Jesus has been teaching in the temple, giving lessons to the common people and rebuking those who leave traps for him and question his authority. He gives the parable of the vine-growers which makes the scribes and the chief priests very nervous as they realised the parable was directed them. This leads us to Luke 20:27-40 where the Sadduccees try to trip Jesus on the theological viewpoint that made them stick out among those during the Second Temple Period.
27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection,
Members of the Sadducean party come to Jesus. Luke points them out as “those who say that there is no resurrection” beyond that we do not get much detail about the Sadducees within the New Testament but luckily other sources do exist which highlight this peculiarity. They were an aristocratic priestly party who filled the seats of the sanhedrin and ultimately controlled all of the temple. Their name is supposedly derived from Zadok, the high priest who served under King David and King Solomon. Of all the groups they were the smallest in number, but had great influence because they were essentially all priests of the Temple. Only a priest could offer sacrifice and by the Second Temple Period this group had risen to prominence almost exclusively filling these ranks. They did not just reject the resurrection but the afterlife and spiritual word entirely (see Acts 23:8). They were very strict in there adherence to the Mosaic Law but seemed to deny all supernatural things. Their denial of supernatural things including the resurrection come from the fact that they only accept the first five books of Moses, ignoring the prophets, the writings and also any oral tradition. This illustrates the lack of a unified “canon” of scripture that many modern day people assume existed among the Jews of the Second Temple period but alas, this is a myth.
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 wife and raise up children for his brother.
The Sadducees begin their question by addressing Jesus as “Teacher” didáskalos in Greek, it can mean teacher, doctor, master or instructor. It was typically used to denote a person whose responsibilities involved teaching things concerning the word of God and considering this question ends in some what of a trick, like the previous questions, this might not be being used in a honest fashion. They proceed with invoking a Mosaic Law known as the Levarite Law which is found in Deuteronomy 25:5 where a brother has the responsibility to continue his dead brothers lineage by siring children with his widow. Considering israelites had tribal land allotments which hinged upon inheritance and widows would be destitute by themselves this is actually a very reasonable position to make a law about.
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.”
The Sadduccees introduce a scenario where there are seven brothers , the first taking a wife but dying without a child and so the Mosaic law comes into play with the second brother taking up the responsibility required by the law but he also dies and this repeats until all seven have died along with the woman with no children. They take a Law of mercy given by Moses and make a mockery of it by reducing it to an absurd scenario whilst also ignoring the entire point of the law, marriage and the resurrection. Some scholars have noted that this could be a veiled reference to the Book of Tobit where the wife of Tobias is previously engaged seven times to be married but all seven men die before consummating the marriage because of a curse. It is not such a long shot since this was popular literature and they’re already mocking the resurrection so why wouldn’t they use the stories of books they do not believe in as the building blocks of a joke?
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage;
Jesus responds to them by saying the men of this age get married. The Greek word for age used here is aiṓn it can mean a period of time or more appropriately “world” or “universe” like a framework of reality. The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage would be an easier to understand translation. What Jesus is doing is describing a difference between this life and the life to come. Marriage is something limited to this world of existence.
35 but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,
Now Jesus begins to elaborate on what makes the world to come different. Everyone who is born is accounted worthy to live or otherwise they would never begin to exist, even those who die were accounted worthy to exist at some point in this age but of the world to come Jesus says they must be “accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead”. In order to enter this age and the resurrection you must be worthy kataxioō in Greek, it is the same word that St Paul uses in 2 Th 1:5 in reference to those who can enter the Kingdom of God. For most people, even in this time period, the point of life was to marry and have progeny but Jesus is shuffling their perception of what the point of life is.
36 for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
Why are they not given in marriage? Because the purpose of marriage is due to our mortality, if we do not die, we do not need to reproduce and live on in our proceeding generations. Another purpose for marriage is the sanctification of the spouses (see 1 Corinthians 7:14 and paragraph 1643 CCC), In the world to come, we will not need either because we will behold God as he is. Marriage in this life is a shadow of the divine marriage to the heavenly bridegroom. We still have our familial bonds in Heaven and will actually be able to love them all the more perfectly because of God. Jesus goes further saying they will be equal to the heavenly host and will be sons of God when they are sons of the resurrection. When Jesus says we are equal to angels he means in the context of immortality not that we become angels, unlike angels we will actually exist bodily at the resurrection whereas they will not. This term, “sons of God” is very curious as it pertains to the divine council world view spoken of by Dr Michael Heiser. He points to passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9 which is a retelling of the events at the Tower of Babel in Genesis. The sons of God are those of the divine council of God who are put in charge of the nations but now we are to be those Sons of God in the advent of the New Covenant. Jesus is the King of Kings, we are called to co-rule with him, we become rulers in his name on Earth and as we are of his body we are also sons of God by adoption as well as in power.
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.”
Jesus now uses their own witness against them, he invokes Moses to prove the resurrection by recalling Exodus 3:6 (a book the Sadducees do accept) where the Lord calls Moses from the burning bush, identifying himself saying “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”. The “I am” being perpetual and continuous, for the Lord to still be their God, they must still be alive unless either Moses or God is a liar. Which the Sadducees would never dare to say. They thought they had cornered Jesus but he has them now in a very tight spot.
39 And some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”
40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
The scribes give their verdict “Teacher, you have spoken well” the term didaskalos being used again reflects how the Sadducees instigated the conversation in probable mockery but now the professional lawyers of the Law of Moses call him that in defeat as this ends a long string of varying groups all trying to catch him out and none can. Jesus will go on to give one more teaching on the Psalms of David before beginning his “woe” statements against the authorities of the Law.
Leave a Reply