God Of The Resurrection

Matt 22:23-33 GOD OF THE RESURRECTION

Today we are going to talk about a subject that is relevant to all of us, and that is the resurrection of life.

• Something that we have not experienced yet but will, someday, because of our faith in Jesus Christ.

• Jesus saved us from sin and death and in Christ, we shall all be raised again to life and be with Him forever.

Who can assure us that the resurrection is real? No one except God, the Author of life.

• And the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who Himself was raised to life again on the 3rd day after His death.

• No man can assure us of the resurrection because we are all mortal and we dwell on this side of heaven.

• No one who died has returned to tell us of the resurrection of life, except Jesus Christ.

Jesus gave us this promise in John 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

• In Christ, we can be very assured of our resurrection to eternal life with God.

• “Do you believe this?” Jesus asked.

Not the Sadducees, which we read in the passage this morning (from Matt 22).

• They were a religious group in Jesus’ time that refused to believe in the resurrection of the dead. Luke tells us in Acts 23:8 that they also do not believe in angels or spirits.

• They were a liberal sect that did not believe in anything supernatural.

Like all the other religious groups - the Pharisees and the Herodians that we read in the passage before – the Sadducees too came against Jesus.

• They wanted to ridicule Him and discredit His teachings. They came with a question to trap Jesus, knowing that He teaches the resurrection.

22:24 “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.”

• This is the Jewish law of the Levirate marriage taken from the Law of Moses in Deut 25:5-10.

• It was a Jewish practice, designed to ensure that a deceased Israelite would have a descendant to carry on the family name.

This practice now provided the Sadducees the opportunity to ridicule Jesus about His teaching on the resurrection.

So they came up with an unreal and exaggerated story of a woman whose husband died and the husband’s brother (Latin levir) married her.

• But he died too and so another brother took his place. This unfortunate situation repeated itself with the third brother, and the fourth, down to the seventh.

• Finally, all died, including the woman. So now, if there is a resurrection, then “Whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” (22:28)

This is not a serious question, coming from the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection in the first place. It was meant to ridicule the truth about resurrection.

• We know what they are getting at. How do you decide which man is the true husband of the woman? It is odd for all of them to be her husband, but all of them married her. See how ridiculous it is if there is a resurrection?

We know that the story is exaggerated. We do not need to have 7 brothers to make the point, just 3 will do. They blow up the case on purpose.

And it is quite unreal because if we are one of the brothers toward the end of the line and notice our brothers dying off one by one and we are next in line and soon be forced to marry the woman, then we will likely get ourselves out of the situation quickly by finding someone else to marry and get away!

Anyway, the Sadducees presented this absurd story to Jesus.

• So at the resurrection, “Whose wife will she be?” (22:28) They thought they had Jesus cornered because any answer to this question would be ridiculous.

Jesus took the question, turned the table around and corrected them.

• 22:29 Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”

• 22:30 “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

• “You asked the wrong question. There is no marriage in heaven.”

The Sadducees were wrong in TWO aspects, Jesus said:

(1) they did not know the SCRIPTURES, and (2) they did not know the POWER of God.

• And that’s a mistake we must not repeat today. We do not want to be ignorant and deceived.

• We believe in the WORD of God and we believe God is powerful enough to raise the dead. Can God not raise the dead if He is the Author and Creator of life?