs to change"(Annmarie Nelson, Marie Curie Professor of Supportive and Palliative Care and Scientific Director, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Centre. 4 November 2019).

This has not always been the case in history of course, when life-epectancy was much lower and life much harsher. Think of the burial customs of the ancient Egyptians or more recently, American Indians, in which they expected life in the next world to be physical and material, hence they were buried with all the stuff and even their wives and animals in some cases, taking to the grave what was theirs!

But this coming to terms with death is not just about accepting your fate; its about escaping it, so the Anciet Egypitians and the American Indians, took their stuff with them because they felt they would need it in the afterlife! The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example is filled with ideas and stories about life after death. In the tomb of the great pharaoh Cheops, who died some 5,000 years ago, archaeologists discovered a solar boat intended for him to use in sailing through the heavens during the next life.

Likewise the ancient Greeks often placed a coin in the mouth of a corpse to pay his fare across the mystic river of death into the land of immortal life. They held to a view that the body was only the tomb or prison of the soul and that death was the friend which freed soul from body, but they stil felt that preparation for death in this world would aid them in the world to come, whatever its form! Why? Because....

1. Death makes you Sadd-u-cee!

Questions of death and what then, have been common place throughout history and Jesus here is confronted by a group of religious thinkers name the Sadducees, who spent an awful lot of time thinking about and explaining what happends when you die.

‘The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes along with the body’ (Josephus, Ant. xviii. 16) - which is why they were Sad-u-see!

a. Who are the Sadducees?

This is the sixth mention of the Sadducees by Matthew (cf. Matt 3:7; 16:1, 6, 11 f.), but the first time as acting alone. In Mark and Luke, they are mentioned only in connection with this story (Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27).

The Sadducees were wealthy aristocrats, few in number, but very powerful. They emerged from the “Hellenists” who in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes(175 BC) collaborated with the Syrians, adapting to Grecian ways.

It is thought that the Sadducees, derived their name from Zadok the Priest, who served as high priest served during the reigns of King David and King Solomon. Zadok means “just” or “righteous”(Heb: צדיק, zaddikim, the “righteous ones.”). He descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses and was appointed as high priest by King David after the rebellion of the king’s son, Absalom. During the rebellion, Zadok remained loyal to David and helped him to escape from Jerusalem. When David was restored to power, Zadok was instrumental in bringing the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. After David’s death in 970BC, Zadok anointed Solomon as king: “So the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and led him to Gihon. There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, ‘Long live King Solomon!’” (1 Kings 1:38-39), hence the corronation song and declaration as captured by Handel in his Messiah!

Under the Romans (60 BC onward), they politically collaborated, accepting the high priesthood as an appointed office by the Romans. This political alliance meant that the Sadducees exercised not only religious but considerable political and social control over the people. They were allowed to continue with their own Government, the Sanhedrin council, comprising 70 members, plus the ruling high priest and made up of 3 professional groups, High priests — the acting high priest and former high priests, and members of the chief-priestly families. Elders — tribal and family heads of the people and the priesthood and Scribes — legal professionals in Society, connected to the Synagogue and known for their wisdom and purity. The majority of these were Sadducees, but some were Pharisees, particularly the Scribes. They also had their own Temple guard and collected their own religious taxes. However, because of their compromise with Rome, they were also hated by the people.

b. What did the Sadducees believe?

They were politically and socially conservative in that they accepted the status quo and their divine right to act in the Priestly capacity.

They were biblical literalists but this was based on a primary authority being placed on the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible and in practice this meant that they negelcted which in turm amounted to a rejection of truth that could not be substantiated or supported rom the Pentateuch.

They also rejected the oral tradition of the Pharisees as found in the Talmud, based on the long teaching of Rabbis. Because they could not find support in the Pentateuch they rejected the doctrines of resurrection, angels, fate and providence, emphasizing man’s free will - “the Pharisees are those who are esteemed most skillful in the exact explication of their laws, and introduce the first sect. These ascribe all to fate [or providence], and to God, and yet allow, that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men, although fate does co-operate in every action. They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment. But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order, and take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil; and they say, that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men's own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please. They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades. Moreover, the Pharisees are friendly to one another, and are for the exercise of concord, and regard for the public; but the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them. And this is what I had to say concerning the philosophic sects among the Jews.” (Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. 13:5; 18:1; cf. Acts 23:8; Josephus Wars 2, 8).

With regard specifically to the doctrine of resurrection, they argued that as it emerged rather late in the Old Testament (cf. Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2 f; Psalm 73), they did not accept it.

c. What about the Sadducees Question?

The question is interesting but it is no more serious than that of the Pharisees and Herodians before them! - “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

It was another example of a question designed to trap and ridicule Jesus whilst st the same time support their view that belief in the resurrection is absurd and logically flawed.

The Sadducees’ denial of a resurrection, as already noted, arose from their insistence on taking only the Pentateuch as their scriptural authority. Passages like Isaiah 26:19: “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.” And also, Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” were denied, because they rejected the authority of those Scriptures.

This also separated them from the Pharisees, a fact commented on rather amusingly, during a trial when Paul was before the Sanhedrin and he cunningly divided their opinion in Acts 23:6-10 “Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into othe barracks.”

So we can see that the Pharisees and Sadducees had great social and political as well as theological animosity between them. Socially, the Sadducees were aristocratic and the Pharisees were commoners. Politically, the Sadducees were pro-Roman and the Pharisees anti-Roman. There was one issue, however, that solidly united Pharisees and Sadducees: their intransigent opposition to Jesus.

Back to the question itself!

It is rather convoluted and highly improbable scenario that the Saducees presented was based around the levirate law of Deuteronomy 25:5–10: “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’ It’s worth noting that the word “marry” is not the normal Greek word, but a technical term for the performance of the levirate duty.

Their story also echoses a tragic story of a shamed and scorned worman who commited suicide found in the Apocryphal Tobit 3:7–15, “On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by one of her father’s maids. For she had been married to seven husbands, and the wicked demon Asmodeus had killed each of them before they had been with her as is customary for wives. So the maid said to her, “You are the one who kills your husbands! See, you have already been married to seven husbands and have not borne the name of a single one of them. Why do you beat us? Because your husbands are dead? Go with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”

Their summary of this law concludes with some words from Genesis 38:8, an actual example of the application of this principle in the family of Judah and it is pretty gritty stuff to be frank: “And It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death also. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house.  In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.  And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” And she said, “If you give me a pledge, until you send it—” He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge from the woman’s hand, he did not find her. And he asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim at the roadside?” And they said, “No cult prostitute has been here.”  So he returned to Judah and said, “I have not found her. Also, the men of the place said, ‘No cult prostitute has been here.’ ” And Judah replied, “Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her.” About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again. When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.” (Genesis 38).

So it is apparent that the only “resurrection” the Sadducees expected was the “raising up”(Grk: anastēsei) of the family line, although ironically it echoes the word resurrection (Grk: anastasis) used in v23, This is the only resurrection they believed in, a physical ‘continuity’ is the only ‘resurrection’ they recognize.

This is a decisive point being made here. The Sadducees believed in a type of life after death but it was not the full restoration of a physical life, but some kind of spirit-life.

It’s great to believe in life after death, but it’s also important to be clear about what is and is not beleived about it!

The New Testament teaches a doctrine of resurrection, which avoids two extremes, the belief that the next life is a mere physical continuation of this life but just ina differnet place; a kind of reincarnation and on the other hand, a beleif that we live in some disembodied, spirit-world, as part of a Great Spirit ot as possessing an immortal soul.

This contradicts the biblical doctrine of creation, which sees the body as essential to what man is, and the doctrine of redemption, which sees the whole man as the object of redemption. What the NT presents is a belief that the body will be preserved and resurrected, undergoing change and putting on incorruptibility and immortality!

SO Jesus replies to this question saying...

2. God gives you Hope-U-Cee!

a. Hope is vital to life and purpose.

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” ― Tom Bodett

Because death is a reality that none of us can escape, we need an antidote to it; an answer for it and in the face of death, the Bible says we can have HOPE - “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear because you are with me”!(Psalm 23:4). The presence of God brings Hope!

Our God, is the God of Hope! "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."(Rom 15:13). - “Biblical hope is life changing certainty about the future … being certain about the future in a way that affects how you live now.” (Tim Keller)

b. The God of the Bible gives us Hope!

Jesus response to the Sadducees is this - “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.”

“You are wrong” applies both to the specific case cited, with regard to marriage in the resurrection(v30) and to the real issue underlying it (vs 31–32).

And the reason why they were wrong is that the Sadducees did know the scriptures, even though they has read them many times, but only ever in a superficial sense, and only ever with their prejudiced views about the afterlife in place! They read the Scriptures though the lens of a “confirmation bias”, looking for evidence that supported their view of the afterlife and ignoring evidence that spoke to the contrary view.

Such beliefs and Bible reading will do no good, for what is the point of believing in a God who is not all-powerful; a God who not in control; a God who is not “able to do, immeasurably more than anything we can ask or imagine? A God who cannot raise the dead? And what is the point of reading Scripture, if there is an unwillingness to accept its teaching or only agree with the BITS that we like and can affirm!

No wonder the Sadducees lost sight of God! There is no room to hear; no openess to allow the Scripture to penetrate the heart and allow it to sit in judgments of our beliefs! No room for what God could and would do and a total blindness to the power of God.

Two separate causes of error - a failure to understand Scripture which leads to an inability to appreciate what God can do.

It is no different today! This is the outlook of the secular man, who cannot accept a God whose work goes beyond present human experience! This is the mindset of the person who cannot acknowledge the possibility of an inspired and infallible word of God!

Beware of reading the Scripture wrongly! Reading the Scripture to appear knowledgable or to martial arguments. C. S. Lewis once said: “We come to Scripture not to learn a subject but to steep ourselves in a person.” Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”(John 5:39). If we do not read the Scripture in order to get to know, follow and lvoe te Lord Jesus more, then we are not reading them aright and all kinds of errors and irngornace will emerge! Let us remember John 20:30-31, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The specific problem they cited was irrelevant because it assumed that a resurrection life must be subject to the same conditions as life on earth and that marriage and the bearing of children would be a commonplace their as it was now, but that is wrong - in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (see also Luke 20:36)

The resurrection ushers in a deathless life where there will be no place for procreation, and the exclusive relationship within which this takes place on earth will therefore not apply. “It is this aspect of marriage which Jesus’ argument excludes from the resurrection life, rather than any suggestion that loving relationships have no place there”(R. T. France). We are not warranted to take it any further than this, anymore that we are to assume from what Jesus says here that we will become angels in Heaven! To be “like angels” does not make us angels, it is to remind us that we will occupy their world, where things common in this world are no longer available or needed there!

The general atttude was wrong because given ‘the power of God’(v29), God can create a wholly new kind of life, unlike the life we currently have here!

This will not be a mere re-animation of that which we experience now but a new and better life in which mortality and deterioration are no more: “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”  You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, awho gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in cthe work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord dyour labor is not in vain.”(1 Cor 15:35-58).

This is the real issue for the Sadducees - not the question of marriage but the possibility of resurrection for the believer! Jesus thus draws his argument from Exodus 3:6, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” From the very Scriptures which the Sadducees accepted.

When God spoke to Moses at the burning bush, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had long been dead, and yet God identified himself as their God in the present. It is in this context that God reveals his name, Yahweh, ‘I AM WHO I AM’ (Exod. 3:14–16), and the object of that revelation is to assure Moses of the active, saving presence of God with his people to rescue them from Egypt. Could this living, saving, covenant-keeping God establish a relationship with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob only to allow it to be terminated by death?

‘To be the God of’ implies a caring, protecting relationship which is as permanent as the living God who makes it. ‘With unsurpassable brevity this sentence says that faith in God includes the certainty of conquering death’ (Jeremias, NTT, p. 184).33.

It also affirms the belief that believers never really die! God affirms that the dead are now, presently, with God in Paradise. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are not dead but alive. They are alive as individual persons. They are not dead or asleep. Too be “absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord”!

Furthermore, this affirmation by Jesus, shows the eternal importance of individuality. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! Death is not the ending of the individual life; the merging of the human into the divine, as in Hinduism for God is not only God of Israel but of individual persons. We are distinct individuals in creation, redemption, and in the future world. We matter to God!

For Christians, Jesus is our “blessed hope” - “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”(1 Thes 4:13-17).

We are not told what the Sadducees made of Jesus’ argument, except that it ‘silenced’ them.

But the Sadducees “did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything” (v. 40). Tragically, Jesus had not convinced them, because they would not be convinced - “There are none so blinder as those who will not see!”(John Heywood).

Still, His argument had not been intended for them alone, and the crowd recognized this as something new and remarkable, as it “amazed them.” .

Conclusion:

Questions about death and what lies beyond the grave has always fascinated men and women and it is one of the BIG QUESTIONS of life for us all to consider.

Jesus was asked by a grieving friend why He had not come to heal her dying brother, to which He responded, “Your brother will rise again.” Don’t worry Martha, its not all over for Lazarus. He beleived in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of the living!

Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in ithe resurrection on the last day.” I have faith to beielve this, but oh I wish you;d come and saved him; I was not ready for him to die! What will become of us his sisters? How will we manage? And “Jesus wept”(John 11:35). Death hurts us so!

BUT “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”(John 11:24-27). All my hope is in you for life, for death; for eternity!

THE BIG QUESTION FOR US ALL TODAY IS THIS - “Do you believe this?” - Its a crucial question for you to consider!

As Christians we have a “blessed hope”! A happy hope! - “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Peter 1:3).

A living hope! Little wonder that those who buried Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father of modern America; the Great Statesman who who signed all three documents that freed America from Britain, credited with drafting the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, had the following epitaph inscribed on his tomb: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents worn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding), Lies here, food for worms! Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended, by its Author!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Peter 1:3).