Matthew 22

²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, ²⁴ saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ ²⁵ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ So too the second and third, down to the seventh. ²⁷ After them all, the woman died. ²⁸ In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” ²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” ³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

N.T Wright has shared a wonderfully absurd story from his younger days that powerfully illustrates what is happening in our text. He writes:

I once sat on a college committee where two older members had a regular tactic for stopping any change that might have been proposed. When one of the younger members (myself, for instance) proposed doing something that would really benefit the whole community (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I), one of these two could be relied upon to come up with a ridiculous story of what might conceivably happen if we did such a thing.

       On one occasion, for instance, someone had proposed that by the entrance to the college there should be a system of mailboxes so that every member of the college could collect his or her mail easily from the right box, rather than having, as we then did, a small number of boxes with a large number of letters stuffed into each. Many other colleges had sensible systems; why couldn’t we?

       Straight away one of the blockers went into action. “Ah, but,” he said, “supposing you put in these new mailboxes, they’ll probably have to go right down to floor level. Then supposing somebody comes by with a dog. And supposing the dog decides to lift its hind leg right beside the mailboxes. You wouldn’t like that to happen to your mail, would you?” The picture was so silly it was actually funny; but by the time everyone had laughed, the nonsensical story had had its effect. Half the room had come to believe, without any actual argument, that there were serious problems about the proposal.

And what does this have to do with our text? Wright explains:

We know from several sources that the Sadducees—the let’s-keep-things-as-they-are party within the Judaism of Jesus’ day—were good at telling silly stories to make the idea of resurrection look stupid and unbelievable. The story they told here is a typical folktale, with the seven brothers like the seven dwarfs in the Snow White story, or the heroes in the The Magnificent Seven. Its purpose is simply to set out a highly unlikely situation to force the issue.[1]

So the Sadducees were obfuscating, creating a fog, under the guise of theological and biblical seriousness. In reality, however, they were indulging in something called reductio ad absurdum, or reducing something to the absurd as a rhetorical tactic against resurrection. But Jesus cannot be rebuffed by the fog or the absurd. He sees right through it and His arrow hits the mark.

The Sadducees confuse resurrection with resuscitation.

First, the Sadducees approach Jesus on “the same day.”

²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question

An early anonymous commentary on Matthew observes of the Sadducees approaching him that they come right after the Pharisees (22:15) and that the religious leaders seem to have a kind of coordinated attack whereby one group engaged while the other withdrew then the other engaged while the other withdrew.

So it was one opponent and then another through many days of struggle. They accosted him frequently so that one or the other might be able to test him, or if they were not able to put him down squarely, they might instead subvert others’ judgment of him. So they frequented his company. Among the more numerous enemy is found the stronger warrior. While they were not able to put him down simply by words, they all surrounded him.[2]

We see here, then, a kind of coordinated assault. The opponents of Jesus are throwing punch after punch, sending in fresh troops one wave after another in a desperate effort to trip Jesus up.

Then we see a basic description of the Pharisees.

²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question

They “say that there is no resurrection,” whereas the Pharisees, for instance, said that there was. More on that to come, but let us consider their plan of attack. They quote scripture to Jesus.

²⁴ saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’

What they are referring to is the Jewish concept of “levirate marriage.” The rules for this are spelled out in Deuteronomy 25.

⁵ “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷ And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰ And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’

It is clear that the intent of levirate marriage was originally to keep the name of the deceased husband alive through his progeny, sired by his brother. It has been widely observed that this practice did not seem to be observed in first century Judaism.

Out of this idea of levirate marriage, the Sadducees make their argument.

²⁵ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ So too the second and third, down to the seventh. ²⁷ After them all, the woman died. ²⁸ In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

Again, this is a reductio ad absurdum. This is obfuscation. This is a fog masquerading as genuine theology. This is a disregard for scripture in the name of valuing scripture. Jesus responds:

²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.

This is a profound response, and one that stopped the Sadducees in their tracks while simultaneously amazing the listening crowd. First, Jesus’ response rebukes the Sadducees for their faulty view of the scriptures and likely for their truncated canon of scripture. What is more, this is an indictment, as we shall see, of their understanding of even those books they claimed the scriptures to be limited to: the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses.

Then, theologically, Jesus observes that their error is in thinking there is some problem that God Himself could not handle, some puzzle He could not solve, some knot He could not untangle. They do not “know…the power of God.”

Their question, then, flies on wings of absurdity, ignorance, and little faith.

Yet, more than anything, Jesus reveals that they have confused resurrection with resuscitation, for Jesus says:

³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Resuscitation assumes that our life after death is merely a continuation of our lives before death with all of its social contracts, systems, and structures. But resurrection is not like this. Resurrection does present continuity, yes—it is you who will be resurrected!—but it also presents transformation and change. Not everything that one experiences on earth will be experienced in the same way in Heaven.

Take, for instance love, of which marriage, ideally, is the highest form and codification in society. Love will continue in Heaven, of course! But the form of love, the system, if you will, of love: this will look different.

There is no marriage in heaven. Remember that the primary intent of levirate marriage (to which the Sadducees point) is procreation, and there will be no procreation in heaven. On these matters, we will be “like angels.” I say “on these matters” because our similarity to angels is largely (though perhaps not completely) limited to these matters: marriage, sex, and procreation. In other words, just as angels do not marry, have sex, and procreate, neither shall we.

Again, this does not mean that love will not exist. It means that the forms and systems of love as we know them here will not exist. R.T. France writes:

In this new deathless life there will be no place for procreation, and the exclusive relationship within which this takes place on earth will therefore not apply. It is this aspect of marriage which Jesus’ argument excludes from the resurrection life, rather than any suggestion that loving relationship have no place there.[3]

Agreed! But for us this is a hard truth. It saddens us. We cannot imagine eternity without marriage. But I think we need to understand something vitally important: Marriage will not exist in heaven because heaven is lesser; marriage will not exist in heaven because heaven is more. We must trust that this is so! Marriage is a picture and a symbol, a beautiful, powerful, and life-altering picture and symbol! But in heaven we will experience the reality to which the symbol points.

Nor must we think that in heaven we will have amnesia that we were married. Nor must we think that in heaven we will look awkwardly and sadly at our earthly spouses and weep with loss. Nor must we think that we will not celebrate, in heaven, the fact that we shared in the gift of marriage with our spouse!

No, whatever it looks like, we can be sure of this: We will not be ignorant of the gift of our spouse, we will not have awkward regret at our current condition, we will not weep for what is now “lost” in a marriage-less heaven. On the contrary, we and our earthly spouses, with the whole host of heaven, will understand a joy, a hope, a contentment, a fulfillment, a peace, and a love that we cannot even conceive of here.

In heaven we will see the stunning reality to which our earthly marriages pointed: the union of Christ and His people, and we will experience a love between each other and all people that will make our marriages on earth seem richer and fuller and more understandable than they ever could be here.

Resurrection is not resuscitation. It is continuity and transformation. It is passage into the life of the kingdom eternal. And all that was good and beautiful and life-giving here will give way to the higher realities to which they pointed!

Jesus always hears the question behind the question.

Jesus indulges the misguided question of the Sadducees, but then He moves, as He always does, to the deeper questions, the questions behind the question. Matthew has already hinted at their real question in verse 23:

²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question

Michael Wilkins observes that the Sadducees denied the resurrection “since they drew only on the Pentateuch for doctrine” and since the idea of the resurrection “is developed more clearly in the latter books of the Old Testament.”[4] So while their question pretends to assume that there will be a resurrection, clearly their real point is that the resurrection is nonsensical. For this reason, Jesus mentions the resurrection rightly in contrast to them mentioning it wrongly.

²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

“For in the resurrection…” Jesus believed in the resurrection. He mentions it again in verse 31: “And as for the resurrection of the dead…” It is as if he is saying, “We all know what you are doing here. Why pretend that you are interested in this question about marriage. You and I both know that you are simply trying to paint the resurrection as absurd. And yet, the resurrection does exist and will happen!”

What is more, Jesus is also addressing the question behind the question in His reference to angels: “but are like angels in heaven.” Michael Wilkins points out that Jesus’ reference to angels “holds a double edge, since the Sadducees also denied the existence of angels…”[5] (“For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.” Acts 23:8).

I love this! The correction on angels is almost just thrown in for good measure! I.e., “By the way, you guys are also wrong about angels! They exist as well!”

Then Jesus gives His response proper to their real question. He says:

³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” ³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

This is a deft and brilliant and fascinating move by Jesus, and there can be no wonder that “the crowd” was “astonished” by it! Jesus refutes them by quoting Exodus 3:6. In other words, Jesus refutes the Sadducees from the books of Moses, those books that they claimed were the only real scriptures. In doing so, Jesus was saying that the idea of resurrection was no late development, theologically, nor was it foreign to the books of Moses. Rather, Moses himself knew it and his writings reveal it, for God says that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is their God! He lives and they live! “He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Craig Blomberg anticipates and dismisses one possible objection to Jesus’ appeal to this verse.

The objection that Jesus’ argument proves only the immortality of the soul and not the resurrection of the body ignores the fact that immortality was not an option Jews considered. Either all the body was resurrected or nothing survived.[6]

Yes, Jesus is asserting resurrection and life after death.

Frederick Bruner asks the right question when He asks, “If ‘the God of Abraham’ loses Abraham at death, what does this say about God? Which is stronger, death or God?”[7]

This entire episode is a brilliant example of the greatness of Jesus Christ. The lessons we draw from it are many:

• Jesus saw the scriptures as the word of God.
• Jesus saw ignorance of the scriptures as a tragedy.
• Jesus saw the basic truths of our faith as running from the beginning of the Bible to the end.
• Jesus teaches both continuity and transformation in our lives now and in eternity.
• Jesus knows our questions behind our questions, and will not allow us to play games with words.
• Jesus exalts the Father as the Lord of life, God of the living.
• Jesus sees Heaven as a place of bliss and joy and completion.

Let us not make the mistake of the Sadducees. Let us know the Word of God and let Jesus lead us into all truth!

 

[1] Wright, Tom. Matthew For Everyone (Part 2). (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p.89–90.

[2] Simonetti, Manlio, ed. Matthew 14–28. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed. Thomas C. Oden. New Testament, Vol. Ib (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p.152.

[3] France, R.T. Matthew. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Gen. ed. Leon Morris. Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), p.317.

[4] Wilkins, Michael J. “Matthew.”  Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. Ed., Clinton E. Arnold. Vol.1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.137.

[5] Wilkins, Michael J., p.138.

[6] Blomberg Craig L. Matthew. The New American Commentary. Gen. ed. David S. Dockery. Vol. 22 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 19920), p.334.

[7] Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew. Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), p.408.