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Sermon for the week of Oculi – Lent 3
Job 19:23-27 + Matthew 22:23-33
Turn your thoughts again back to Holy Week, to Holy Monday. Or, honestly, maybe it’s Tuesday already; the Gospel writers don’t tell us everything Jesus said and did during that early part of Holy Week, and they don’t bother with an exact timeline. We didn’t hear about it last week, but the Pharisees have just given Jesus a trap question about paying taxes to Caesar, and He has just silenced them with His answer, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
That’s where this evening’s lesson comes in. You may recall that two of the main religious factions in Israel at the time of Christ were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were both well-known and powerful leaders in Israel, but they were different from one another.
The Pharisees weren’t generally priests. They were teachers in Israel and the elite Law-keepers, the ones who boasted about keeping God’s law, who looked down on anyone who didn’t keep it as well as they did, and who were well-known for adding laws and teachings and traditions to God’s law. And, the Pharisees were more “anti-Roman Empire.”
The Sadducees, for their part, were more closely tied to the priesthood and the temple. They were more “pro-Roman.” And instead of adding teachings to Scripture, they had subtracted many teachings of Scripture. They accepted only the first five books, called the Torah or the Law of Moses, as inspired Scripture. They denied the existence of angels and spirits and the “spirit-realm” we call heaven and hell. And they also denied the future resurrection of the dead.
So when the Sadducees in Jerusalem saw that Jesus had silenced the Pharisees, they decided it was their turn to test Him early on in this week of Passover.
In order to understand the Sadducees’ question, we have to understand the Law of Moses. In the book of Deuteronomy, God had given the Israelites this command: If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. You can see the purpose of it. Until the Messiah came, God was adamant that the genealogies and the tribal inheritances had to be preserved in Israel. If a man died without having a son, his name and his inheritance wouldn’t continue. So a brother of the man who died was supposed to marry the widow, and their firstborn son would bear the first husband’s name.
So, in the scenario presented by the Sadducees, seven brothers all ended up marrying the same woman, just as Moses had commanded. For the Sadducees, who believed that this life is all there is, that’s not a problem. But for those who believe in a resurrection of the dead? Did Jesus actually envision a future where those seven men and that woman would be raised from the dead and then live forever in some kind of reverse polygamy—not one man with several wives, but one wife with several husbands? It’s absurd. And they knew it. They were hoping to make Jesus either agree with them that there is no resurrection, or look silly by trying to defend such a strange marriage arrangement in heaven.
But Jesus knew much more about heaven, and about God’s plans for the future, than they could ever imagine. His first response was to correct their understanding about marriage. In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. That’s something that you actually couldn’t get from the Old Testament Scriptures, at least, not very directly. Contrary to the Mormon heresy about “celestial marriage,” Jesus tells us plainly that God designed marriage only for this earthly life. Husbands and wives are given to each other for companionship in this life, for supporting one another in this life, and for raising godly children in this life. Marriage is one of God’s greatest blessings. But it isn’t a blessing that God intends to last beyond this life. He has different plans for us at the resurrection, even better ones.
To be “like angels of God in heaven” just means that we, like the angels, won’t be married after the resurrection. But notice how Jesus threw that in there as a subtle rebuke to the Sadducees, who also deny the existence of angels.
Then Jesus goes on to rebuke them for their denial of the resurrection, proving it from Scripture. He could have used a Scripture like the one you heard earlier this evening, from Job 19, I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth. And that after my skin is destroyed, in my flesh I will see God. That’s one of the clearest teachings of the resurrection in the Old Testament, placing it at the Last Day. Instead, Jesus chose a verse from Exodus, one of the few books that even the Sadducees fully accepted as inspired and true. You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God…Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Underneath that simple, well-known statement that God spoke to Moses, which every Israelite knew, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” lies the very simple truth that Jesus revealed to the Sadducees: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. In other words, God doesn’t claim to be the God of dead men, who once lived, but who are now long gone and have ceased to exist. When He claims to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is proclaiming that their souls are still alive in heaven with Him, and that their bodies and souls will eventually live again at the Last Day, at the resurrection of the dead.
Oh, Jesus could have added other passages, where it says that, when Abraham died, he was “gathered to his people.” It says that same thing about Isaac when he died, and about Jacob when he died, and even about Ishmael when he died. That’s not something Scripture says about everyone who dies. But for those men whom we know to have been believers in the true God, the Holy Spirit made sure to let Israel know that there is life with “our people” after we die.
But the Sadducees weren’t actually interested in learning from God’s Word, or in living to please God. They didn’t actually believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their religion was for this life. Their aspirations were for this life. And Jesus was getting in the way of it. So they would do their part to get rid of Him for good. By the end of the week.
Even though the sect of the Sadducees died out quickly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, it’s really the beliefs of the Sadducees that dominate modern Judaism, and, really, most of the world, including “progressive Christianity.” Very few people believe they will have to answer to a holy God after this life. Very few believe they will face everlasting torment in hell for their pride, or for their greed, or for their sexual sins, or for their failure to worship the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And for the few who still believe heaven exists, most of them don’t believe that perfect love for the God of the Bible and perfect love for one’s neighbor are required for entrance into heaven.
Perfect obedience is required. But for those who know that God, and heaven, and hell are real, and who know and mourn over the fact that they haven’t provided the perfect obedience required to avoid hell and to reach heaven, there is a Savior from heaven who will help, who has helped by coming to provide that perfect obedience in the sinner’s place, so that all who seek forgiveness through Him are given eternal life here and now, and will be raised to life on the Last Day, safe from the resurrection of condemnation that unbelievers will most surely have to face.
Jesus did not suffer and die so that you could have a better life here on earth. He suffered and died for your sins, so that, after this short life is over, you can participate in the resurrection of life at the end. I am the resurrection and the life, He says. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. That’s why we’re Christians. That’s why we practice our religion. Because we do believe in the Lord Jesus as the resurrection and the life. We do live for God. And our aspirations are not primarily for this short life, but for the next eternal one, because we are confident that, through faith in Him who conquered death at the end of Holy Week, we, too, will conquer death and live forever. Amen.
