Mark 12:18-27
Mark 12:18–27 (ESV):
18 And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection.
Jesus is strolling around Herod’s Temple teaching.
Massive structure with huge, sprawling courtyards. Giant columns. Thousands of people mulling about. Crowds of people are all around Jesus.
The day before this, He had gone into this same Temple and driven out all the people there who were turning God’s house into a marketplace. And because of that incident, the Jewish authorities have their eye on Jesus. They want Him gone. And so the governing body of the Jews known as the Sanhedrin decides to send their guys after Him.
There were three groups that made up the Sanhedrin: There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Scribes.
In the section that we’re in, we’re seeing each of these groups of the Sanhedrin take swings at Jesus, attempting to trap Him in His words and get Him in trouble.
Last week we saw the Pharisees take their best shot. They asked Him a question about paying taxes, assuming that He’d be forced to state publicly there in the Temple that Jews were not to pay taxes to Rome, which would have triggered the Roman authorities to have Him arrested as an insurrectionist… Of course, they were wrong. He did not say that. He said the opposite, proving that He was not intending to lead a political revolt. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s”. Give Caesar your money. Give God your entire life.
That was the Pharisees’ attempt to side swipe Jesus.
Now it’s the Sadducees’ turn.
The Sadducees were the top of the totem pole in the Sanhedrin.
They were wealthy, aristocratic, powerful… they controlled the Temple, which means when Jesus drove people out of the temple just a few days prior, it directly offended the Sadducees.
Because the Sadducees were so politically involved, and were basically getting rich off of what Rome let them do with the Temple, they were very interested in maintaining equilibrium with Rome.
Unlike the Pharisees, who had a way of expanding the laws of scripture and adding to them endlessly, the Sadducees saw themselves as purists.
If the Pharisees were the progressives, the Sadducees were the conservatives. They only used the first five books of the OT; the Torah, the books of Moses. Everything else they considered somewhat illegitimate.
Because of that, they had some pretty unusual and imbalanced theological positions.
For example, in verse 18 it says they denied the resurrection of the dead. In fact, that’s not all they denied; it turns out they also denied the existence of angels, the immortality of the soul, and virtually anything supernatural.
You may remember, when we were going through the book of Acts a while back, when Paul the Apostle was being interrogated in court by the Sanhedrin, he cried out, “brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” (Acts 23:6)
He said that to cause an uproar between the two groups, and it worked!
All that to say…
The Sadducees were overly concerned about earthly things, and completely unconcerned about heavenly things.
And they asked him a question,
Based on the pattern we’ve seen so far from the religious leader we know this question will not be sincere; it’s designed as a trap.
saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us
(Notice, they’re appealing to Moses, because that’s the only scriptures they hold to)
that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.
Deuteronomy 25:5–6 (ESV): 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.
This is a concept that came to be called levirate marriage. The purpose of it, just like it says in the text, is so that a man’s lineage wouldn’t be ended upon his premature death.
Jesus was a product of levirate marriage. Jesus’ distant relative was a woman named Ruth, whose husband had died. And so Boaz, took her as his wife, and in doing so became what they called the ‘kinsman redeemer’. He redeemed Ruth and gave her descendants.
Isn’t is profound that from that marriage came a line of descendants who would produce Jesus the Christ, and that Jesus Himself would become the true and greater Kinsman Redeemer of His people; buying us back from our destitution because of sin?!
But the Sadducees are not thinking of this.
Instead, they’re trying to bring about the demise of Jesus, not realizing that the death of Jesus will enable Him to be the Kinsman Redeemer of His people!
So here’s their ridiculous scenario:
20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. 21 And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.”
Now, keep in mind that these guys don’t even believe in life after death… so their question is totally phony and everyone knows it.
Also keep in mind that they would have heard Jesus predict His own resurrection from the dead, make promises of eternal life, AND they would have heard about Him raising Lazarus from the dead just a short time prior and declare, “I am the resurrection and the life!”
So in their mind, they must debunk this fanciful idea of life after death. They must silence Jesus. He’s disrupting their system. He’s threatening their position.
So they come up with what they believe is an ingenious logical dilemma.
But, as we’ve learned, it’s very unwise to argue with the God-man Himself who created all things, upholds all things by the Word of His power, and is Himself the embodiment of divine power and wisdom.
Colossians says, “in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form”.
24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?
That word translated “wrong” or “in error” literally means, “to wander off track”, or “to be led astray”.
One commentator noted that for Jesus to say outright that the Sadducees were “in error and led astray” in regards to the Scriptures would be like suggesting that Wall Street knows nothing about finance.
25 For when they rise from the dead,
(notice, not if they rise; when they rise… Jesus presents resurrection as a fact)
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Their question was very foolish because it was built on a faulty premise.
There’s no marriage in heaven. Marriage and sexual union is an earthly thing, not a heavenly thing. There’s no marriage, no procreation in heaven.
He says, we’ll be like the angels. He does not say we will BECOME angels. That’s a misconception. We do not become angels when we die.Rather, we become like them in the way that we do not marry or procreate.
Why does He bring up angels? Because the Sadducees didn’t believe in them! Jesus is pushing their buttons. Jesus is affirming not only life after death but the existence of angels… the existence of an eternal spiritual realm.
26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living.
Notice: This verse comes straight from the Torah, the writings of Moses. So He’s using the section of scripture they profess to believe in.
He’s noting that when God made His promise to Moses at the burning bush, He gave it to Moses in the present tense.
In other words, God didn’t say, “I was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”... He says, “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
Why is that significant? Because these men were long dead when God spoke those words.
And yet, God Himself addresses them as though they are still alive… somewhere.
So even this passage straight from the Torah affirms life after death.
So Jesus ends His interaction with the simple statement:
You are quite wrong.”
Imagine how terrifying it would be for Jesus to look you in the eyes and say with finality, “you are quite wrong”.
Matthew 7:21–23 (ESV): 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Just like in Jesus’ day, there are many in our day who suffer from Sadduceeism.
Maybe some of us, like the Sadducees, have a tendency to be overly concerned with earthly things, and unconcerned about heavenly things.
Maybe some of us say we know the truth, but in reality we live like functional atheists… we cling so dearly to our earthly lives and rarely live in light of eternity.
Maybe some of us are like the Sadducees in that we love the scriptures and are true purists, true conservatives theologically, but our relationship with God has been reduced to head knowledge.
Consider this: The fundamental problem with the Sadducees was not their ignorance, it was their refusal to come into a personal relationship with Jesus in order to have true life.
True life is not found in trying to understand Jesus, or even in trying to live like Jesus… it’s found in a relationship with Jesus.
Remember, Jesus is not just an educator about resurrection and eternal life; He IS resurrection and life.
Jesus said, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE… no one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn. 14:6
John 11:25 (ESV): 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
John 5:39–40 (ESV): 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
The Hope that Jesus gives to those who come to Him is that one day we will be resurrected just like He was to everlasting life with Him.
Romans 6:5 (ESV): 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has comprehended what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 (ESV): 13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 5:9–10 (ESV): 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.