The Weekend Word

Matthew 22:23-33

Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

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

• Different opposition group – same challenge … trap 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.’

• Don’t you just love it when opposition groups address Jesus as teacher?
• What, are they now here to learn from him? – do they want to sign up as one of his disciples?
• It is important to note that here is a group that says there is no resurrection, yet they will use the resurrection for their own purpose.
• They are like the atheist who proclaims “there is no God, and I hate him.”
• Their purpose – as all the other groups – to trap Jesus.
• Just as the Pharisees would use their enemy the Herodians, if it means getting rid of Jesus, all is fair. So they use a resurrection they do not believe in.

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.”

• Could they have come up with a more off the wall challenge?
• OK Jesus, we have a real mess here – what are you going to do? I can imagine, with an unsavory grin, they are asking – ‘teach us’.

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

• The answer by Jesus is brilliant – “you are wrong.”
• Can you imagine saying this to someone in conversation today? To tell someone on a point of debate that they are wrong is considered not tolerant.
• What is the standard of right and wrong here? The scriptures!!

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

• Note – We do not become angels. In this example we share a feature that the angels also have.
• We need to make that clear to people we have contact with. We do not get our wings when we die. People unwittingly deny the resurrection with that kind of thinking.
• So what is the similarity? No marriage in heaven – we are all married to the bridegroom.
• Nice try guys – there is a resurrection – but you are asking the wrong question – in other words as Jesus said in v. 29 ‘you are wrong’.

³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:

• What has God said about the resurrection of the dead – there is one!
• And who is at the front of this – your heroes
• Again he is pointing out “you are wrong by saying that God “said to you.”

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.”

• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead – so they must be living.

³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

• And all the Sadducees said “well shut my mouth!”
• Oh how great the church would be today, if only we were still astonished by God’s word.