NOTES for Mat 22:23-33

More than anything, we want to know what awaits us in another life and whether it exists. This is probably the main impulse behind the construction of every religion, their central concern. But it is another life precisely so that we do not try, like the Sadducees who came to Christ with their question, to draw it in detail in our imagination. Just as an infant in its mother’s womb cannot understand the laws of this world, neither can we understand the laws of the other world. Two statements would already be enough for us: God will be all in all, and we will be like the angels in Heaven. But unlike all other religions, Christ says something astonishing, something that the Sadducees are quite unable to grasp. The Kingdom of the age to come will not resemble the Hellenic paradise, where souls enjoy the climate and the landscape. The Sadducees, who love everything Greek, imagine it in precisely this way. The Lord, however, speaks of the resurrection of the dead as a natural consequence of the fact that God is the God of the living. Clearly, this is difficult to reconcile with the words about being like the angels in Heaven. Apparently, the word about resurrection contains a mystery that cannot be explained rationally.

During His earthly ministry Jesus was more than once asked tricky questions and offered tests of ingenuity from the theological study aids that existed at that time. There were, of course, certain traditional answers to these tricky questions, though how convincing they were is another matter. But Jesus uses even them to bear witness to the Kingdom. That is what happened with the question put to Him about a woman who had married many times, probably referring here to the custom of levirate marriage. As can be seen, the Sadducees, and above all evidently the representatives of the temple priesthood, used this example to refute the possibility of the general resurrection in which the Synagogue believed, and first of all, of course, the Pharisees.

It is not hard to see that the main misunderstanding here is connected not with some theological subtlety, but with a wrong understanding of the Kingdom and its nature. And Jesus, without entering into abstract reasoning, draws His interlocutors’ attention precisely to this point. He tells them directly: you understand neither the Scriptures nor the way God acts in the world. And He adds: in the Kingdom of God they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but abide like angels in heaven.

The answer is remarkable. It remains only to understand just how angels “abide in heaven.” But here Jesus, as can be seen, gives His interlocutors no additional explanation. Only one thing is clear: it is not like the way of life in the untransformed world. And the point is not to try to understand what marital relations are like in the Kingdom. The point is to realize that it is unlike anything that happens in our world, and not to try to extrapolate earthly laws onto the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, judging by the question posed to Jesus, such extrapolations were common practice in the Jewish theology of that time. Jesus, as can be seen, invites His interlocutors to set aside the cliches familiar to them. And He does this not so much for their own sake, since they asked the question only to “trip Him up,” but for the sake of the listeners, because the conversation was public. It was necessary to let them understand that the Kingdom is in fact wholly different. At least those among them who can and want to hear.

For the disciples of Christ, for whom this Gospel was written, their faith and hope were bound in the closest way to the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead after His execution and burial. That is precisely why the brief account of Jesus' opponents, who tried to prove the impossibility of resurrection, was so important to them. Their argument, which at first may look like meaningless casuistry about a nonexistent situation (seven brothers for one wife), is in fact strong precisely because of its absurdity. There is so much absurdity and evil in the world that death appears more like a cure for pain and deadlock. What will happen if all people suddenly "rise," that is, return to this life, with all its imperfection and limitation? How can seven brothers share one unfortunate woman?

Christ answers from an entirely different position. Resurrection is necessary because every person is in one way or another connected with the living God. And this means that in the resurrection a person lives by the life of God Himself, free from human absurdity and pain.

If only we knew how to read Scripture like the Lord does, how to see its essence... In His answers about the resurrection of the dead and about the greatest commandment, He proceeds from the Pentateuch, which His opponents knew almost by heart. He not only answers the scribes' provocative questions, but also shows us how deep the meaning of the familiar words of the Bible can be.

In the mysterious name of God, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," revealed in the story of Moses' calling in the Book of Exodus, we suddenly discover a message about the resurrection of the dead. This will be revealed directly only in the later prophets and accomplished in the Resurrection of Christ. And the two most important commandments from Deuteronomy truly turn out to be a compressed form of the Decalogue (Ex. 20), where the first four commandments speak of love for God, and the remaining six of love for one's neighbor.