Saducees: the Woman Who had Seven Husbands

Introduction to the Sadducees' Challenge in Passion Week

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, January 24th, 1988, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. And there come unto him Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There were seven brethren, and the first took a wife, and dying, left no seed.

0:48 And the second took her, and died, leaving no seed behind him. And the third likewise. And the seven left no seed. Last of all, the woman also.

1:04 In the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of them? For the seven had her to wife. Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause that you err, that you know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as...

1:35 As angels in heaven. But as touching the dead, that they are raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the bush, how God spoke unto him, saying, I am 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. You do greatly err.

2:06 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...

2:38 All the historical present tense, Mark, as it were, transports us with him to the city of Jerusalem and into the outer courts of the temple. It is here that he has already, on this third day of his Passion Week, answered the question concerning the nature and the source of his authority. It is here that our Lord, on this day, spoke immediately after the issue of his authority in three parables in which he very clearly prophesied that the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jewish nation and given unto the Gentiles. Further, on this same day, he has refuted the Herodians who, feigning respect for him, came to ensnare him in his own faith. In his words, with reference to the whole matter of whether or not it was right to pay taxes to Rome. And now, as though the devil has an almost infinite number of lackeys to do his base work of seeking to discredit our Lord Jesus Christ, in the passage read in your hearing,

4:03 we have the record of yet another group that comes forward attempting to... to undermine the credibility of Jesus and thereby to wean the crowd away from his influence.

The Question Raised: Identity and Doctrine of the Sadducees

4:19 Now, as we take up the narrative beginning in verse 18, we shall first of all have occasion to note in verses 18 through 23 the question raised. The question raised. And three things are to be considered under this...

4:39 under this heading. First of all, the specific identity of the group who raised this third question. And we are told in verse 18 that this group was a representative group of that body called the Sadducees. And there come unto him Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection.

5:07 Now, this is the first record of any encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees in the Gospel of Mark. There are numerous records in the Gospel of Matthew, but this is the first time that Mark has introduced us to the Sadducees. And as the other groups, they apparently take a representative number, and that comes out more clearly in the original of the parallel passage in Luke chapter 20, sending this group...

5:39 group in an effort to catch the Lord Jesus in his words. Now much is written about the Sadducees in extra biblical materials. Much is conjectured about them in biblical commentary. But from the scriptures themselves, and also from secular sources that are reliable, we know very little about the Sadducees with certainty. Their origin, whether or not they were primarily of the priestly class, or a priestly plus a ruling class, I have read pages of conjecture, but I've said I would not weary you for 30 seconds with any of that, because the scriptures have not chosen to give us much that is clear about the Sadducees as to their origin, what class they were identified with, and what kind of religion they were of. And I'm not going to go into too much detail about that. I'm not going to go into too much detail about that. I'm going to go into too much detail about with. However, from our text, we know that they were noted for what I would call their grand

6:43 doctrine of denial. Now what a terrible thing to be noted for what you don't believe. But if you look at the text, Mark describes them in this way. And writing, remember, primarily with Romans in mind who would not be familiar with Jewish customs and the various segments of the Jewish leaders, Mark is content under the guidance of the Spirit to highlight what it is most necessary to know about these Sadducees. And what is most necessary to know is not their origin, not their class, but their grand doctrine of denial. There come unto him Sadducees who say, that is, the great doctrine that they were continually propagating wherever they had the opportunity was this doctrine of denial who say, there is no resurrection. In other words, they denied the doctrine of the resurrection of the body at the last day. Now in a very helpful parallel passage in the book of Acts, that denial

7:58 is expanded into what we might call its necessary corollaries or its inevitable attendance. In Acts chapter 23, in an incident where the apostle Paul is standing before the council made up of both Pharisees and Sadducees, we are told by Luke in Acts 23 and verse 8, for the Sadducees say, you see, this was their great doctrinal pronouncement, for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection neither angel nor spirit. But the Pharisees confess both, or that word, Amphatera can be translated all. They confess all of these things. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit.

9:03 So though the denial of the bodily resurrection is a denial of the resurrection, it is a denial of the resurrection. So though the denial of the bodily resurrection was their central doctrine of denial, it was flanked on the one side by a denial of the existence of angels. That is, spirit beings who are the servants of God to do the bidding of God. Intelligent personalities who can think, feel, and will, and in the purpose of God can assume bodily form and will, and in the purpose of God can assume bodily form to accomplish the work of God.

9:38 divine ends and goals as the scriptures of both the Old and the New Testament abundantly bear record, yet the Sadducees not only denied the resurrection of the body, but their doctrine of denial was flanked on the left hand with this denial of the existence of angels, and they denied spirit. That is, they denied the existence of the human spirit or soul as a distinct entity that could continue in its existence apart from and separated from the body. And these were the three great focal points of their cumulative doctrine of denial. No resurrection, no angels, no spirit. As one astute New Testament commentator has written, they held that no spirit exists save God, and that the human soul consisted of rarefied matter and it disappeared with the body. That God is not concerned with our doing or not doing evil, and that each man may do...

11:00 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 things. And so, it would not...

12:01 far from the mark, to look upon them as the rationalistic, materialistic body of the religious leaders of that day. Now, the strange thing is that they professed a belief in the Old Testament, particularly the books of Moses. Now, some authors wax quite dogmatic that they accepted only the books of Moses as authoritative and regulative of thought and life. Others argue with equal cogency, no, they accepted the prophets and they accepted the books of poetry.

12:38 However, in their actual outworking of religious thought and speech and influence, they limited themselves to a practical working interaction with the five books of Moses. But one thing is very clear, they rejected the tradition, the oral tradition that came down from the rabbis and that written...

13:00 The written tradition, which the Pharisees regarded, you remember, as of equal authority with the very word of God, so much so that Jesus had to say to the Pharisees, you make void the word of God by your tradition. Well, that's the identity of the precise group that asked the question. Now, the second division of thought under this first major concern, the question raised, having looked at who raised it, now consider in verses 19, to 23, the heart of the question. You see, the question is not actually asked until verse 23.

The Heart of the Sadducees' Question: The Levirate Law and the Seven Husbands

13:40 The passage now focuses upon the question they are to ask, and it says, and they asked him saying, and then they have this big long statement, and the actual question does not come until verse 23, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of them? So they are leading up to the heart of the question by making reference to a practice that God had mandated through Moses back in Deuteronomy chapter 25. And I want you to turn there for a moment. I thought of simply quoting the passage, and I said, no, with many of you who do not have a background in which you were reared, steeped in the scriptures, it would be helpful for you to actually see the passage with your own eyes, and I will not read the entire section, but just the first two verses. Deuteronomy 25, 5 and 6. Here in the law that was to govern the life of the nation of Israel under the rule of God, God through Moses says, if brethren dwell together, and one of them die and have no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married without unto a stranger. Her husband, her husband's brother, that is, her brother-in-law, shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife

15:09 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.

15:44 But in the eastern countries and in some countries, even to this day, this is a common practice.

15:53 And what God was doing with so much of Old Testament legislation, he was probably both regulating a practice already, in existence, for you find the record of it in Genesis chapter 38, in that incident with Tamar and Judah and Onan. So this is not something that dropped down out of heaven when God gave his law through Moses. It was a practice already in existence. And apparently, as with so many things in this period of tutelage and transition, God takes a practice that is in place and he regulates it to take out some of its brokenness, grosser and more vicious manifestations awaiting the time when that would be utterly dismantled and God's original intention of one man for one woman would be realized in the dynamics of God's grace under the new covenant. But be that as it may, it is clear that Moses had indeed, by God's directive, given this particular marital law. It's called the Levirate. Levirate law or practice.

17:05 Now you see what these Sadducees did. They come with this very word out of Moses, and it was a word from Moses, and they base a deduction upon that law which they are absolutely certain will show up Jesus and his belief about the resurrection and also in the process, show up their crosstown rivals, the Pharisees, in the process. So one can only imagine the bearing of triumphalism, the swelled chest and the arrogant eye with which they must have gathered around Jesus and then, though known for their coarseness, they were not popular with the people and apparently had little concern to make themselves so, they eke out a little title of respect, no fawning over him like the Pharisees did, like the Herodians did, I'm sorry, in the previous question, but they simply address him as teacher or rabbi. Moses wrote unto us. And then, after quoting Moses, they then set forth, and if you read the various parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke, it appears that they tried to set it forth

18:33 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.

19:04 It wouldn't have been enough, but I mean, they really stretch it out. I mean, they're going to really make it appear ludicrous. She went through one husband and a funeral, second husband and a funeral, third husband, four, fifth, sixth, seventh, and you can just begin to see the triumphalism now is oozing out of every poor. Are we going to make this doctrine of resurrection appear ludicrous?

19:28 And husbands, and listen, not one of them was able to produce a child by her, so, in the resurrection,

19:38 every one of them will have an equal claim over her. For you see, if the seventh one had borne a child by her, he would have had the place of precedence because the union had been blessed with a child. But they were very careful to set the thing up in their eyes in such a way that there was only one thing for Jesus to do. That was either to swallow his tonsils and garble something about, well, I'll have to go rethink this whole question of the resurrection of the body or he'll have to flush red and change the subject and then in their kind of triumphalism they'll be able to put Jesus to shame and discredit before the multitudes and in the process, as I say, get a jab into the ribs of their crosstown rivals, the Pharisees. So, after they set out that whole scenario, then they ask the question, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of them? For the seven had her to wife. Now, I wonder, before we leave the heart of the question, I wonder if they were so full of triumphalism because perhaps on many occasions they had stumped the Pharisees with that very question.

20:56 For remember, the Pharisees also were cursed with a horribly materialistic and carnal view of the provisions of God for his redeemed ones. And there is some indication that they may well have found their crosstown rivals driven to the wall and driven to a logical and debating impasse on more than one occasion. And so, that may have even increased their sense of triumphalism. We've shut up the mouths of our rivals, the Pharisees, with this question.

The Real Intention of Their Question: Ridicule and Discredit

21:33 Now, you stand in common with them in their doctrine of the resurrection of the body. And of the existence of the soul beyond death and the presence of angels, now we'll put you to shame as well. Now, having looked at who raised the question, secondly, the heart of their question, now notice the real intention of their question. What was their real intention?

21:58 Was it the question that grows out of the heart of a man, a woman, bowed over the scriptures who comes to apparent discrepancies and difficulties? And humbly bows before the Word and says, O God, You are God. I am but a creature and a sinful creature at that. Your Word is true.

22:19 There are depths I can never reach. There are heights I can never scale. And if one apostle has to say of another apostle, our beloved brother Paul has written things in his epistle hard to be understood, O Lord. I don't ever think I'll understand everything, but O God, could You help me with this question?

22:42 Now, there's nothing wrong with that spirit. Is that the spirit with which they come to Jesus? We accept what the scriptures say about the resurrection. However, we have a problem.

22:54 If in the resurrection, the people that lived in this life will be raised up and the relationships established in this life will be continued, how can we resolve this difficulty, Lord? Rabbi, please teach us. No, that's not their spirit. You see, they are introduced by Mark as the apostles of denial.

23:17 So the only reason they even predicate a resurrection in verse 23 is because they think they can expose and show up the Lord Jesus. Oh, they'll admit a resurrection for their own ends in the resurrection as though they believed in it, as though they admitted it as a reality, when in reality they didn't. No. They wanted to hold up one of His major doctrines for ridicule, hoping thereby to discredit Jesus as a teacher worthy of respect, allegiance, and a following.

23:54 Now, the parallel accounts make it clear that the people in various groups, as always in the temple, are gathered around listening. Some of them are described as scribes of the Pharisees, some as the Pharisaic group, another term, speaks of the multitude. Now, can you feel something of the electricity that must have crackled in the air at that point? One group has come, they've been vanquished.

24:21 The second group comes, they've been vanquished. Now comes a third group. And they come up to the Lord Jesus and they pose their question. And the look of triumphalism, as I've said, oozes out of every poor.

24:34 And now they've laid the question out. Who shall she be in the resurrection, seeing they all had her? Can't you picture one of the leaders catching the eye of one of the common people and smiling and winking?

24:49 Can't you? Can't you see it? The air is crackling in the silence. And what does Jesus do?

Jesus' Withering Assertion: Ignorance of Scripture and God's Power

24:57 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.

25:25 And it likewise has three segments. The reply of Jesus begins with a withering assertion and question. Verse 24. Jesus said unto them, notice it doesn't say he answered them.

25:39 He has not so much an answer, but as an assertion. Mark records it. In the form of a question. Matthew records it as a simple statement.

25:50 So that's why I've entitled it a withering assertion or question. Look at it. Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause that you err, that you do not know the scriptures, nor the power of God? Now the assertion that he makes, and I call it a withering assertion is, that right up front he says, you do err.

26:20 And the exegetes debate whether this verb in this form should be understood in the middle sense, that is reflexive action that turns back upon the person. Some have translated it, you do deceive yourselves. Others who take it in the normal active sense translate it, you are mistaken. Now you talk about, a withering assertion.

26:47 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 25 and verse 5. So he witheringly asserts that they are either deceiving themselves or they are erring, they are mistaken, they are going astray. That's the verb used several times for sheep that go astray, both in the Gospels and in 1 Peter 2. And he says they err, and their erring is rooted in two factors. Look at them. You do err for this cause. You know not the Scriptures.

27:43 You know not. The power of God. Now you talk about a withering assertion. Here they come quoting the Scriptures.

27:56 They say the Scriptures give us our problem. And we are conversant with the law and word of Moses. And in the light of that word, surely the Scriptures cannot teach a doctrine of resurrection because that would be absurdity in the resurrection. They'd have to chop up that woman in seven pieces or they'd have to show preference and give her to one, and not the other, and they would not be happy.

28:19 So there can be no such thing as a resurrection as long as Moses commands this practice. And obedience to the terms of the covenant involves respecting this practice. Surely there's no way out but to deny resurrection. Jesus says you go astray.

28:35 And you go astray first of all because you do not know the Scriptures. You claim to believe them. You've had the temerity and the gall to even quote them to me, but you do not know them. And the word, that he uses for know in many contexts, has that sense of knowing in terms of true inner perception.

28:56 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. And he says secondly, you do not know the power of God. You see, in their scheme of things, skepticism terminated primarily on the doctrine of resurrection as it has almost invariably done.

29:27 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.

29:44 Well, suppose you're having to make a sea journey. Yes. And you die while you're at sea. And as in the old days when they didn't have places to put people and preserve them, they'd have a funeral service at sea and you're dumped over the side of the ship.

30:00 And inside of an hour you've been eaten by the sharks. And all of the cells of your body are consumed by the sharks and the bones may float to the bottom and eventually are embedded in the silt and decompose. And you've got little sea urchins and snails and crabs that eat your bones. And then the shark part of you goes out with his natural body waste.

30:21 The other goes around to eat other fish and other debris thrown into the ocean. And eventually he's caught by a seaman and cut up and used for cat food. So part of you is in the belly. Oh, yes.

30:32 This is what skeptics do to see. They're going to break me up until I'm part of a cat's hair and eyes. Until I'm part of a crab's claw. And they say, ha, ha, ha, ha.

30:45 Listen to the father joke.

30:50 Oh, skeptics have a field day with the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. They had it then. They have it now. And Jesus said, you know what your problem is?

31:01 You do not know the power of God. That's your problem. Because in Scripture, the resurrection of the body is again and again highlighted as one, if not the most amazing display of divine power in God's redemptive activity. Now, I'm going to read a key text, Philippians 3 and verse 21.

31:27 I could quote many. Romans 1, Ephesians 1. But Philippians 3 will suffice. Listen to Paul's language, verse 21.

31:37 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 the cat and from the crab's claw and from the bottom of the ocean, if God made the cat and God made the crab and God made the ocean, ain't no big deal for him to retrieve every last cell of me. No big deal for God. Now, I am not saying that the resurrection of the body will actually be the retrieval of the whole set of cells that I had at the time of my death.

32:59 I'm not saying that. But if it were, that's no big deal. If you know anything of the power of God. And so Jesus said, in this withering assertion, you were, you people, you've gone astray, you deceive yourselves, you don't know the Bible, and you don't know God in his power.

Demonstration of Ignorance: The Nature of the Resurrected State

33:21 Then, what he does secondly, is to give a convincing demonstration of this. You see, he who asserts must prove. You've heard that many times here. And what Jesus does in verses 25, to 27a.

33:36 In reverse order, he demonstrates, first of all, their ignorance of the power of God, and then their ignorance of the word of God. Notice the connective. Look at the connective now in Mark, chapter 12, back to our text. Is it not for this cause that you err, that you do not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God, for, for, and now he's going to take up and demonstrate the clear evidence that they are ignorant of the power of God, then he will take up, verse 26, but as touching the dead that they are raised, have you not read?

34:11 He's going to take up their ignorance of the Scriptures. So that's the unifying principle. Do you see that in the text? So he's asserted, the heart of his assertion that withers them, ignorant of the word of God, ignorant of the power of God.

34:24 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.

34:54 When God asserts, you assert. And don't insult God by backing off to ifs for the sake of rational arguments. That is undone in many places, the whole fabric of vital Biblical Christianity, when people trying to prove the truth of God put its where God asserts. Jesus doesn't put an if.

35:17 He says, When they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. And he says, by getting in another dig, there are angels too.

35:36 Can you see what the Lord is doing? When they rise, they're going to be as angels. They're going to be as something that exists. Not a figment of people's imagination.

35:49 So the Lord knocks, as we shall see eventually, all three pillars of their doctrine of denial. Denial of resurrection, denial of angels, and denial of spirit. And he affirms them all. He doesn't argue them.

36:01 He doesn't debate them. He affirms them. Now how does this relate to their ignorance of the power of God? Well, this is the basic heart of it.

36:11 Follow me closely. You see, the Sadducees could conceive of a resurrection, if they could conceive of one and all, in nothing more than the category of reconstituting the present order exactly as it was when death ended it. You see, that lay at the heart of their apparent victory over Jesus and his doctrine of the resurrection. You see, underneath their use of that passage out of Moses was this.

36:42 They said, now surely you're not going to contradict Moses. Moses said in the place of the bush, and that's how they would identify. They didn't have chapter and verse. And so various segments would be identified.

36:53 Literally, Moses said upon the bush. That would be a literal translation of the passage from the original. And that was the way they'd locate it. And they'd know immediately what we now call Exodus chapter 3.

37:05 They'd know immediately that's what this was. Alright, so what have they said here? Well, Moses has affirmed in what we now call Deuteronomy chapter 25 that this is what a man should do, this is what a woman should do, blah, blah, blah, all the way down. Alright, now, their assumption is this.

37:21 If there is a resurrection, our thinking about resurrection can rise no higher than a reconstituting of the order that existed in this life. Jesus said, you do err not knowing the power of God. Why? Because the power of God in conjunction with the resurrection is not going to reinstitute things as they now are in this present state, but he's going to introduce a more elevated and glorious state in the dynamics of redemptive grace.

37:56 Turn to Luke 20, the parallel passage, for a very, very helpful commentary on the text. Remember we've told you again and again that we do not have in the gospel court records of every word as though they were direct quotations and every single bit was included. Jesus said some other things on that occasion. Notice verse 34 of Luke 20.

38:20 Jesus said unto them, The sons of this age, this present order, this present world system, marry and are given in marriage. Men take wives, and fathers give daughters in marriage. But they that are accounted worthy to attain to that age, that is the age to come, the resurrection age, they that are worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, for neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels. Now in what sense will we be as the angels, in the resurrection? We will be as the angels in this limited sense. Angels do not marry and procreate because it was never God's purpose to populate heaven or earth with angels through marriage and procreation. But in this present world order, marriage, the sexual union, procreation, are part of this order.

39:36 But in the age to come, the scripture says, there shall be no more sighing, no more crying, neither shall there be any more. For the former things are passed away. Well, if there is no death, then we become immortal in that sense. As the angels who are not subject to death, then the necessity for marriage and procreation is done away with.

40:11 We are raised to a state like unto the angels in that specific area underscored in the parallel passage in the Gospel according to Luke. So what our Lord says is this. You are ignorant of the power of God. Your premise is wrong.

40:32 God nowhere says in His Word that the arrangement of a woman losing her husband and marrying her brother-in-law, etc., is an arrangement that will obtain in the age to come. You've assumed that. You've taken that directive of Moses and arbitrarily projected it unto the world to come.

40:56 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 able not only to affect that change in terms of our bodily existence, but He's able to affect that change that we will be perfectly fulfilled and complete even without sexual intimacy. 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. Sexual union is not sin, no.

42:12 But if you cannot think of a heaven that's complete in the presence of God and of His Son and all the redeemed, and trust that the God who sent His Son into the jaws of hell itself to turn away the wrath that you and I ought to know can so work in the soul and so transform me that I will be completely blissful even without sexual expression. You cannot have confidence in a God like that and gladly commit yourself to Him. You are of all men most miserable. They knew not the power of God.

Demonstration of Ignorance: The Livingness of the Physically Dead

42:50 But then he says, they were ignorant of the Word of God, verse 26 and 27. But as touching the dead that they are raised, but as touching the dead that they are raised, you see again, he doesn't say now if the dead are raised, then, no. Again he asserts, but as touching the dead that they are raised, have you not read in the book of Moses upon the bush, in the place concerning the bush, how God spoke unto him saying, I am 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.

43:31 Now the reference, God speaking to Moses in the incident concerning the bush is taken from Exodus chapter 3. You may want to turn there for a moment as we continue our exposition, Exodus chapter 3. And in passing let me say it's clear that Jesus fully accepted the mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He regarded it as actual and factual history and a full authority in settling matters religious.

44:01 And anyone who claims to be a Christian and is smarter than Christ is an arrogant, unbelieving, I want to choose my words carefully, creature who is tempting God to damn him for using the mind he gave to receive truth humbly, to set itself up as an arbiter of what is truth. He who is incarnate truth in whom all the wisdom of the ages resides was not at all embarrassed in passing, he didn't even stop to prove, in passing, nothing to make it evident that he believed in the mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, that it was accurate and factual history and fully authoritative and therefore proper to use it in this incident. Now, precisely what was our Lord deducing from this passage in order to prove the doctrine of the resurrection? Well, I wish I hadn't spent many hours reading many commentaries and I think I might be dogmatic in my answer. But in the course of my studies, I came across no fewer in terms of how you put the categories.

45:17 Some might stay in one category, some might warrant a different. Four to six different opinions as to precisely how Jesus was using this passage to prove the doctrine of the resurrection. Now, every one of those commentators who took a different position believes in the full authority, inspiration and infallibility of the word of God. They believe Jesus was wise and authoritative and effective in answering, but in trying to catch the thread of his word, his thought and how it all links together, they come up with four to six different configurations of the pieces.

45:50 Well, I believe there are two that most commend themselves to my judgment and I'll pass them on for what they are worth. The first is this. Jesus, in the use of this passage, if we're to give a summary to what he's doing, is asserting the livingness of the souls of the physically dead. He is asserting the livingness of the souls of the physically dead.

46:16 Look at the passage. When God appeared to Moses in Exodus chapter 3, in the burning bush, and he calls to Moses and tells him that he's to take the shoes from off his feet, Exodus 3, 6. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, long dead, the God of Isaac, long dead, the God of Jacob, long dead. Verse 7.

46:47 I have surely seen the affliction of my people. Verse 8. I have come down to deliver them. And then Moses begins to object and say, who am I that I should be used in this task?

47:00 Now, some take the position that what our Lord was doing was this. Remember now, the Sadducees denied the bodily resurrection, but they also denied the existence of angels and spirits. They denied that the spirit existed as an entity after the death of the body. And some argue that what our Lord is doing, by going right to the books that they regarded most authoritative, that is, the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, he quotes a familiar passage in which God says to a man who is alive, not, I was the God of Abraham while he was alive, but now he's gone to nothing.

47:41 His spirit has disappeared. His spirit has gone back into nothingness. His body is in a cave somewhere. I was the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob.

47:51 No, he says, I am the God of Abraham. And if I'm the living God, I'm the God of those who yet live. I am Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and Jacob's God. And that's what our Lord underscores.

48:06 Notice at the end of the passage in Mark 12, he says he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. So when he says, I am the God of these men, he is asserting that they still have existence while he speaks to Moses. And if there is a livingness to the souls of the physically dead, why do they yet live in this abnormal state, separated from their bodies? When God originally created man, He breathed into him the breath of life and man became living soul, a body-soul entity.

48:39 That is his true identity. When God made man in His image, He didn't make a disembodied spirit. He made a corporeal, inspirited creature. He made one that had substance and a soul.

48:56 Now, the Lord may be saying in the passage, since their spirits yet live, and I identify myself as the God of their living spirits, then surely it is evident that if there is a deathlessness to the soul, it all points to the glorious day when the Abraham to whom I revealed myself, not as a disembodied spirit, he was a whole man with a body and a soul. So was Isaac. So was Jacob. And the fact that I now preserve their spirits and yet identify myself not as the God of Abraham's spirit and Isaac's spirit, and Jacob's spirit, but the God of Abraham in all that he is, and Isaac in all that he is, and Jacob, then that is God's own pledge that He will forever be their God and will ultimately bring them to the full integrity of their redeemed humanity when He raises up their bodies and Abraham is constituted a whole Abraham again in a glorified body and a glorified spirit. Isaac will be made a whole Isaac again in the resurrection and Jacob will be made a whole Jacob. Matthew Henry seems to lean to this position. This is what he says in the passage.

50:19 Note, it is absurd to think that God's relation to Abraham should be continued and thus solemnly recognized if Abraham was annihilated or that the living God should be the portion and happiness of a man that is dead and must be so forever. Therefore you must conclude, one, Abraham's soul exists and acts in a state of separation from the body. Two, therefore sometime or other the body must rise again for there is such an innate inclination in a human soul toward its body as would make a total and everlasting separation inconsistent with the ease and repose, much more with the bliss and joy of those souls that have the Lord for their God. Upon the whole matter he concludes, you therefore do greatly err. That's the position Matthew Henry takes and many others. Let me suggest a second position and this to me is even more compelling. And it's what I'll call the implications.

Demonstration of Ignorance: Implications of Redemptive Covenant Commitment

51:20 Now don't be afraid of the big words, please. All right? The people who are biblically intelligent and these words should convey something. If they don't, let me do so.

51:31 If I call the other the livingness of the souls of the physically dead, this other approach focuses on the implications of redemptive covenant commitment. The implications of redemptive covenant commitment. Why did Jesus pick the incident of Moses at the burning bush? There were other times when God identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

51:55 Why did he pick that incident? Could it be that this is the reason? What was God doing at that point in the history of redemption? He was coming down to inform Moses he was going to redeem his people out of Egypt.

52:10 He was going to come as the God of redemption who in grace and power would take his people out of Egypt, would be married to them in covenant fidelity. He would commit himself to be their God. And whenever God uses this language, I will be their God, it's the language of God's covenant commitment to his people. He said to Abraham, walk before me and be perfect and he said, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward.

52:42 God commits himself to be Abraham's God, Isaac's God, Jacob's God. So these words in the Old and the New Testament, I will be your God, are technical words pointing to God's redemptive covenantal grace in which he takes a people to himself. Now if that's so, you see what our Lord is saying? He says, have you not read?

53:09 You doubt the resurrection? Have you not read what God said to Moses in the incident of the bush? I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob. I am the God of redemptive covenant commitment and when I say to my people I will be their God, they shall be my people.

53:34 They understand that I will be their God and they should be my people. I will be to them all that I am in my changeless character and my covenant will secure that they will be all they are as human beings redeemed by my grace. So that when we turn to Hebrews 11, notice that Abraham understood that his ultimate destiny was not the disembodied spirit, Hebrews 11, 8 to 10. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he went.

54:19 By faith he became a sojourner in a land of promise as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents. For he looked for the city which hacked the foundations whose builder and maker and maker is God. Verse 13, these died in faith not having received the promise, greeted them from afar. Verse 14, for they that say such things make it manifest they are seeking a country of their own.

54:49 Verse 16, they desire a better country that is a heavenly wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God. He has prepared for them not a cloud on which to float as a disembodied spirit but a city. He has prepared for them a city. He has prepared for them in his own redemptive purposes that which Peter describes as the new heavens and the new earth described by John in the book of the Revelation in the same way.

55:21 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.

55:54 He says now you've taken a divine word and drawn a devilish deduction. I will take a divine word and draw upon it. And draw a proper deduction. God came and said I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

56:11 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?

56:33 And part of the shark's skin? Never! My people are so precious to me that I will not rest in the energy of sovereign, redemptive, covenant love until I have them all. The Spirit in my presence glorified with the very glory of my beloved Son who is the pattern of my redemptive activity.

56:58 And when I'm done He'll be the firstborn among many brethren. And dear people because He's there now in His glorified body. 1 Corinthians 15 says He's there as firstfruits of those who sleep. And when every one of us goes into His grave God says one more for the harvest.

57:19 And how will we know every last grain will be gathered? The firstfruits is there. Christ is there. Not a disembodied glorified spirit but in His glorified body.

57:32 And He is the great pattern of what God's covenantal redemptive love will effect. For whom He did foreknow He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. And that involves the body as well as the spirit. Well, very quickly look at the concluding accusation.

Jesus' Concluding Accusation and the Response

57:58 We saw our Lord's initial assertion. Then His demonstration. Now His concluding accusation. Verse 27.

58:07 Look at the concluding accusation. He said in the beginning You do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. Now He intensifies it. And He concludes by saying He is not the God of the dead but of the living.

58:24 You do greatly err. You do greatly err. You do greatly deceive yourselves. You do greatly go astray.

58:35 And now what is the response recorded? We looked at the question raised. The answer given. The response recorded.

58:42 Well, He had the approbation of the scribes and Pharisees. Verse 28 of Mark 12. Luke 20, 39. They even came and complimented Him.

58:51 They said, Oh, you answered them well. The Pharisees were glad when they heard them give it to the Sadducees. So the very crowd that was trying to trick Him a couple of hours before they are now clapping for Him. Then He caused astonishment to the crowds.

59:05 Matthew 22, 33. The multitudes were astonished. But then He silenced and intimidated the Sadducees. Matthew 22, 34 says they didn't dare ask Him any more questions.

59:16 It says the Greek verb in Luke is that He muzzled them. I'm sorry. In Matthew 22, 34. He muzzled them.

59:23 He shut their mouths. Silenced and intimidated them. When the Lord was done. If this is the right interpretation, I don't know.

59:32 But one thing is clear. When He was done, they understood what He meant. And it shut their mouths. And I may not fully understand how He did it and how all the threads fit together.

59:41 I've tried responsibly to investigate the options and give you what I think are the two most likely. But one thing is clear. Maybe some of you go out of here saying you didn't carry my judgment. Fine.

59:52 That's all right. But He carried theirs. And He shut their mouths. And He even got the Pharisees to be His amen corner.

60:00 I mean it had to be pretty convincing for that crowd to give Him credit for anything. But they did. You answered them well. And He utterly shut their mouths.

Application: The Great Issues of Revealed Religion

60:13 Well, our time is gone, dear people. I had three lines of application that I wanted to make. And I think it would be irresponsible to just run through them. So let me just close with this word because I felt constrained to open up the whole passage rather than chop up the thread of thought.

60:32 And I'll hold these off, God willing, for when I come back from our vacation in a week and a half. Let me just press this truth upon you as you leave the place this morning. You see, to our Lord Jesus, the great issues of revealed religion were God in the almightiness of His power, God in His covenant grace, resurrection, the age to come, the never-dying soul. You see, the Pharisees, they were taken up with all externalism and ritual and form.

61:08 And the Sadducees, they were all enmeshed in their oppressive spirit. Skepticism and rationalism. Jesus is trafficking in the world in which God in His almighty power, in His sovereign, covenanted grace, in the resurrection of the body. All of these things were the realities, may I say it reverently, that were piggybacked upon Him as He stood in the temple just several days before He'd go to the cross.

61:38 And you take away these realities and the cross of Jesus becomes a mockery, a cruel joke. But it is no cruel joke. For the Lord Jesus knew then as He wants you to know now, you have a never-dying soul. And even the body of those who are not the saints of God will be raised from the dead to join the damned soul that has been in its prison house.

62:03 And body and soul, Jesus said, will be cast into hell. My friends, don't you fool around with the Jesus of this passage. Not only did He shut the door to the mouths of His detractors in that day, in the day of judgment, every mouth will be stopped. Make sure you're on the right side of that Jesus.

62:24 Make sure you're right with Him. Make sure that what He did for sinners has become the very heart and soul of your religion. Make sure that attachment to Him in faith, love, and humility is the very essence of your religious experience. If it's not, you don't have the real thing.

62:45 And if it isn't discovered now, He'll discover it in the last day. Let us pray. O our Father, how we thank You for our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You for His composure in the face of His enemies.

63:08 Thank You for His wisdom. Thank You for His courage. Thank You, above all, for His love, in that He was willing to take all of this stuff from creatures that He could have consumed with a word of His mouth. And yet He bore the contradiction of sinners that we might have a Savior.

63:32 O make Him winsome and attractive to many hearts this morning. And help us as Your people to learn from our Savior how to face skepticism and triumphalism in the realm of unbelief never to back off and be apologetic and iffy, but graciously and authoritatively to say, Thus saith the word of God. O help us, Lord. Help us, we pray.

64:04 Now may Your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place. And may this day continue to be marked by the livingness of our resurrected Lord. We pray in His name. Amen.