NOTES for Mar 12:18-27

Science has the concept of the limits within which a theory applies. This is because every scientific model describes reality locally and therefore only partially and relatively. Such models work only as long as the part of reality for which they were created is under consideration. By presenting Jesus with a rabbinic problem common at the time, the Sadducees are examining Him, testing His knowledge of the theological models then in existence. He answers that these models do not apply to the Kingdom. They are adequate for describing our world, which has not yet been transformed, but not for describing the Kingdom.

Why, one might ask, does Jesus need all these complications? He could simply have given the traditional answer to the question, which He undoubtedly knew. But His purpose is not to justify Himself, pass an examination, or prove to anyone that He knows no less than those asking the questions. His purpose is to help everyone nearby understand what the Kingdom is. For this, it is sometimes absolutely necessary to push a person beyond the limits of the framework of thought in which that person lives and to which he or she is accustomed. This is what Jesus does.

He says that in the Kingdom people are not born and do not die as they do in our world, nor do they marry as on earth. Then how is it? The Savior does not answer that question. What matters most to Him now is to knock His interlocutors out of their habitual rut, make them think, and help them look anew at what seemed common knowledge and thoroughly familiar. This is how a taste for the Kingdom is acquired, a taste that may one day prompt someone to begin seeking the Kingdom and to seek it in earnest.