In Luke 20:27-44, we see the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus in a theological debate, this time over the resurrection. They don’t believe there will be a resurrection, and they use the example of a woman who is widowed multiple times to “disprove” him. But their logic has a key mistake in that they attempt to use pre-resurrection relationships to show the supposed absurdity of resurrected relationships.
Jesus counters them by saying that they don’t understand the reality of the resurrection because they don’t understand the eternal, and if they DID understand the eternal, their immediate relationships would make more sense. Jesus was able to relate to people beyond the moment because he saw them in the framework of eternity. And that’s how he was able to silence the Sadducees – by stretching their disbelief in the the resurrection into a framework that included the reality of the eternal, not just the reality of today.
27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
41 But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David's son? 42 For David himself says in the Book of Psalms,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
43 until I make your enemies your footstool.’
44 David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Quotation information.
Bill Clem
Luke 20:27–44
Shoreline Church
July 31, 2011
Bellevue Church
July 31, 2011
Federal Way Church
July 31, 2011
Downtown Seattle Church
July 31, 2011
Albuquerque Church
July 31, 2011
Ballard Church
July 31, 2011
