Sons Of The Resurrection Series

LUKE 20: 27-39 [JESUS’ LAST WEEK SERIES]

SONS OF THE RESURRECTION

Here is the final attempt in Luke to confound Jesus by arguments. It is only here that Luke’s gospel mentions the Sadducees. In order to question the Resurrection, a belief held both by Jesus (14:14) and the Pharisees (Acts 23:8), the Sadducees raise a far-fetched example. The Sadducees ask Jesus about a theoretical [levirate] marriage where a wife has seven men. It is obvious they do so in order to justify their disbelief in the resurrection.

Questions about life after death are as old as man himself. There have always been and will always be those like these lay and priestly intellectuals who hold that the natural world and some authority, for them it was the Torah, for us science, deny the resurrection of the dead. But the resurrection is real and Jesus, the Son of the Living God, will prove its reality in less than a week. God is the God of the Living not the dead (CIT).

I. THE RESURRECTION DENIED, 27.

II. THE RESURRECTION BELITTLED [DISPARAGED], 28–33.

III. THE RESURRECTION SUPPORTED, 34–40.

Verse 27 introduces another group of Jesus’ enemies. “There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,”

The Sadducees denied all supernatural occurrences. They refused to even face the clear implications of OT teaching about the future state and were skeptical of the nature of personal future existence related to rewards or punishment. [They also did not believe in angels, demons, or spirits (Acts 23:8) or the inspiration of the Old Testament other than the Torah or the five books of Moses.] These intellectual skeptics controlled much of the religious and political affairs in first century Israel.

II. THE RESURRECTION BELITTLED, 28–33.

The Sadducees begin their attack in verse 28 by quoting from the Law of Moses. ‘and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’

The question on resurrection was not to elicit information but to find a way to make Jesus look foolish by presenting an extreme hypothetical case. The quote from Deuteronomy 25:5 (Ruth 4:1-12) centers on levirate marriage where a brother was obligated to marry his brother’s widow and raise children for the deceased. The Jewish custom of “levirate marriage” [from the Lat. levir, “husband’s brother,” “brother-in-law”] provided for the remarriage of a widow to the brother of a husband who died childless. The purpose of the remarriage being to provide descendants to carry on the deceased husband’s name & care for his widow (Deut 25:5–6; Gen 38:8). Preserving the line of descent also kept land in the family which limited social disruption. [ p 326.]

The proposed conundrum is found in verses 29-32. ‘Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children.’ (30) ‘And the second (31) and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. (32) Afterward the woman also died.

They take their swing at Jesus by poking fun at the teaching of the scriptures which they know He believes are fully inspired. Their hypothetical case is seven dead men, one dead woman: no children.

Verse 33 is the clincher meant to stump Jesus or at lest embarrass Him for what He believed theologically. ‘In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”’

Whose wife in the resurrection that everyone talks about would she be? The example had been worked out so that no brother had an advantage over the other because none left an heir. Since all seven qualified themselves as husbands equally, they felt that the doctrine of the resurrection had to be rejected as illogical if not absurd.

The Sadducees made this ancient remarriage instruction the basis for an absurd argument that assumed that the idea of resurrection involves sexual reunion with one’s earthly partner(s). They assumed that the resurrection must be lived in the monogamous relationship God requires on earth.

III. THE RESURRECTION SUPPORTED, 34–40.

In verses 34 & 35 Jesus once again refutes His opponents with the wisdom of God. ‘And Jesus said to them, ‘“The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,’ (35) ‘but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,

Jesus first demonstrates the flaw of equating this age with the coming age for the present Age contrasts sharply with the Age to come. Afterlife is a new paradigm of existence. It is not legitimate to project earthly conditions into the future state. He refutes their premise that the situation and conditions governing this present age will continue into and govern the coming age. After the resurrection relationships change. This could be taken to mean that there will be no marriage in the resurrection [Martin, J. A. (1985). Luke. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 256). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.]. Since there is no longer death in the age to come, the reason to procreate through marriage will cease (Gen 1:28). Thus marriage as we have known it will cease to exist [Stein, Robert. Luke. New American Com. Broadman. 1992. Nashville, TN. p 500.] More probably though Jesus intended that all human relationships are lifted up to such a high level in heaven that the exclusiveness of marriage will not be a factor in heaven as it is on earth. The continuation of earthly relationships though is implied in 1 Thes. 4:17–18. [Marshall, I. H. (1994). Luke. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1012). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.]