Matthew 22:23-33

Matthew 22:23-33 Resurrection Defended

(Mk 12:18-27; Lk 20:27-40)

²³ On the same day, Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,

approached him and asked,

²⁴ “Teacher, Moses said,

‘If a man dies childless,

his brother should marry his brother’s wife

and raise up offspring for his brother.’

²⁵ There were seven brothers. The first married, but then died;

and since he had no offspring, left his wife to his brother.

²⁶ The second brother also died, as did the third,

right through to the seventh.

²⁷ Last of all, the woman died.

²⁸ Now, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be –

because all seven had her?”

Sadducees were a group in Israel, composed mainly of priests, predominantly the wealthy chief priests resident in Jerusalem. They accepted as inspired the five books of the Pentateuch, but they did not accept the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. Particularly, they rejected the oral traditions embraced by Pharisees. Pharisees believed in resurrection, and also in angels; Sadducees did not. Not believing in resurrection, and being generally wealthy landowners, they were particularly interested in questions of inheritance and the continuation of their bloodline through their children.

These Sadducees thought up a story that, to their minds, made the whole question of resurrection look ludicrous.

²⁹ In reply, Jesus said to them, “You are clearly wrong.

You know neither the Scriptures, nor the power of God.

³⁰ This is because in the resurrection,

people neither take in marriage nor are taken in marriage,

but are like the angels of God in heaven.

Jesus’ answer made the point that, given resurrection, questions of bloodlines and inheritance were irrelevant. There would be no marriage in the resurrection life (though Jesus did not rule out the possibility of those who loved each other in life continuing to do so after death). He also inferred that, if they had believed in angels, they would have understood the situation better.

³¹ And regarding the resurrection of the dead,

have you not read for yourselves the word spoken to you by God when he said,

³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’.

He is not God of dead people but of the living.”

Jesus’ meaning is not immediately clear. Jesus quoted from the Book of Exodus [3:6], the second book of the Pentateuch – which Sadducees accepted.

Though some sort of immortality of the soul was believed by certain schools of Greek philosophers, and had been incorporated into some of the later works of the Jewish writings originating in the Diaspora, Jesus and the Sadducees were not arguing about immortality. Jews had a very concrete and real sense of the human person. Jesus believed, not in immortality, but in resurrection – something unimaginably different and more wonderful. Faith in resurrection did not enter into Jewish consciousness until a century or two before Jesus. Indeed, Christian faith saw Jesus as the first to rise from the dead.

Scholars interpret Jesus' answer differently. Some point out that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were men who hoped in an unknown future, when God would bless them and the whole world through them. Their horizons were not confined to the here and now, nor to carefully planned issues of inheritance. They trusted God, even though they could not always understand God’s ways. The future was safe: it was in the hands of God. In this sense, they were men who were alive. Effectively, Jesus was claiming that, with their preoccupation about securing their future, Sadducees failed to be alive in the present: they were the dead, not the living.

Others note that God claimed I am the God of Abraham …, not I was, or I used to be, the God of Abraham … God's statement asserted that, even centuries after their deaths, God was still the God of Abraham and the other patriarchs; and that God's statement assumed, therefore, that the patriarchs were still somehow alive. God is not the God of dead people.

It is difficult for modern readers to appreciate the complexity, and difference, of the Rabbinic style of argument popular in the time of Jesus.

³³ The crowds who heard him were amazed at this teaching.

While the Sadducees and Pharisees were frustrated and angered by the argumentation of Jesus, the crowds were amazed. But they had still not taken the step into faith.

Next >> Matthew 22:34-40