Saducees: the Woman Who had Seven Husbands

In this part of the sermon: Martin sets the scene in Jerusalem during Passion Week, noting Jesus' previous encounters with other groups and introducing the Sadducees as another group attempting to discredit…

Mark's use of the historical present tense is likened to transporting the reader to Jerusalem to vividly witness the events, stirring imagination.

As we take up again Mark's narrative of these final days of our Lord's words and actions leading to his crucifixion, we must note that it is Mark's desire that once again we stir up our faculty of imagination and attempt to see very vividly with the eye of the mind what he here records for us. Using what is called...

2:06 - 2:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Is anything calculated to bring the sadness of utter despair than such a materialistic view of reality? No resurrection, no angels, no spirit.

A child's mnemonic device for remembering what the Sadducees believed (no angels, no resurrection, no spirit) is shared, highlighting the despair of their materialistic worldview.

Do as he pleases that death ends everything without any future rewards or punishment. Well, a little child was trying to help someone who had not been to his Sunday school class to remember what the Sadducees believed, and he said, well, the Sadducees are those who you see, they must be sad, you see, because they believe in no angel, no angels, no resurrection, and no spirit. Is anything calculated to bring the sadness of utter despair than such a materialistic view of reality? No resurrection, no angels, no spirit. The Sadducees were sad, you see, for believing or not believing in these thing...

11:00 - 12:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains the Levirate law from Deuteronomy 25 and how the Sadducees constructed a hypothetical scenario of a woman with seven husbands to make the resurrection doctrine…

The Levirate law is described as sounding 'weird and strange and far out' to modern Western ears, contrasting it with ancient Eastern practices and God's regulation of existing customs.

and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her. And it shall be that the firstborn that she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel. Now this practice sounds weird and strange and far out upon ourselves, for years. That's because if we began to practice anything like this, it would be not only weird and strange and far out, but it would violate the law of the land.

15:09 - 15:43 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains the Levirate law from Deuteronomy 25 and how the Sadducees constructed a hypothetical scenario of a woman with seven husbands to make the resurrection doctrine…

The Sadducees' hypothetical story of the woman with seven husbands is presented as an example of their attempt to make the resurrection doctrine appear ludicrous, oozing triumphalism.

as, as though this actually happened to one of their buddies. That one of them actually had this experience or a family among them in which this poor woman was married to one of seven brothers and lo and behold, that fellow died and she had no children by him. His brother took her to a wife, whether he had any other, we don't know, and he died, no seed, he died. Well, you see, if they just said it of two or three, it would have been a lie.

18:33 - 19:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Here they come thinking we've got him, we've got him nailed to the wall, now watch him wiggle, and the more he wiggles, the more he'll impale himself on our mighty instrument of logical deduction based upon Deuteronomy 2…

Jesus' calm demeanor in the face of the Sadducees' 'impossible question' is illustrated by imagining His heart rate remaining steady, showing His lack of nervousness or embarrassment.

As I was meditating on this in the earlier hours of the morning, if someone were watching the beat of his heart in his carteroid artery, he wouldn't have found it increasing one bit per minute. Jesus was not uptight with their seeming impossible question. He was not flushed with embarrassment or nervousness. Let us turn our attention now to the reply of Jesus in verses 24 to 27.

24:57 - 25:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And he's saying you quote the Scriptures, you talk about the Scriptures, you claim to believe the Scriptures, but you do not know the Scriptures. You are ignorant of the Word of God.

A detailed scenario of a body dying at sea, being eaten by sharks, and its cells becoming part of other creatures (including cat food) is used to illustrate how skeptics mock the doctrine of bodily resurrection.

You see, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection gives a skeptic a wide open field for having a field day. He says something like this. You mean that body in which you're preaching to those people after it's laid in the grave will actually one day be raised up? Yes.

29:27 - 29:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Jesus begins His reply by asserting that the Sadducees 'greatly err' because they do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God, directly challenging their intellectual and…

The idea of God retrieving every last cell of a body from a cat or crab's claw is presented as 'no big deal' for the God who created them, emphasizing the immensity of God's power.

Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, speaking of the glorified body, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory? Now, look. According to the working, why he is able even to subject all things unto himself. He says, according to the power and might that enables God to subject everything in every single galaxy to the farthest reaches of space, to speak them out of his own will and word and the womb of nothing, and they come into being, by which he creates and subdues others, Paul says that's the power that's going to be pinpointed. If some of me's got to be retrieved from t...

31:37 - 32:59 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Remember that in debating with skepticism, don't ever put an if where God is put in assertion. When God asserts, you assert.

Debating with skepticism is cautioned against by advising not to use 'if' when God has made an assertion, as it can undermine the fabric of vital Biblical Christianity.

Now he's going to demonstrate how they were ignorant of the power of God, how they were ignorant of the word of God. First of all, their ignorance of the power of God, verse 25. For when they shall rise, Jesus hasn't been shaken one bit in his conviction about the resurrection. He doesn't say for the sake of argument, now if they shall rise, remember that in debating with skepticism, don't ever put an if where God is put in assertion.

34:24 - 34:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Now there may be some worldings here who the thought of a heaven with no sex is hell to you. That shows where your base, filthy, rotten sin and loving flesh-bound heart is.

The thought of a heaven without sexual intimacy is presented as 'hell' to some 'worldings,' which Martin uses to expose a 'base, filthy, rotten sin and loving flesh-bound heart' and a lack of confidence in God's ability to provide perfect fulfillment.

And you've done that because you're ignorant of the power of God. The power of God that will not only resurrect men to life, but even if your scenario is a true one, that dear woman and those seven brothers, if they are all the people of God and sons of the resurrection, will enter the glorified state. And though they will know and love one another with a love that is far better and perfect and purer than anything known in this life, there will be a radical severance from any relationship that has any connotation of conjugal intimacy, of sexual union and procreation. And the power of God is ab...

40:56 - 42:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin offers a second interpretation of Jesus' use of Exodus 3, suggesting it highlights the implications of God's redemptive covenant commitment, where God's promise to be…

The Sadducees' misuse of the Old Testament to deny the resurrection is characterized as taking a 'divine word and drawn a devilish deduction,' contrasted with Jesus drawing a proper deduction from a divine word.

So it may be that this is what our Lord is doing in a masterful stroke of taking their own ammunition and turning on them. He says in essence this, you've taken a passage from the Old Testament. The passage which says if a man's husband dies and he has given her no seed she's to marry his brother to raise up seed to the name of that departed brother. Now you've taken an Old Testament passage and from it you've made a deduction and your deduction is if that's so then the resurrection is nonsense.

55:21 - 55:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin offers a second interpretation of Jesus' use of Exodus 3, suggesting it highlights the implications of God's redemptive covenant commitment, where God's promise to be…

The question of whether God would let His people's flesh rot in the grave or become part of animals is posed, emphasizing God's covenant love and commitment to their full redemption.

And when I said that I said it to a man with ears and eyes and flesh. And I gave myself as a living God to be their God. And having entered into redemptive covenantal commitments do you think I'll let their flesh rot in the grave? Do you think I will forever allow one part of their flesh to become part of the cat's eyes and part of the crab's claw?

56:11 - 56:33 Read in full sermon