Will They Never Give Up?

“The same day came to Him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked Him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother…..Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her”.  Matthew 22:23-24;28

The religious leaders who were in charge of anything to do with worship and religion in the time when Jesus walked the earth were relentless in trying to trap Him into saying or doing something that would violate the law.  They just would not give up.  Jesus likely got very weary of their constant badgering and trickery where He was concerned.  In today’s vernacular, He might have thought that they should “give it a rest already”, but they were determined to find something whereby they could accuse Him before the people so that the people would turn against Him.

This particular day after Jesus had answered the Pharisees about paying taxes to Caesar with a simple but brilliant answer: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21), a group of Sadducees came to ask Him another trick question.  The Sadducees did not believe in a bodily resurrection of the dead.  I have heard that all my life, but never heard why they believed that until I researched it.  The founder of the Sadducees was a man named Sadoc, who was a disciple of Antigonus of Socho, a teacher of the law in one of the bigger schools of divinity in Jerusalem about 264 years before the birth of Christ.  Antigonus, who was also president of the Sanhedrin, correctly taught that people should serve God because of their love and reverence for Him, and not for any reward they might receive from Him.  Sadoc erroneously inferred from this teaching that there were no rewards or punishment after death, thus he believed there was no resurrection, no after life, that when you died, you were just dead and proceeded to teach this doctrine (Adam Clarke’s Commentary).  This was a major difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they found the mutual hatred of Jesus to unite them.  The Sadducees would be classified today as “deists”, those who believe God made the world, but has no further control over it.

These men posed, what is assumed, a hypothetical situation to Jesus.  A woman’s husband died, and according to the law of Moses, her husband’s brother must marry her so that any children she bore would be considered her first husband’s offspring.  After marrying her husband’s brother, he died, also, and so did the other five brothers after she married them.  After the third man died, we would have to wonder how the other four felt about that!  The Sadducees asked Jesus whose wife would she be in heaven.  Considering that they didn’t even believe in heaven, their example wasn’t exactly all that brilliant!

However, Jesus’ answer was brilliant.  He basically said to them that they didn’t know what they were talking about.  Wouldn’t it have been cool to see the looks on the faces of these religious leaders when Jesus zapped them with an answer that revealed their reveal motive.  He said that husbands and wives are not married in heaven.  I am reminded of words that I have seen on cemetery monuments and plaques placed at the head of the graves of couples who were married.  There is an image of wedding rings overlapping and the words “Together Forever”, but Jesus made it clear that those who die in the Lord whether they were married or not are AS the angels of God in heaven.  The saints of God DO NOT become angels in heaven as many people believe, but rather, like angels, as spirit beings whose sole purpose is to minister to and praise the Lord of heaven until such time as they are given new bodies at the resurrection.  Believers are married to the Lamb of God, becoming the bride of Christ, and not married to each other in heaven.  Even so, I believe that we will know our loved ones in heaven, but we will owe our allegiance to Jesus as the One who died for us.

The Sadducees set out to make Jesus look bad and ended up the ones who showed their ignorance.  The lesson to be learned here is never argue with God for He wins every time.  As Jesus answered their question, there was a crowd of people gathered around who heard Him and were astonished at His doctrine.  The religious leaders had only told the people what they, the leaders, wanted them to know.  When Jesus came along teaching truth and the spirit of the law, the people were hanging on every word.  What He was saying made sense to them and began to fill their hungry hearts with peace and joy, but this only made the religious leaders all that much more determined to be rid of Him which usually backfired on them.  Even their success at crucifying Him not only backfired on them, but on Satan as well for it caused the power of the gospel to spread to millions of people.