Luke 20:27-38; All Are Alive to God

"Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” 34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

I. Introduction

Jesus has finally finished his journey, which he began in 9:51, from Galilee through Samaria to Jerusalem. He is now within the confines of the sacred city, the place where every prophet dies or is killed (cf 13:33). His dramatic entry on the back of the lowly colt occurred in 19:29ff. Thus, the final act of his earthly drama is about to be played out in the holy city.

And his final act begins with a series of fights. These are not fisticuff-type fights, even though the crowds that gathered around no doubt admired the verbal pugilism of the contestants. Jesus spars with the chief priests and scribes in 20:1-8 over the question of the authority for John's baptism; he fights with them some more as they try to corner him with the question of whether it is legitimate to pay taxes to Caesar (20:20-26). Finally, he dukes it out with the Sadducees over the issue of the resurrection of the dead. Earlier in the Gospel he has opposed the Pharisees. Jesus is an equal opportunity pugilist; he is portrayed as opposing, at one time or another, every segment of the Jewish leadership of his day.

Each of his opponents had their own theological "hang-up." The Pharisees were sticklers on ritual purity and sabbath observance, and so Jesus encountered them on that level. The chief priests had to make sure that the relationship with Rome was not out-of-whack, and so taxes to Caesar were on their minds. Finally, the Sadducees had two particular beliefs that characterized them: (1) they didn't believe in the resurrection of the body; (2) they only considered the Pentateuch authoritative (no Prophets or Writings).

A. Rehabilitating the Sadducees

Often the Sadducees have been unsympathetically characterized because of the "narrowness" or supposed "ridiculousness" of their beliefs, but I think, before I exposit the passage above, that they deserve some rehabilitation. They didn't believe in resurrection not because they were dumb but because they thought that the sacred text didn't teach it and they believed that you "lived eternally" in your descendants. Because of Israel's "corporate" mentality, where the community of faith was the important unit before God, the most important thing for Israel was to continue to exist. You continue to exist only if you have children, since mass conversion of others has never been the Jewish "thing."

So, the Sadducees loaded up theologically on this most important principle. Israel is assured of continued existence (the # 1 important thing) if they had kids, and lots of them. You have lots of them if you believe you continue to exist only in them. If you begin willy-nilly to accept a belief in the personal resurrection, you might begin to float away from the communal emphasis of the faith and begin to think that religious life is just about making sure that your final resurrection and blessedness is assured. Actually, on this score, we might have something to learn from the Sadducees today.

They also believed in the sacredness of the Torah alone. After all, Judaism was a religion of law--that is, law was the instrument of piety, the means for serving God. Judaism remained that way through the Mishnah (work through that document sometime if you ever suffer from insomnia) and even today one of the things that many Jewish people most appreciate in life is a good argument. As one Jewish psychologist once told me, they are "hard-wired" to admire intelligence, and intelligence is often measured by verbal and argumentative facility. Law, then, is the basic or the generative conception in Judaism. The Sadducees "enshrined" this through their belief in "Torah alone."

B. Moving to the Text

So, as Jesus and the Sadducees enter into the verbal joust in 20:27-38, I secretly admit that I am not just "pulling" for Jesus but also for the Sadducees. I think they have a well-reasoned approach to life, one that ought not easily to be dismissed. There are three aspects of the interaction that should be noted: (1) the Challenge issued by the Sadducees (vv. 27-33); (2) Jesus' Theological Response to the Challenge (vv. 34-36); (3) Jesus' Exegetical Response to the Challenge (vv. 37-38). The next essay will exposit these three points, but let me close with an example of New Testament trivia that will dazzle your congregation--and that you have never heard before.

C. A Piece of NT Trivia

If you asked anyone with some Biblical knowledge what the shortest verse of the Bible (or NT) is, that person quickly responds: John 11:35, "Jesus wept." Nice. Fun. Not much use, but if we only did things that were useful in life, there wouldn't be so many football games. Even authoritative web sites tell you this is the truth. But I am here to tell you today that John 11:35 isn't the shortest verse in the Bible. Oh, I need a footnote. A verse in our passage for today (Luke 20:30) is. Why do I say so? Because the only proper way to measure brevity of verses is by comparing them in the original language. Translations can multiply or contract words easily. Well, in the Greek each of the verses (John 11:35 and Luke 20:30) is three words. John 11:35 has the proper noun before Jesus' name, "Jesus" and the verb "to weep." Luke 20:30 has the conjunction "and," the proper noun and the adjective "second." But when you add up the total number of letters in the words, John 11:35 has 16 letters in Greek and Luke 20:30 only has 12.

Oh, I need a footnote. The Wikipedia article on the Chapters and Verses of the Bible "pulls rank" by saying that "if the text is examined in its original languages, I Thessalonians 5:16 has the fewest letters." But if you count the letters in I Thess. 5:16 in the Greek, you have 14 letters. It is only two words, but it is two letters longer than Luke 20:30. So, we have proven both popular knowledge and Wikipedia wrong here.

Who really cares? If you think this is ridiculous, look at how seriously the guys at the gym take the various "tie-breaker" methodologies in sports. So, amaze your friends, be the center of attention at the party because you now know a bit of Bible trivia that no one else knows. Be the most "trivial" person on your block. Now, once we have had our fun, let's get to the exposition of the passage!

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