Luke 20:27-40

Confrontation – Scripture and Resurrection

Luke 20:27-40 - Sadducees Question Resurrection

²⁷ Some Sadducees, who dispute whether there is any resurrection,

came up to Jesus

²⁸ and put a question to him,

"Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a brother,

having married, were to die childless,

then his brother must take the wife

and raise up family on his behalf.

Sadducees were not an organised movement as such. They embraced, however, a system of ideas and values common among the upper classes of Jerusalem (including many of the chief priests), that drew its inspiration from the first five books of the Law, the Torah (attributed directly to Moses). They did not acknowledge that the rest of the Scriptures generally accepted by others were inspired. Among other things they denied resurrection and the existence of angels. They were divided sharply from the Pharisee movement, particularly since the Pharisees held a deep respect for what they called their Oral Tradition. Belief in resurrection was a late arrival in Judaism. It was referred to in the Book of Daniel, and in the Wisdom literature originating from the Jewish communities living outside Palestine. These writings were accepted by Pharisees, but Sadducees did not recognise their inspiration.

The text they referred to was found in the Book of Deuteronomy:

When brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son,

the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.

Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage,

and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her,

and the firstborn whom she bears

shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother,

so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. (Deuteronomy 25:5-6)

The concerns behind the law were inheritance and ownership of land.

²⁹ There were seven brothers.

The first one married and then died without having a child.

³⁰ The second brother

³¹ and then the third took the wife,

and so on with all seven.

They died without leaving any family.

³² Finally the woman died.

³³ Well then, the woman, in the resurrection,

whose wife shall she be?

After all, the seven of them had her as his wife."

The question had been used often enough in debate with Pharisees with neither of the parties convincing the other. They thought it would be good enough to use as a to challenge Jesus and to lead to his losing face before the people. They did not dream that Jesus might be smarter than their professional scribes.

³⁴ Jesus said to them,

"People of this age marry and are given in marriage.

³⁵ But those who are deemed worthy

of attaining the next age and the resurrection from the dead

neither marry nor are given in marriage,

³⁶ nor are they able to die any more.

They are similar to angels,

and are children of God

since they are sharers in the resurrection.

Jesus said that the problem was theirs, not that of the Pharisees or himself. Inheritance issues had to do with the continuation of the bloodline, necessary because of its implications for the ownership of property. But it was a false dilemma. Resurrection made continuation of the bloodline unnecessary. Jesus went on to include his otherwise fairly irrelevant reference to angels since Sadducees precisely denied their existence.

³⁷ And Moses himself pointed out that the dead are raised

in the passage about the bush,

where the Lord is called

the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob.

³⁸ God is not God of the dead but of the living.

As far as God is concerned, everyone is living."

Jesus went further to show that even the early books of the Torah, which they accepted as inspired, presupposed the fact of resurrection. His argument might not convince a modern logician, but the use of other connected (if not always relevant) quotations from Scripture was an accepted mode of argumentation within the culture. In this case Jesus quoted from the Book of Exodus:

When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see,

God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” ...

“I am the God of your father,

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:4-6).

The Christian Letter to the Hebrews interpreted that text in this way:

All of these (holy people of Israel) died in faith

without having received the promises,

but from a distance they saw and greeted them.

They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,

for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind,

they would have had opportunity to return.

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God;

indeed, he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

Jesus, too, made the point that God indeed has prepared a city for them...a better country, that is, a heavenly one. They were alive because they were all men who hoped for a better future. Though not explicitly mentioning the word resurrection, the meaning was still life beyond this earth’s (which was the essence of the argument).

³⁹ Some of the scribes were listening and said,

“Teacher, you have spoken well.”

⁴⁰ They were no longer bold enough to ask him anything.

Scribes of the priestly caste were mostly Sadducees. But other scribes were Pharisees. It would have been these scribes who commended the response of Jesus. His argument would have been different from any they had thought of; and it served to confirm them in their faith in resurrection. It also had the effect of their looking better than Sadducees in the eyes of the people.

In the “honour challenges” Jesus had won convincingly, and his standing among the people was virtually invincible. His adversaries no longer attempted to discredit him in public. Their tactics from now on went underground.

Next >> Luke 20:41-47