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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him
with a question.
“Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having
children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now
there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since
he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to
the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman
died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since
all of them were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures
or the power of God. At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be
given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the
resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the
dead but of the living.”
When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
Matthew 22:23-33
Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him with a
question.
“Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies
and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up
offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married
and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he
also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of
the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the
resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the
Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor
be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the
dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the
burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You
are badly mistaken!”
Mark 12:18-27
Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus
with a question.
“Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies
and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up
offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married
a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in
the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now
then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to
her?”
Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But
those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the
resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and
they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children,
since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning
bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the
dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”
Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!”
And no one dared to ask Him any more questions.
Luke 20:27-39
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Moses was perhaps the greatest leader and
prophet Israel had known before Jesus came along. He set the bar for all other
messengers of God who would follow until Christ entered the scene.
There are some awesome comparisons we can
draw between Moses and Jesus.
First, Moses delivered the Israelites from
the captivity and enslavement of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Jesus delivered all
people, Jew and Gentile, from the captivity and enslavement of sin.
Second, through Moses, God established what
is referred to as the Old Covenant (or Testament) with His people of Israel.
Through Jesus, God ushered in His New Covenant that brought salvation to
everyone through His Son.
Finally, Moses mediated and interceded for
the Israelite people, over and over and over again. The Israelites would anger
God through their sin and as God was contemplating judgment, Moses would fall
down before God and ask for Him to show mercy and grace while sparing the
people harm.
Through His death, resurrection, and subsequent
ascension, Jesus became the Great Mediator for all those who would place their
belief in Him. At the final judgment, it is Jesus who will intercede and gain
His Father’s pardon for all those who He knows, those who placed their hope in
Him as Savior.
Yes, the parallels between Moses and Jesus
are many and as we see in today’s scripture passage, Jesus makes a teaching
point by referring His listeners back to the early Israelite leader and his
invitation to lead the Israelites, an invitation received at a miraculous,
burning bush. Let’s revisit that scripture passage from the Book of Exodus
here:
Now
Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian,
and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the
mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire
from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn
up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush
does not burn up.”
When
the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the
bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And
Moses said, “Here I am.”
“Do
not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you
are standing is holy ground.” Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his
face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The
Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard
them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land
flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites,
Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has
reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now,
go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of
Egypt.”
But
Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the
Israelites out of Egypt?”
And
God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I
who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will
worship God on this mountain.”
Moses
said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your
fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what
shall I tell them?”
God
said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites:
‘I am has sent me to you.’”
God
also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your
fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me
to you.’
“This
is My name forever, the name you shall call Me from generation to generation.
“Go,
assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your
fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have
watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have
promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the
Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land
flowing with milk and honey.’”
“The
elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the
king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with
us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to
the Lord our God.’ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless
a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the
Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he
will let you go.”
“And
I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when
you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and
any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing,
which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the
Egyptians.” Exodus 3
Moses was hand selected by God to lead His
people and deliver them from an oppressive detention. He would success because
God was with Him, the same God who had been with his renowned Jewish
forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
With this as a backdrop, let’s turn to our
New Testament scripture passage as Jesus talks to a group of Sadducees who came
to Him with a highly hypothetical situation with the intent of tripping Jesus
up as the Pharisee disciples and Herodians had tried to do prior. Look at these
words from the Gospel of Luke:
Some
of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a
question.
“Teacher,”
they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife
but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his
brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died
childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the
seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the
resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Jesus
replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who
are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection
from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no
longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they
are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning bush, even
Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of
the living, for to Him all are alive.”
Some
of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!”
And
no one dared to ask Him any more questions.
I think the first thing to understand is
the theology of the Sadducees, the group doing the questioning. Elsewhere in
the Gospels, you will find them paired with the Pharisees but they were
definitely not one in the same when it came to what they believed. Think of the
Sadducees as the more progressive branch of Judaism, a branch grounded more in
liberalism than the literalistic view of the scriptures held by the Pharisees.
Well, as we look at our scripture passage
from Luke, we learn that the Sadducees refused to believe in the miracle of
resurrection and this placed them in direct opposition, not only to their
Jewish Pharisaical counterparts but Jesus as well.
The Sadducees who approached Jesus asked
Him about a scenario that was grounded in what was known as levirate marriage.
You have to go to the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy where you’ll find this
in the law:
If brothers are living together and one of them dies
without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s
brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law
to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so
that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. Deuteronomy 25:5-6
It’s this law that the Sadducees used as a framework
for their question which went like this:
“Moses
wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children,
the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there
were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The
second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died,
leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection
whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Anything immediately strike you as a little
odd here?
Hopefully you picked up on the fact that
the Sadducees were asking a question on a subject that they didn’t even believe
in: the resurrection.
So what was going on?
Well, the Sadducees were trying to get
Jesus to say something they could use to discredit the idea of resurrection by
producing a hypothetical situation which faced astronomical odds from ever
happening.
Think about it. First of all, a family
would have to have at least seven brothers. The first brother was married but
died before he and his wife could have a child. Under the law, the next older
brother would marry her. Now, take that situation through five more iterations,
each time a brother dying without producing a child with their wife until
finally the woman dies.
The question then was, “Of the seven
husbands, whose wife would she be at the resurrection?”
Well, Jesus had answers for them and, in
responding, looked to educate His listeners on the matter of resurrection and
possibly convert those listening to believe in Him. Look at Jesus’ reply here:
“The
people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are
considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection
from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no
longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they
are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning bush, even
Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of
the living, for to Him all are alive.”
Let’s break this down into two components
because there were two key takeaways Jesus was providing the Sadducees.
First, marriage would no longer be a matter
of concern at the resurrection.
Marriage as it stood was a vital necessity
for replenishing God’s creation until the day of resurrection, when the heavens
and earth would be done away with. At that time, when the dead rose to life,
marriage would no longer be needed because all those who received the salvation
promise of God would be made like angels, God’s children who would abide with
Him forever as eternal and immortal beings. No more would people need to marry
or be given in marriage.
The second component, intended to underscore
the truth that there is indeed resurrection, was centered in the aforementioned
encounter between God and Moses at the burning bush. There, God made the
statement:
“I
am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob.”
If death truly was the end of life and
there was no such thing as a resurrection, then God would have said He WAS the
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. But that’s not what He said. He stated, “I
am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” His words
indicate that none of the famous Jewish patriarchs were actually dead but
rather very much alive. For as Jesus adds:
“He
is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”
It was true in Moses’ time. It was true in
Jesus’ time. And it’s still true today.
Resurrection is real and it will come to
all those who place their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus as Savior, the One
sent by the God of the living out of His deep love for His people.
Have you sealed your eternal future in
Christ, receiving the promise of resurrection and a life forever as a child of
God, living with Him as the angels do?
My prayer is that you won’t pass up this
opportunity of a lifetime and exchange it for an eternal future of torment and
damnation.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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