The Sadducees and the Resurrection (20:27-40).
Having made two attempts the Pharisees now withdrew for the time being in order to nurse their wounds. They were deeply chagrined, but unable to do anything about it. Jesus had thwarted their every move, and shown them up in the process. Now, however, came the turn of the Sadducees who were concerned about His teaching about the resurrection. And they came to Him with what may well have been a standard conundrum levelled at all who taught and believed in the resurrection from the dead.
Analysis.
a ‘And there came to him certain of the Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him, saying' (Luke 20:27-28 a).
b “Teacher, Moses wrote to us, that if a man's brother die, having a wife, and he be childless, his brother should take the wife, and raise up seed to his brother. There were therefore seven brothers, and the first took a wife, and died childless; and the second, and the third took her, and likewise the seven also left no children, and died. Afterward the woman also died” (Luke 20:28).
c “In the resurrection therefore whose wife of them shall she be? for the seven had her to wife” (Luke 20:33).
d And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, for neither can they die any more. (Luke 20:34-35).
c “For they are equal to the angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36).
b “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the place concerning the Bush, when he calls the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him” (Luke 20:37-38).
a And certain of the scribes answering said, “Teacher, you have well said.” For they dared not any more ask him any question' (Luke 20:39-40).
Note that in ‘a' the Sadducees asked Him a question, and in the parallel the Scribes say that He has ‘well said'. In ‘b' there is a continual emphasis on death, and in the parallel a continual emphasis on the fact that the dead are raised to new life. In ‘c' the question is as to prospects in the future life, and in the parallel those prospects are described. And centrally in ‘d' the condition of those who enjoy the future resurrected life is described.