The Son of Man did not go through the trouble of becoming the Word of God made flesh just to be tripped up by a few so-called religious leaders. In Matthew 22:23-33 there is an exchange between a group of religious leaders called the Sadducees and Jesus concerning the resurrection of the dead.
First off, we need to understand where these Sadducees are coming from. The Sadducees were staunch followers of Moses and only believed his books to be divinely inspired. These books of Moses are the first 5 book in the Jewish Tanakh which is what we might call the Old Testament. The Tanakh is made up of the Torah (the first 5 books of Moses), the Nevi’im (The Prophets) and the Ketuvim (the writings). As I said, the Sadducees only held the Torah, or the Law of Moses to be divinely inspired. Because of this, the Sadducees found no evidence in the Torah for a resurrection, therefore they did not believe in an afterlife or a resurrection of the dead. (They were “sad you see” because they didn’t believe in the resurrection.) The truth is, there’s no mention of any kind of resurrection or afterlife in the Torah, primarily because it was the account of the beginning of mankind and the origin story of Israel. If one were to search the torah for talk of an afterlife, one would be hard pressed to find any mention of it.
This lack of evidence in the Torah had been heavily debated in this day between the Pharisees, who did believe in a resurrection and the Sadducees. Of course, the Pharisees were not able to come up with any good evidence from the Torah, which was their common ground. We can assume by the Sadducees confident hypothetical question that no one had been able to give them a solid answer to their claim.
So, they ask their question about the 7 brothers. One had taken a wife and died with no offspring so it fell upon the next brother in line to take his brother’s wife and have children with her so that his name would not be cut off in Israel. So, the scenario goes, that all the brothers eventually die without offspring, then they ask, “Whose wife is she in the resurrection.”
Jesus’ answer, “You’re wrong.” Of course, Christ seen through their hypothetical scenario to their real question. The Sadducees’ real juke was concerning the resurrection of the dead. Certainly, this had been for them a real mic drop moment in the past debating with the Pharisees. They thought they had him, but they did not know to whom they spoke. They weren’t just dealing with a scholar of the Word of God. They were now dealing with its author.
Jesus quickly deals with both their ridiculous scenario and then with the larger issue of the resurrection. Jesus tells them that there will be no one given in marriage in the resurrection that they will be like the angels. Then he shuts them down by answering the bigger question by using grammar.
He quotes God’s words to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” Then he makes a statement. He’s the God of the living, not the dead. In other words, it was what God said and what He didn’t say to Moses. He said “I am” present tense, not “I was” past tense. What he’s simply saying is that I am currently the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they are still alive in an afterlife. Had there been no resurrection, no afterlife, God would have stated that “I was their God.”
And the crowd was astonished at his teaching.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 1 Corinthians 15:19-20
