Summary
Pastor Jeremy preaches out of Luke 20:27–44, showing how the Sadducees challenge Jesus with an absurd question about the resurrection, revealing their ignorance of both Scripture and the power of God. Jesus responds by pointing to the hope of eternal life, the reality of the resurrection, and His own identity as David’s Lord, reminding us that our daily lives are shaped by our view of life after death.
Transcript
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 rise 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. And the resurrection therefore, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as a wife. And as 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 the angels and our sons of God. Being sons of the resurrection, but that the dead are rise even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, 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. Now some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well." For they no longer dared to ask him any questions. But he said to them, "How can they say that the Christ is David's son?" For David himself says in the book of the Psalms, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' David thus calls him Lord. So how is he his son?" That is the word of the Lord. Please take your seats. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day. We ask You to speak to us through Your Word, through the Scriptures, that You would not only speak to us but that we would listen, that we would be moved by what You have for us, Lord, that You would refresh us, encourage us, and send us from this place as light in the world. We ask Your blessing on this time in the name of Jesus. Amen. As we think about our neighbors, our neighborhoods, our jobs, our nation, the world, everyone out there, their daily life is shaped by how they view life after death. Many of them are conscious about how their life is lived in connection to life after death. They think about it. You think about the Muslims. A certain group of Muslims believe that by becoming a martyr, you will gain 70 women that belong to you forever. If you think about the New Age movement, they believe your energy should be stewarded by using crystals and cleansing ceremonies, and that that energy will be returned to the universe one day, or even the Mormons. For the Mormons, they raise their families a particular way to guarantee that one day their families will be with them in the afterlife, and if they do things the right way, they will have more spirit children in the next life to come, or even Hindus. They honor certain types of animals because they know that in the reincarnation, they might too become those animals if they don't honor them well. The afterlife is captivating minds all over the world. How does your view of life after death shape your daily life? This morning, we're going to see Jesus confront or be confronted by the third group who's confronted him during what theologians call passion week. This group is called the Sadducees, and they did not believe in the afterlife. They did not believe in the resurrection. They did not believe in a future after the grave, and we're going to see how it impacted the way they engage with Jesus. Let's look through our text, starting in Luke 20 verse 27. "There came to him some Sadducees, those who denied that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question saying, 'Teacher, stop there.' So they approach him with an honorable title, 'Teacher,' which is given to rabbis that were in positions of honor, and they again are people who do not believe in the resurrection. In fact, the book of Acts it says that they not only don't believe in the resurrection, but they don't believe in angels. They don't believe in the supernatural, and when they look at all the scriptures, they exclude those supernatural moments throughout God's Word. No angels, no miracles, and no resurrection. This is who they are. Now they approach Jesus, but I think it's important for us to stop before we get into their approach to recognize that if they're people who are devout in the Word of God, they've maybe missed, not maybe, they've missed a lot of what the Bible has to say about the afterlife, or about life after death. Psalm 116, 8 through 11, the Psalmist says this, "I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand. I shall not be shaken, therefore my heart is glad. My whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells securely. For you will not abandon my soul to shield, or let your holy one seek corruption. You make known to me the path that leads to life, and your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." He goes on to say, "As for me, I shall be hold your face in righteousness. When I wake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness." Psalmist is so clear about this evermore, this future, this hope, and then even Joe makes his comment, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him." And then Daniel makes his comment, and Daniel 12 verse 1, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, in everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and evermore." The Bible is so clear about this picture of hope that we all can look for, that we all long for, but yet these men do not see it. That's the background of the question they have for Jesus. Let's get into it. So they ask him this question. "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 rise up off spring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers, 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, and the resurrection Jesus, therefore whose wife will she be? For seven had her as a wife." These men have been watching Jesus throughout his ministry. They saw the first challenge to his authority after they cleansed the temple, and Jesus taught them the temple's a place of worship and prayer. They saw him recently after Jesus talked about, actually asked him about taxes, and he taught them that it's not about taxes, it's about who your soul belongs to. And then now they're gonna ask him about the resurrection, and Jesus gonna teach them, it's not about the resurrection, it's about the power of God and your understanding of the Scripture. So they've been preparing, they've been considering, they've been observing, and they've been planning to ask their ultimate question. It's an absurd question though, quite absurd, because they don't believe in the resurrection, and so they're trying to design a question that has all these absurdities like seven wives or seven men with one woman. They're making it as difficult as they can to really get Jesus to stumble over this final ultimate question. It's absurd. Now the grounding for this question comes from Deuteronomy, and these men did know the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, and they got this idea from what it teaches in Deuteronomy 24 about a man dying, and if his brother is still alive, he needs to take his wife. It says this in Deuteronomy, "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies, and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brothers shall go into her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duties of a husband, and the first and the first son whom she bears shall succeed the name of the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate my brother, his brother's name in Israel. He will not perform the duties of a husband to me, and the elders of the city shall call him, and speak to him. And if he persists in saying, 'I do not want to wish, I do not want to take this woman,' then the brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot, and spit in his face. And she shall answer, and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house, and the name of the house shall be called in Israel, the house of him who had his sandal pulled off.'" It's a long section. There's a lot of observations you can make here. But what I want you to capture is that it was shameful for a man not to take his brother's wife. And these men knew this. So they throw this absurd story out there for Jesus, and now he's going to deal with that absurd question straightforward. But before we go there, I just had to say, this is a pretty dangerous woman. I mean, not one guy, not two guys, but seven men die from this woman. She's dangerous. Maybe it's mercy that God let her go. But nevertheless, Jesus is going to deal with this absurd story. And really, he's going to deal with it in really two questions in one statement. Two questions in one statement. But in order to get to that first question, I really think it's important. We don't always do this, but I believe it's important for us to go over to the same account in the book of Mark. If you would turn with me there, to Mark 12. Mark 12, as Jesus deals with this challenge to his authority around the resurrection. Mark 12, verse 24. Jesus says to them, after their question, is this not the reason you are wrong? Because you neither know the Scripture nor the power of God. Question mark. They're asking about the resurrection, and he quickly turns it to you don't know God, and you don't know his word. That's why you're asking this question. These men were the kind of men who did not honor God, who did not know God, and therefore when they read the Bible, they read it for their own gain. They were the kind of people who ran the temple system to get money from poor people for their own gain. They were the kind of people when there were people in the community who were lost and struggling, they would abuse them for their own gain. They did not use the Scriptures to point people to Christ, to point people to God, but instead to use it for their own gain. They didn't understand the power of God. I never forget, I went to this little elementary school called Cochrane Baptist Elementary. Cochrane Baptist Elementary was a very Baptist elementary school. We had a lot of Bible, a lot of hymns, a lot of discipline, and I remember one day where the teacher was talking about heaven and hell, and for some reason that day it just got me. Not only the wonders of heaven, but also the reality of hell. And that night I don't remember sleeping too well. I remember going home and like for a little kid it's all about cycles. You wake up every day, you get your breakfast, you go to school, you play a recess, then your parents pick you up from school, you have dinner, you say your prayers, you go to bed, and the cycle just repeats every single day. But for me for this one night I thought about the cycle ending, and I thought about how God is outside of time, outside of space, and He controls eternity. He controls all things, and I for a moment experienced the awe and wonder of God, and how powerful He is, and I remember just feeling like I was in the palm of God's hand, and how could I not trust this God who would control my eternity. And I was captivated by this, and shortly thereafter I gave my life to the Lord because I wanted Him, and I wanted to trust Him, and I wanted to experience the power of God, the awe and wonder of God. That's the very thing these men were missing. Now go back on me to Luke 21. Now there's a statement that Jesus has for these men. The statement is this, "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 our sons of God being sons of the resurrection." Let me stop there. So first observation is there's an age that's happening right now where people are getting married and being given in marriage. We all know that in the Scriptures in the book of Ephesians it talks about marriage and how marriage is a picture of God's love. A picture of the husband loving his wife as Christ's love the church, and that this this marriage that's happening all over the world every day is meant to be a picture of that, but one day it will be consummated in heaven. Therefore marriage is always going to be a shadow of that consummation to come. This is why men and women will not be given in marriage in heaven, because when the fulfillment occurs we will no longer need marriage, because we will be married and in love and in community with the God who created us. That's the first observation. The second one, the comment he makes here is that angels, it says because they are equal to angels and our sons of God. So of course when it says equal to angels he's referring mostly to the fact that we will be eternal from the moment we're created until the moment we move into eternity we will live like the angels did. That's the point. Angels are not equal to us as far as status because the Bible teaches that humans are higher than the angels, but in this case as far as life and death in the eternity angels are equal to humans. And then it says the sons of God. The sons of God is sharing the likeness of the one who created you. If you're a son of the resurrection you're sharing the likeness of the resurrection, the likeness of God. So that's the first thought. He's helping them see this earthly thing you're focusing on is not the point. I think it's also important that these people didn't believe in the angels. That he brings up angels as a point for them to consider. Not only does he acknowledge angels but he also acknowledges the afterlife. They don't believe in angels but he brings it in the story. The next he moves on to Moses. He says, but that the... Oh here this is actually the second question now. No, I'm sorry this is still a statement. But that the... But that there were... I'm sorry. That the dead arise, even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living for all live to him. I want you to notice here it says, but that the dead arise, even Moses showed in the passage. He didn't just say Moses said, but he's pointing back to the fact that these people aren't reading the Scriptures. In the passage, Moses said these things. And then also if you look at what he does here, he takes something from Exodus and puts it right in here. It doesn't say that God was the God of Abraham and was the God of Isaac and was the God of Jacob. But it says I am the God of Jacob. I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. Not past tense but present tense. They didn't die and now they're gone and he was their God when they were alive, but now they're still alive because they are with God. He is the God. He is the I am. And he's the God of the living and they all live to him. All these points he's making are pointing them back to Scriptures that were already talked to them about who they are and about where life will go. He keeps pointing it to them. Now I want you to notice also that the beginning, who asked them the question? The Sadducees. But then who responds after he answers so wisely? The scribes. Sadducees are silent. The scribes enter into the conversation, but they don't say much. They just simply say teacher you have spoken well. They are experts in the law. Experts in what is to be said about the things of God and still not knowing God. But they know that Jesus spoke well about this case. Now let's move on to the final question that Jesus puts here before them. It says they no longer dare to ask him questions and Jesus asked them the final question, which I believe is the grounding for his entire argument since they started. He says this, "How can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' David thus calls him Lord. So how is he his son?" So we start with the power of God that they're missing. We move to the power of the scriptures they're missing, and now he moves to the power of judgment that they're missing. Follow me. When David says this, he says, "The Lord says to my Lord." When David says this, he's talking about the anointed Messiah who will say to the Lord one day and receive the right hand of that Lord and judge all the enemies of God. Who is the anointed one? It's Christ. Christ is saying about himself that I am the anointed one, the Lord, who will say to my Lord and he will have me sit at his right hand. And when I sit at his right hand, what am I going to do? I'm going to judge the enemies of God. Not only Sadducees, do you miss all of the points I already made, but don't miss this. You are an enemy of God. You are an enemy of God, and one day you will stand at the resurrection, and all the enemies of God will be under the foot stole of the Lord of David and the Lord of the heavens. That's why David calls him Lord. That's why this is relevant to the resurrection, because the Messiah will reign in the resurrection and he will judge the living and the dead. Everyone that's an enemy of God will face this day. Everyone who's an enemy of God will consider this moment, and Jesus brings us into the conversation. They thought they were talking about the resurrection, but they were talking about the Word of God and the power of God. I think it's fascinating as we study church history that we find out that the Sadducees cease to exist after AD 70. They cease to exist because all of their lives and all of their thoughts were focused on the seen things. They don't want to think about the supernatural. It's all about what we have now in our hands. They want to control the temple. They want to control the people, but when the temple is gone and the people are gone, they're gone because they have no hope left. They have no future left, and that was tested in actual history because they cease to exist after AD 70. The sect is gone. I think it's fascinating, and I think it's also important for us as we've been going through the book of Luke to reach back in our minds and see all the examples of Christ pointing out how the seen things are contrasted from the unseen things. We as Christians can't get too focused on the seen things. Our hope, our life, our righteousness, our wisdom, our knowledge has given to us from the unseen things, from the revealed words of God, the unseen things. So I want to kind of end this where I started this, and the question is, how does your view of life after death give shape to your daily life? How do you operate in your daily life in a way that's shaped by what's going to happen in the age to come? I have bad news for you and good news for you. The bad news is that there are people out there who are kinder than you are. There are people out there who are more generous than you are. There are people out there who are outdoing other people with honor more than you are. There are people out there who are more faithful to Christ than you are. But at the end of the day, we listen to what John Noy started with. No one is righteous, no not one. Our hope of the afterlife does not hang on how righteous you are, or how generous you are, or how kind you are, or how sweet you are, or how much honor you give. Our hope in life and death is given to us by our love in Christ, our love for Christ, our trust in Christ, our belief in Christ. That's the good news in case you didn't hear it. The bad news is that you don't head up. The good news is that you have Christ. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9, amazing passage. I love it. Here's what it says. "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, nor heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him." You've never seen it. No one has. You've never heard what it's going to be like. No one has. You've never imagined what it's going to feel like. No one has. All we have is our trust, and the fact that He's preparing a place for those who love Him. Do you love Him, church? If you love Him, you receive the resurrection. All the challenges, all the lies, all the pressure Jesus faced was so that we could taste the resurrection from the dead. We come to this table today because the hope we have is that He paid the price through His body, through His blood, so that we can partake in a community that is guided by the resurrection of Christ. This is our hope. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this day. Thank You for the grace You've given us, the life You've given us, and these amazing stories You tell us and how people didn't trust the power of God. People trusted their own abilities, their own wisdom, their own strength, their own generosity, their own power, but it's always been Your power. It's always been Your wisdom. And ultimately, Lord, it's Your life that gives us life. Help us to trust You. Help us to trust You. Help us to trust You, and to give our lives to You. To be free, and to believe that You're preparing a place for us that we have never seen, we have never heard, or we can never imagine, but it's ours in Christ. In the name of Jesus, amen.