God of the Living

Intro

We hear a lot about science today. Trust the science. I only believe what I can see and prove. The Bible and the Christian faith are often discounted as wishful thinking or fuzzy nice thinking, but can’t be really proven. For all of those criticisms, there are sure a lot of people who believe in lots of things they cannot see or prove.

Did you test your brake system, your fuel lines, your tire pressure before getting into your car or truck and driving here this morning? Did you research and evaluate your seat before sitting down? No, we believed they would work and we put our lives on the line to prove it. Lots of people are interested in the afterlife - we have people in nearby Lilly Dale trying to contact their dead pets and family members. We have lots of movies, tv shows, and games about ghosts, supernatural things, and life on other planets. People believe a lot of things because they want to, but believing in a God who hold you accountable for your life is not so welcome. It becomes too hard to believe - or maybe just too hard to accept.

This is nothing new. In Jesus' day, the powerful Sanhedrin, a Jewish council of 71 men made up of priests, pharisees, and other religious leaders, began a three prong attack on Jesus sending a different group each time with loaded questions, hoping to discredit Jesus and cause the crowds to lose faith in him. Today we see the second of these three challenges.

Series

As we continue our series: The Crown & The Cross sermon, Mark’s Gospel shows Jesus as a man with a clear message and mission, and the reader is called to actively response to the message. Jesus’ responses always helped his listeners better understand God’s heart and his statements are typically clear commands for us to follow.

In the first half of Mark the emphasis was on seeing Jesus revealed as Messiah - the King who deserved the crown. Now in the second half the focus is on Jesus in Jerusalem fulfilling His life’s mission to suffer and die on the cross - and to rise from the dead.

Last week the Pharisees and Herodians posed a sticky question for Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar. They really thought they would trap him, but his answer stunned them all to silence.

As we continue in Mark 12 today, another group, the Sadducees, come with another tricky question about marriage in heaven. Let’s see how Jesus handled that.

We are starting Mark chapter 12 today. Our parallel passages are in Matthew 22 and Luke 20.

PRAY

READ Mark 12:18-27

Sadducees’ Question

The Sadducees were the aristocratic party, made up of the high priests and leading families of Jerusalem. They were also part of the Sanhedrin council.

The Sadducees, were in a way, the most ‘conservative’ group of all in Israel, they accepted only the Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy) as God’s Word and rejected the Prophets and the other writings. So, because they refused to accept God’s further revelation in the Old Testament: now, they refused to accept God’s complete revelation in Jesus - the final prophet and Messiah. They also rejected any supernatural powers including angels, healings, and resurrection to eternal life - basically anything they could not explain from the Law.

Acts 23:8 (ESV)

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

The question from the Pharisees and Herodians we saw last week about paying taxes to Rome was primarily a political one. The Sadducees now pose a purely theological question, with an odd but very specific test case. They reference Moses’ Law as the basis for the argument, but they also wanted to discredit the idea of resurrection - something Jesus taught.

The Sadducees could find no basis for belief in resurrection and even an after-life in the Pentateuch (first five books). There are a number of OT verses that we can clearly find this belief. Job 19:25-26, Psalms 16, 49, 73, Dan 12:2, Isaiah 26:19 speak about the resurrection of the dead. But since they didn’t accept these other books, an concept of an afterlife was not sufficient for them to embrace the idea.

For them, and for most of the OT writers, Sheol was seen as a final resting place, and any eternal existence was only through a man’s reputation and posterity, not in terms of personal life after death.

vv. 19-23 Woman widowed and marrying seven brothers

Question - Whose wife will she be in heaven?

This sounds like a really unrealistic situation. They said Moses wrote for us about a man marrying his deceased brother’s wife. That was Levirate Marriage and it’s found in Deuteronomy 25:5.

“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.

The purpose was to keep the family line going and to preserve his brother’s name and legacy. It also kept any property in the family instead of letting it go to another family or tribe.

Jesus’ Response

How does Jesus respond to questions? Usually with a question!

v. 24 But this question is really more of an statement. Aren’t you wrong because you don’t know the Scriptures and you don’t know God’s power? His question already tells them they are wrong.

Jesus’ pointed accusation of the Sadducees is like saying to the New York Stock Exchange - Don’t you know about financial markets and the economy? Scripture (the Torah) and power (the Sanhedrin) were the two matters in which the Sadducees were most proud. With complete authority, Jesus asserts that what the Sadducees claim to know best they in fact know least.

Jesus first corrects the Sadducees on their incorrect view of the resurrection life. They should not cannot compare the resurrection life in heaven to life on earth.

Jesus then corrects the Sadducees’ biblical ignorance by reminding them of the Moses passage where God describes the long-gone patriarchs as still living.

They did not recognize or accept God’s power to act supernaturally. They didn’t believe Jesus, as the Son of God, had been healing physical problems, casting out demons, walking on water, multiplying food to feed thousands, and even raising the dead, God has the ability to resurrect and change our physical bodies into something immortal and perfect.

Resurrection Life

v. 25

Jesus them taught that resurrection life will be different from earthly life. People will not marry and have children but in some sense will be like angels, either without sexual capacity or concerned only with serving and worshiping God.

Some people have feared that a future life without their spouses will not be happy. While others maybe dread the thought of spending eternity continuing to argue and bicker. I think the passage is saying only that there will be no new marriages in heaven. Probably the best understanding is that no Christian in heaven will miss any meaningful relationships with believing family members and friends. Not the grief of loss but the surpassing joy of new and even deeper relationships marks life in God’s family, whether now in the church or in the future.

God of the Living

vv. 26-27

Jesus then takes them back to the Law to show them where the truths of the resurrection and eternal life can be found. Jesus references Exodus 3 when God spoke to Moses in the burning bush. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for centuries by the time God revealed himself to Moses.

Exodus 3:6 (ESV)

And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Notice the verb tense. I know school has started yet, but do any of our students recognize what tense is used? “I am” is present tense not past tense saying I was their God. Even though this is centuries later, I am still their God. They are still alive. He is the God of the living not the dead.

Hebrews 11, the great heroes of the faith chapter, describes the saving faith of the people of the OT. Their righteousness came from believing that God would save them in the future - not just in their present troubles. These all died in faith,not having received the things promised but having seen them and greeting them from afar. They desired a better country, a heavenly one.

The covenant making covenant keeping God whom Moses encountered, a God who through his new name ‘I AM’ is revealed as the living God, the ever-present helper and deliverer of his people.

As Jesus explains the reality of resurrection - it is based on the underlying truth that the call of God establishes a relationship with God. And once a relationship with God is established, it bears the promise of God and can never be ended, even by death. The relationship is the result of the promise and power of God that conquers the last enemy, death itself.

Understanding Heaven

Many people today do not know what to think or believe about the afterlife. But there are plenty of movies, books, and TV series about it like The Good Place, The Walking Dead, Upload, Ghosts, Dead like Me.

Some people take for granted that they will continue in a blessed afterlife with God, no matter how they related to God in this life. Many assume that the human soul is indestructible. Some believe in reincarnation. Others think nothing and believe nothing. They are consoled by a “maybe” or assume that a total lack of consciousness after death makes the whole issue unimportant. Most people are so absorbed with life here and now that thought for the future after death only comes up when they face serious illness or lose a close friend or family member.

According to the Bible, our source of ultimate truth, Heaven is about worshiping and glorifying God, not about living a better version of your own life on earth.

1 Cor 2:9 No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him.

Hope of the resurrection is the believer’s greatest hope providing strength to face life’s greatest challenges. Nothing can separate us from God’s love Romans 8:38-39.

Notice v. 25 says in heaven we will be like angels not become angels. The old cartoons and movies portrayed people in heaven becoming angels or like Clarence in Its a Wonderful Life, waiting to earn their angelic wings. That is not what the Bible says. We will have immortal bodies like the angels. We will not be married or give birth like the angels. But the Sadduccees did not even believe in angels. So Jesus makes reference to their actual existence. Another correction of their errors.

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 Paul talks about the resurrection of the dead and gave us several important points.

Our physical bodies will be resurrected to become imperishable. Any illness, deformity, weakness will be completely removed and made whole.

Your individuality will be preserved for eternity. You will be who you are but now glorious.

We will be recognizable and still lovable in heaven. You will know and recognize your loved ones and they will know and recognize you.

There will be marriage or concern about past spouses, but our love will still remain. There is no need for sexuality or reproduction, but we retain our identity.

There will be no death in heaven or ever again.

But our focus will be on worshipping Jesus Christ and God, not on having a family reunion or righting wrongs from earth. We will fully bear the image of Christ with nothing in ourselves that is sinful, unrighteous or unholy. Our desires will only be pure and for God, not selfish or hurtful to others.

Take Aways

People in Jesus’ day who didn’t believe in the power of God, demanded further miracles as proof. Even today, there is a huge focus on healings and special revelation from God to prove He exists. But the greatest proof of God’s power is the transformed lives of believers. Do people see a new you or one that is continuing to become more like Jesus?

Have you accepted God’s invitation to know Him and become part of His family? Repenting of your sin and trusting Jesus alone as your Savior who paid your sin debt begins a new relationship today that will last forever. He promises to never leave you here on earth or for all eternity.

Is your view of heaven all about you and the things and people you want to see again, or is it about worshipping and glorifying God? As Paul said, we can’t imagine what it will be like. But it will be all about Jesus not me.

Benediction

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Father, through Jesu Christ His Son be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.