HOST: Ron House
SPONSOR: Start2Finish
There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
It must have been a wondrous thing to watch Jesus spar with the Jewish leaders. The Sadducees took the next turn, as one came to Jesus with a riddle in an attempt to prove what they believed to be the absurdity of the resurrection. Taking another “unanswerable question,” Jesus teaches another great truth, this time about the resurrection. The Sadducees, like many today, had trouble differentiating between the physical and the spiritual. How would physical relationships exist in the same way when all of humankind was resurrected? It was impossible. But Jesus distinguishes between the physical and spiritual by teaching that, in the resurrection, there will be no marriage. Marriage is a physical union that exists only in the physical world. In the resurrection, we will take on spiritual forms and will no longer be subject to physical relationships. It is a concept that is difficult to grasp because of our physical nature, but in order to put on the spiritual, we must put off the physical with all of its elements and relationships. What a glorious transformation that will be!
When will the resurrection take place?
Don’t forget to pray and have a great day!
