CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 20:27. Sadducees.—Members of the aristocratic and wealthy class, which included the higher ranks of the priesthood. It is a popular error, based on a statement of Jerome’s, that they rejected all the Jewish Scriptures but the Pentateuch. They accepted the later Scriptures but rejected the Oral Law and traditions. Like all Jews, no doubt, they attributed a higher degree of inspiration to the Pentateuch than to any other part of the Old Testament. Deny the resurrection.—I.e., of the body, and apparently even the immortality of the soul. The Pharisees, on the contrary, believed in the resurrection of the body and a future life, much in a Christian sense, though they had somewhat carnal ideas of the nature of the future state.
Luke 20:28. Moses wrote.— Deuteronomy 25:5.
Luke 20:29. Seven brethren.—Probably a fictitious case. The difficulty however, would have been the same if there had been only two brethren.
Luke 20:33. For seven.—Rather, “for the seven” (R.V.). It is difficult to see what triumph the Sadducees would have won if Jesus had agreed with some of the rabbis who had discussed this question, and decided the matter in favour of the first husband.
Luke 20:34. The children of this world.—The R.V. absurdly changes this to “the sons of this world.” The phrase “marry” is appropriate to “sons,” but “are given in marriage” applies only to women. Though “sons” is a literal translation, a general word like “children” is evidently called for.
Luke 20:35. To obtain that world.—Or, “to attain to that world” (R.V.).
Luke 20:36. Neither can.—Rather, “for neither can” (R.V.). The reason why there is no marriage in that state is that there is no death: so that it is not necessary to raise up a new generation to take the place of the old. Equal unto the angels.—I.e., in being immortal. Christ distinctly asserts the existence of these beings, which the Sadducees denied. Children of God.—I.e., not because of their ethical character, but because they become “partakers of the Divine nature,” receiving life by the direct action of God in raising them from the dead.
Luke 20:37. Even Moses showed.—Moses, whose supposed silence on this point the Sadducees laid such stress upon. At the bush.—Rather, “in the place concerning the bush” (R.V.); i.e., in the section of the book of Exodus known by that name (chap. 3).
Luke 20:38. Not a God of the dead.—But for Christ’s interpretation, the profound meaning of the name by which God then called Himself could scarcely have been discovered with any measure of certainty. “Our Lord here testifies of the conscious intent of God in speaking the words. God uttered them, He tells us, to Moses, in the consciousness of the still enduring existence of His peculiar relation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Meyer). “The groundwork of His argument seems to me,” says Alford, “to be this: the words ‘I am thy God’ imply a covenant. There is another side to them: “Thou art mine” follows upon “I am thine.” When God, therefore, declares that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He declares their continuance, as the other parties in this covenant. It is an assertion which could not be made of an annihilated being of the past.”
Luke 20:38. All live unto Him.—I.e., none are annihilated; those who have passed away from earth and are counted by us as dead, are living in the sight of God. See this same thought expounded in Romans 14:8 and Acts 17:28.
Luke 20:39. Thou hast well said.—The Pharisees as a class would be glad to see their opponents, the Sadducees, refuted, and some of them were evidently generous enough to express their feelings of admiration at the wisdom displayed by Jesus on this occasion.
Luke 20:40. Durst not ask.—I.e., did not presume to frame any more captious questions, or to endeavour to entrap Jesus in His teaching.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 20:27-40
The Question Concerning the Resurrection.—There does not seem to have been any sinister intention on the part of the Sadducees who now approached Christ, saying that there is no resurrection, and stating a case which seemed, in their opinion, to cast ridicule upon the doctrine. They came to him with a stale piece of casuistry, conceived in a spirit of self-complacent ignorance, but still sufficiently puzzling to furnish them with an argument for their disbelief, and with a difficulty to throw in the way of their opponents. It was drawn from what is called the levirate law of marriage, appointed by Moses to limit and curtail certain evils in the rude state of society then existing. A certain woman was married successively to seven brethren. Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection? What a confused state of society there must be in the future world—if, indeed, there is a world beyond the grave! Christ might have dismissed the stupid and frivolous question with contempt. If He had replied that the woman would be the wife of the first or of the last of the brethren, the Sadducees could scarcely have invalidated the reasonableness of the statement. But He was pleased to do more than rebuke the presumptuous ignorance of the questioners; He draws aside the veil that hides the future world, and gives us a glimpse of new conditions of life there, and also bestows upon mankind definite assurance of the immortality of the soul.
I. He refutes the erroneous opinions of the Sadducees (Luke 20:34-36).—He shows that their question went on the false theory that the forms and relations of the present, sensible life would be transferred to the future, spiritual life. In the resurrection-state there will not be a repetition, pure and simple, of our present conditions. It will not be a state of probation, but of perfect and unending blessedness. The children of the resurrection will be children of God, partakers of His nature, and subject no longer to the law of change and death which prevails here. Here it is but the species, the race, that has perpetuity; there the individual life is assured of immortality. No provision will, therefore, be necessary for the succession and renewal of the race. The Sadducees had virtually denied the power of God by asserting that life in another world must be a mere reflex and repetition of the life of the children of this world. With the shallowness and dogmatism that so often distinguish men of the rationalistic school to which they belonged, they took for granted that that which was incomprehensible to them must be set aside as untenable. And therefore Christ reminds them (Matthew 22:29) of the infinite power of God from whom all life comes—who created the present order of things, and who is able to re-form or transform our beings, and to fit us for life in a new and higher sphere of existence.
II. He points out that the doctrine of immortality is implied in the Divine revelation to man (Luke 20:37-38).—The words of Christ plainly indicate that belief in the immortality of the soul is bound up with the very idea of religion. It is as though He had said, “You believe that God has spoken to men, summoned them to faith in Him, and to a life of obedience to His will, and that He has formed a covenant with them. How could God place Himself in so near a relation to individual men, and ascribe to them so high a dignity, if they were mere perishable existences?—if they had not a being akin to His own, and destined to immortality?” We may note the fact that the promise of blessings made when this special relationship was established between God and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was not fulfilled in this life. There was nothing in their earthly lot which distinguished them from others of their time, to whom no such promise was given. They had hardships and trials like other men, and confessed that that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. In obedience to the call of God they gave up the ties of country and kindred; “wherefore God gave them a better country, that is an heavenly.” The promise was not that God would reward their obedience by blessing them with wealth, length of years, tranquillity, or other earthly benefits, but that He would be their God. It was not limited by the condition that He would be their God so long as their earthly life would continue. And, centuries after the mortal bodies of these patriarchs had mouldered into dust, God spoke to Moses of His covenant with them (which was also their covenant with Him), as still existing, and of them, therefore, as in possession of that heavenly and eternal inheritance after which they had longed. The Sadducees had probably supposed that the words simply meant, “I am the God in whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob trusted.” Yet to what had their trust come, if there were no resurrection? To death and nothingness, and an everlasting silence, and a land of darkness, after a life so full of trials that the last of these patriarchs had described it as a pilgrimage of few and evil years. Though we may never at any time cherish doubts concerning the facts of a resurrection and of the immortality of the soul, as these Sadducees did, we may derive spiritual strength and consolation from these words of Christ, especially from the way in which He associates these doctrines with God’s mercy and condescension. He does not merely assert that, from the constitution of our nature, we are immortal, or that, from His own personal knowledge of the unseen world, He can assure us of the fact, but He points out that it is necessarily implied in the communion of the believer with His God. God has come near to us, and called us to love Him, and to be conformed to His will; if we obey Him, He takes us into His keeping, and makes us partakers of His own nature. The truth, as Christ expounds it, is not merely calculated to satisfy an intellectual curiosity which only few may feel, but to allay those doubts and fears concerning the future which, from time to time, trouble the hearts and consciences of all—not merely to assure us that there is a future world, but that it will be well there with all those who trust in God. He knows His own, each by name; His covenant is with each of them personally, it is an eternal bond between Him and them, and is a sure pledge of their highest welfare.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 20:37-40
Luke 20:27-33. The Question of The Sadducees: designed
(1) to set forth the unreasonableness of the popular faith, and
(2) as an apology for their own unbelief. Yet propounded in a somewhat frivolous and sarcastic spirit.
Luke 20:34-36. The Reply of Christ.
I. The conditions of life in the world to come are absolutely different from those of the present world.
II. Death being abolished, marriage, which was instituted in order to preserve the race from extinction, will come to an end.
Luke 20:36. “Children of God.”—Lit., “sons of God.” On earth men are sons one of another; but there each one will receive his new body from God Himself, by an immediate Divine action, so that, as among the angels, there will be no relation of filiation; hence the latter are all called “the sons of God.”—Godet.
Luke 20:37. “Now that the dead are raised.”—Christ does not remain satisfied with having triumphed over His opponents, but, knowing they are entangled in error, adds to His reply a further word of enlightenment.
“God of Abraham,” etc.—A twofold relation:—
I. That by which God takes Abraham under His especial care.
II. That by which Abraham makes God the only object of his worship and his sole refuge.
Luke 20:38. “Live unto Him.”—I.e., in relation with Him. The ties between them and men on the earth are broken, but they live in communion with God.
The God of the Living.—Our Lord’s refutation of the Sadducees’ question lay—
I. In exposing their ignorance of the heavenly nature.—Spiritual bodies are angelic; their relationship is that of brothers and sisters in a great family.
II. God’s words through Moses imply the continued life in the unseen.—That which is dead cannot realise or do its part to God, neither can God do His part to it. The “dead” really live. And life implies union of soul and body. Death seems division, but to God it is not really so. The “dead” body is in some calculable relation to the departed spirit, and they will come together again.
III. What are the consequences of Christ’s teaching?—
1. As regards the body. In heaven’s language the body never really dies. Do not despise the body. You may long for its renewal. But meanwhile honour, reverence, use well, the body.
2. As respects the spirit. It is not dormant. It, too, “lives.” Nearer to the fountain of life, drinking in more of its living waters.
IV. Who, then, are the dead?—Those who, in life, are living separate from their own souls. Awful words! Not considering their soul, not loving their soul, soulless. And so both soul and body are separate from God. These are the truly dead.—Vaughan.
Luke 20:39-40. “Thou hast well said.”—On hearing this prompt and sublime reply, the scribes, who had sought in vain for that which Jesus had with such ease brought to light, could not refrain from expressions of joy and surprise; and as they saw that every snare laid for Him only brought His wisdom into clearer relief, they abandoned this mode of attack.—Godet.