THE GOD OF THE LIVING
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 13, 2021 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: October 13, 2021 from Luke 20:27-40
Theme: Our God is the God of the living—with whom the promise of resurrection is certain.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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We’ve been studying the ‘temple confrontations’ that our Lord experienced after He had entered the temple in Jerusalem. One by one, the religious leaders of the people confronted Him and challenged Him. They even tried to trap Him so that He could either be discredited before the people, or accused before the Roman authorities. But in each encounter, our Lord answered wisely. He not only silenced His challengers, but He also forced them to come to terms with truths about Himself.
In Luke 20:27-40, we come to another confrontation. And this time, it was a different group of opponents that came to challenge Him. We’re told;
Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.” Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” Then some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” But after that they dared not question Him anymore (Luke 20:27-40).
If you look at this story carefully, you’ll see three main players. The first was the Sadducees. They were a group that was made of the high-priestly and leading lay-families of Jerusalem. No one is exactly sure how they came to be. But it’s believed that they took their name from an Old Testament priest who ministered in the days of King David named Zadok. In Jesus’ time, the ‘Sadducees’ were very wealthy and worldly and aristocratic. And they weren’t too terribly concerned about spiritual things.
There’s a very interesting story that’s told to us about the Sadducees in Acts 23:8. It gives us a little insight into how they thought. They once got into a big argument with the Pharisees; because “Sadducees say that there is no resurrection—and no angel or spirit”, while the Pharisees affirm these things. The Sadducees, then, had a lot in common with the kind of secularized attitude that many have today. They were very skeptical about spiritual matters.
But you’ll notice from this story that they also seemed to have known the Scriptures—particularly the law of Moses. Historians believed that they were skeptical about the authority of all other portions of Scriptures; but they had a lot of respect for the laws given by Moses. You might say that they were big on the rules but not so big on the miracles. They’re the ones that crafted this clever question, and asked it of Jesus in order to trap Him.
Another player in this story was another group—the scribes. They were sometimes referred to in the Bible as ‘lawyers’. They were the biblical scholars who were the experts in the Jewish scriptures. It was their role in society to study, and interpret, and help apply the law of God to the different situations of life. They didn’t always apply it very well to themselves, however. If you look at verses 46-47, you find that Jesus told the people;
“Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation” (vv. 46-47).
But despite their hypocrisy, they were nevertheless knowledgeable in the Scriptures. They were the ones who, at the end of this story, heard what Jesus said and affirmed that He had answered wisely and correctly.
And of course, the third player in this story is the Lord Jesus Himself. He’s the one who faced the challenge from the Sadducees about the resurrection and answered in such a way as to declare the truth. When He was through answering, no one dared ask Him another question.
Now; there are several things that we can learn from this story. One, of course, is that our Lord is wise and cannot be trapped or tricked by the cleverness of men. Another lesson we can learn from our Lord’s example is how to courageously respond to those who seek to challenge the Christian faith and the teaching of the Bible. But the greatest lesson we can learn from this passage has to do with the precious truth that these skeptics were mocking; and that is the whole idea of ‘resurrection from the dead’.
This passage teaches us that our God is the God of the living—and with Him, the promise of the resurrection of those who trust in His Son is sure and certain.
* * * * * * * * * *
In His earthly ministry, our Lord taught that God raises the dead. More than once, He affirmed this before those who opposed Him and His teaching. In John 5, for example, Jesus was being challenged by the religious leaders of the Jewish people; and in verses 25-27, He said these words about Himself;
“Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man” (John 5:25-27).
In those words, He was speaking of a ‘spiritual’ resurrection—that is, that He is able to raise people from out of spiritual death and into new life. But after that, our Lord went on say;
“Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (vv. 28-29).
In His earthly ministry to people, Jesus proved the reality of the physical resurrection of the dead by the fact that He literally raised people from physical death. He raised the little daughter of the synagogue ruler from death. He raised the son of a widow of the little town of Nain from the dead. He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead—calling him forth from out of the tomb—telling Lazarus’ sister Martha,
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
And of course, it would only be a few days after this very confrontation with the Sadducees in the temple that He would Himself be raised from the dead. Clearly, Jesus’ life and ministry was proof that God raises the dead. But these skeptics who opposed our Lord in the temple denied that such a thing could ever happen.
They sought to make Him look foolish for teaching that the dead are raised.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Now; the way that they sought to make our Lord look foolish was by trying to trap Him in what they thought was an absurdity in the Scriptures. They wanted to show that belief in the resurrection was irrational and inherently inconsistent. They began by presenting Him with what the Scripture itself teaches. In Luke 20:27-29, it says,
Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother” (Luke 20:27-29).
They were quoting from a law that was given by God to Moses in Deuteronomy 25. It was a law that was intended to provide for the perpetuation of the name of a man in Israel who had died without having a child, and also to provide for the care of the dead man’s widow. The Sadducees had no problem believing in that law. But they then tried to make a case for the absurdity of the resurrection by proposing a hypothetical situation. They went on in verses 30-32 to say;
“Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also.” (vv. 30-32).
Did this actually happen? If it did, it would have been an interesting reversal of the famous musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. This would have been the story of one bride for seven brothers. Actually, it would have been a very tragic story. But it’s probable that it was only a hypothetical story designed to reduce the idea of resurrection to an absurdity. These Sadducees went on to propose their question:
Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife” (v. 33).
They didn’t ask this question because they wanted to know the answer to a perplexing ethical dilemma. They asked it hoping to make the Lord Jesus look foolish in front of all the people who were listening. There are lots of people today who seek to do similar kinds of things to Bible-believing people. They try to show that there are contradictions and absurdities in the Bible. But all that they really end up proving is that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about as well as they think they do. In the Gospel of Mark—when Mark told this story—he reported that the Lord Jesus said to the Sadducees, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mark 12:24). That’s always where the failure lies—not in the Bible itself, but rather in a complete misunderstanding of the Bible and of the power of God.
Look again at how our Lord answered them. First, He dealt with the whole matter of the power of God with respect to the marriage question. In verses 34-36, it says;
Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (vv. 34-36).
We shouldn’t take His words to mean that people who are raised from the dead will become ‘angels’. The Bible teaches us that we who are raised will be greater than the angels in glory. Instead, what our Lord meant was that when we are raised, we will be ‘equal to’ the angels in that we will no longer be subject to the kind of physical needs that currently make marriage necessary to us. Marriage—as the Bible defines it—meets needs that we have in our present state of being—needs for physical intimacy and companionship, mutual care, and the perpetuation of the human race on earth. But when we are raised in glorified bodies, those temporary needs will no longer have to be met.
This meant that, in terms of the hypothetical situation the Sadducees proposed, there won’t be a need for seven brothers to all fight over one wife that they once had; because death will have concluded that temporal need for the ‘marriage’ relationship—only to replace it with something greater and more wonderful in our union with Jesus Christ. We will be ‘equal to the angels’ in that respect.
So then; that’s how Jesus dealt with their misunderstanding of the power of God with respect to the resurrection. In the resurrected state, God is able to bring people to a condition of glory that is greater than anything we can imagine our present condition. But He then went on to deal with their other misunderstanding—this one about the teaching of the Scriptures themselves. In verses 37-39, He said,
“But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him” (vv. 37-38).
Jesus said, “even Moses”; because that’s who the Sadducees honored. They would have recognized the story of Exodus 3—when God first introduced Himself to Moses in the burning bush. Moses lived four to five hundred years after the time that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had physically died. But God didn’t say to Moses that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or that He had been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though they had physically died, they were still alive and existed before Him; so that Moses could report that God is their God.
Those words don’t prove that there is such a thing as a resurrection. But they do prove the reality of eternal life. God preserves the ongoing existence of the spirits of those who love and trust Him in the spiritual realms even after death. And if that’s so, then He is able to raise their bodies to be reunited to those eternal spirits whenever He wishes.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; the scribes—the experts in the Scriptures—were listening in on all of this. And as Luke tells us in verses 39-40;
Then some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” But after that they dared not question Him anymore (vv. 39-40).
As we’ll see next time, they may not have been willing to ask any more questions of Him. But He will have a question for them. But for now, dear brothers and sisters in Jesus, let’s grab hold of the great lesson that this confrontation teaches us about our Lord. He Himself is the resurrection and the life. As He was raised from the dead, so shall we also be raised. Let’s therefore give ourselves whole-heartedly in our service to Him. As the apostle Paul put it;
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).
EA
