NOTES for Mar 12:18-27
18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, |
19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. |
20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. |
21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. |
22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. |
23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. |
24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? |
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. |
26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? |
27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. |
Hide
One of the main problems for a person seeking the Kingdom is that he cannot imagine what it is like. He cannot, and yet he tries with all his strength to do so, extending the laws of the fallen world to the Kingdom and then being surprised at the picture he has drawn for himself. Opponents of any revelation then present such humanly drawn pictures of the Kingdom as an argument against those who believe in revelation. This is understandable: for the most part the pictures turn out very strange, at times even absurd, so that no reasonable person will believe in them. Such pictures are easy and convenient to criticize; no one can argue with that criticism, even if he wants to, so the critic can feel like the winner. True, the arguments put forward by the critics usually have nothing to do with the reality of revelation, and in particular with the revelation of the Kingdom, but in the heat of disputes and discussions even the defenders of divinely revealed truths sometimes forget this.
So it was in the Gospel era in the traditional disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees about the resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the general resurrection, and they put forward arguments to the Pharisees like the one they presented to Jesus. What we have here is a scheme that came from relationships among people in the fallen world, transferred to an entirely different world and different relationships, to the relationships of the Kingdom. It is no accident that Jesus tells the Sadducees that they know neither "the Scriptures nor the power of God." The point is not that the Sadducees knew the sacred texts poorly; the texts themselves were in fact well known to them.
They did not understand something else: the logic of God's action and the logic of the Kingdom, insofar as it is even possible to speak here of logic in the usual sense of the word. In the Kingdom everything is different. People there do not return to the former life of the fallen world with its laws, but receive a new quality, becoming more like angels than like fallen people. This new life does not fit into theological schemes created on the basis of knowledge drawn from the fallen world. That is what the Savior is trying to explain to the people listening to Him.
After registering, you can subscribe to any Bible reading plan. Personalized settings and other services for registered users are planned, so we recommend registering now. Registration is free. | ||
