I had a Professor who taught that there is no such thing as a bad question. I doubt the Professor had kids or a daily talk show on the radio.

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1 Introduction In Luke 20 Jesus has defended his authority (vv.1-18); destroyed the religious leaders strategy to trap Jesus (vv.19-26); demolishing their theology (vv.27-38) and will declare His deity (vv.39-44). The Herodians failed to trap Jesus with the question about Caesar and taxes. Now the Sadducees are going to give it a shot. The Sadducees hope to humiliate Jesus. Politics divide people. So does religious doctrine. The fact that people are divided over political issues does not mean we stop governing ourselves. The fact that people are divided over doctrine does not mean there is no such thing as biblical truth. I had a Professor who taught that there is no such thing as a bad question. I doubt the Professor had kids or a daily talk show on the radio. There are bad questions. And what is worse, there are bad motives behind bad questions. If you ask a question in order to deceive, confuse, aggravate, humiliate, obfuscate, then something is wrong with that question or with you. Have you ever asked a question, not so much to get truth, but to get you off the hook? What do you mean? You might ask. Have you ever asked a priest or a pastor, Can God make a rock so big even He can t lift it? Or Where did Cain get his wife? You don t really care if God can make a rock that big, you don t even care where Cain got his wife. What you care about is avoiding or ignoring the central questions of our existence. Is there a God? Has He revealed Himself? Is Jesus Christ God and King? What happens when you die? Does it matter if Jesus Christ rose from the dead? The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is important only if it is true. If it is true, there are eternal consequences. A Preposterous Question (vv.27-33) Luke 20:27 (NKJV); Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, The Sadducees were descendants of Zadok the High Priest. Zadok supported Solomon in the building of the First Temple. The Sadducees were linked to the Temple and denied basic Bible doctrines. They were descendants of the Temple rulers. Many Sadducees served on the ruling council of the nation, called the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees had an anti-supernatural bias. They denied the existence of the spirit world. They were small in number but influential because of power and wealth. They had very different beliefs about God, the Bible and the afterlife. This group basically believed that good and evil were in the human heart. They would not subscribe to the belief in a literal Satan or a literal hell. They did not believe in a future judgment. Acts 1

2 23:8; For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. which deny that there is any resurrection. The Sadducees based their unbelief in the resurrection in part because of a basic misunderstanding of the purpose for a resurrection. Why would God want to raise up our bodies? What purpose does our body serve? Do we have relationships which survive into the next life? Since they denied the existence of an eternal soul, supernatural beings other than God, they believed it was absurd to believe in a literal heaven or a literal hell. They were not content to deny the supernatural! They held people who believed in the supernatural in contempt. Contempt is the act of viewing someone or something as vile and worthless! The historian Josephus describes the Sadducees as speaking rudely to everyone, even among themselves! Charles Ashcraft writes; Perhaps the greatest sin one person can exert against another is contempt. To exercise contempt is to invite contempt. Any person who looks with contempt upon another sets in motion an evil force which rarely stops. The Sadducees held the Pharisees in contempt. The Pharisees held the Sadducees in contempt. Both religious groups held Jesus in contempt. Do you hold people in contempt? If they don t share your religious or political views? Do you hold people in contempt who act out sinful behavior? Do you believe they are vile, and worthless because they do not share your ideas, opinions, beliefs worldview? Because the Sadducees dismissed the supernatural on its face, it caused them to stumble in many areas. Like many people they started to scorn things spiritual and ridicule those who believed the Bible was true when it spoke of miracles. Like many people today, the Sadducees believed only natural explanations for physical phenomena. For the Sadducees, anyone who held a position contrary to theirs was considered illogical, unthinking, naïve, superstitious. For the most part, the Sadducees believed heaven and hell were right here on this earth. Life was what you made it! In at least one sense the Sadducees were correct; for some the unbeliever, this is as close to heaven as they get. For some the Christian the believer this is the closest to hell we will ever be. The ruling Sadducees believed their position was orthodox. They only believed in the first five books of the Bible were from God. They rejected as authoritative the writings of the Old Testament prophets. The Sadducees were not the only people in the ancient world who denied or rejected the supernatural. Some Greeks taught a doctrine concerning the transmigration of souls but an actual resurrection was laughable to the Greek mind. A real resurrection was unthinkable. When Paul went to Athens and spoke on Mars Hill to the Greek philosophers he was received with mockery by some and interest by others. 2

3 Acts 17:18 (NKJV); Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, What does this babbler want to say? Others said, He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. The Sadducees embraced the materialism of this world and rejected the promise of eternal life in the next world. Luke 20:28 (NKJV); saying: Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. The Sadducees question is rooted in the ancient practice of Levirite marriage. Levirite comes from a Latin word which means a husband s brother. It has nothing to do with the tribe of Levi in the Bible. The practice is described in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a brother dies and leaves his wife childless, the surviving brother had a responsibility to raise a family with the dead man s wife. The practice may seem strange, bizarre, even a little creepy! The purpose of levirate marriage was to keep the family intact and preserve the wealth of the family and have a mechanism for the transfer of property. Luke 20:29 (NKJV); Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. Luke 20:30 (NKJV); And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Luke 20:31 (NKJV); Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Luke 20:32 (NKJV); Last of all the woman died also. You have to wonder what she put in their soup. They may have borrowed the story or the idea from the apocryphal book of Tobit, which tells the story of a woman who married seven times only to have each husband strangled by a demon in the bed chamber on the wedding night (see Tobit 3:18; 6:13; 7:11). The religious leaders think they have Jesus over a barrel. Luke 20:33 (NKJV); Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife. Are there dumb questions? The short answer is yes. But for purposes of discussion let s just say there are two kinds of questions, honest and dishonest. There are people who want to know the truth about God. There are other people who could care less about the truth. I have met many people who come up with stupid and divisive questions. They do not desire to know the truth, but hide from their own sin. People are reluctant to recognize their need for a Savior. 3

4 Was Jonah really swallowed by a sea creature? Dennis Tice sang; Did Adam and Eve have navels or blank spot were it should be? Do other folks lie awake at night or is it only me? Thinkin about the question that plagues all mankind; belly-button fuzz wuzza part of creation, how could I be so blind? I think I ll start a church someday to preach this creed of mine! Cuz Adam and Eve had navels and I ll prove it at the end of time. Yeah, I m splittin hairs for Jesus for more spirituality I shared this truth with all the land and navelism grew A thousand members growing strong (Cuz I preach salvation too) But now the church is splitten over some technicality, Did their buttons go in or pop out, how picky can they be? A Biblical Analysis (vv.34-36) Luke 20:34 (NKJV); Jesus answered and said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. Jesus begins by reminding the religious leaders of life in this world. People in this world marry. Luke 20:35 (NKJV); But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; Some people stumble over the use of the term But those who are counted worthy to attain that age. Let me point out a couple of things Jesus makes it clear that there are those who are not counted worthy to attain that age. We know that a human being cannot work his or her way into heaven. We also know all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know there are none righteous not even one (Rom.3:10). There is none who does good, no, not one (Rom.3:12). No one is worthy. A person must be accounted worthy, or counted worthy. Worthiness must be gotten from some foreign source; a perfect source Jesus Christ the Lord. Scripture tells us that it is a man or a woman s faith confidence in Jesus Christ that gives us the opportunity to be counted righteous. God takes our faith and counts it as righteousness. Romans 4:23-25 (NKJV); Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Romans 5:1 (NKJV); Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, People are not married in heaven. There is a very special and wonderful reason why we neither marry nor are given in marriage in the eternal state, in heaven. Love is perfected. Our future life and our future relationships will be holy, and perfected. We will not love each other with an imperfect love, but rather with a perfect love. God will change all 4

5 relationships into perfection, just like the angels enjoy a perfect relationship with each other and with God. Sin and selfishness will not be a part of our lives anymore. Look carefully at the expression and the resurrection from the dead. Jesus is referring to believers. He does not simply say and the resurrection of the dead but rather from the dead meaning from among the dead. John 6:40 (NKJV); And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Luke 20:36 (NKJV); nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. Death is different in the two worlds. In the next world there is no more death. In the next world we are locked in an eternal state. We are given an incorruptible body and existence, living with God forever. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (NKJV); Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. What does it mean; for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection? Jesus says, for they are equal to the angels. The expression is interesting in the Greek language; isangelloi meaning a nature like the angels; the idea is glorification, we will be their peers, living and enjoying fellowship and relationship with God. It means that believers will have all the glorious being and privileges and responsibilities that angels have. But wait there s more! We are sons of God and of the resurrection! We are adopted children of God. Titus 3:7 (NKJV); that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The human mind cannot know the spiritual world apart from revelation. 1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV); But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. The question implies the next world is like this world. If the spirit world was simply a continuation of this world then it makes sense that the next world is the same as this world in both nature and relationships. A Biblical Answer (vv.37-38) 5

6 Luke 20:37 (NKJV); But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Jesus dives right into the heart of the Torah. The book the Sadducees accepted as being from God, He cites Exodus 3:6. You believe in Moses? What did Moses say? In Matthew s gospel Jesus says, Have you not read what was spoken to you by God Jesus holds the word of God to be words spoken by God. Conclusion Luke 20:38 (NKJV); For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him. Look at Jesus argument. (1) God made promises to the Patriarchs concerning the land of Israel and God s Messiah (JESUS). (2) These promises were not fulfilled in their lifetimes. (3) When God spoke to Moses (the final authority as far as the Sadducees were concerned) in the burning bush, the bodies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in the grave dead! (4) Yet God spoke of Himself as the God of the living. (5) He must fulfill His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (6) Therefore, resurrection is an absolute necessity from what we know about the promise of God and the character of God. This is true of every answer! What does the Bible say and what does the character of God reveal? The logic of Jesus is irrefutable! God made a covenant with the Patriarchs. An eternal covenant requires Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to survive death in some real way! Do you know the best way to convince the skeptic your bayonet is made of steel? No! You don t stab him! You cut the button off his shirt. You nick him, just a little. That s what Jesus does as he answers their question. Jesus cuts a little deeper. When Jesus speaks he penetrates right down to our hearts. Jesus cites their own authority. Moses believed in the resurrection. Jesus does not deal with the absurdity of their question. The real issue as far as Jesus was concerned was the heart and soul of their theological question. What happens when you die? Does the soul survive death? Is there a real resurrection from the dead? Jesus is more concerned with the Sadducees unbelief. This is a huge problem. When a person is in the grips of unbelief, they sometimes don t care about the truth. How do you minister to a person who is pressed and pressured by unbelief? You give them large doses of the truth. Their unbelief was really the question behind their question. In Matthews gospel Jesus says; You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Matt,22:29). You don t understand the Word of God or the power of God. This is so typical. Ask the liberal church goer Do you believe in the supernatural? Do you believe in the authority of the Word of God? Is the Bible true? 6

7 Donald Grey Barnhouse writes; And yet these unbelieving minds belonged to people who should have known the Scriptures and the power of God! But they were not interested in having the Scriptures master them; they much preferred to reduce the supernatural Word of God to a system of doctrines that could be used to settle theological arguments. They did not see it as a message from God designed to communicate life. The Sadducees were in trouble because they were ignorant of God s Word and they were ignorant of God s power. By the way almost every error in theology can be traced back to one of those two things. The Word of God and the power of God! The Sadducees did not believe God was capable of raising the dead! We criticize them yet what about us? Should they have believed the Bible? Yes! And so should we! How can we say the Bible is true and then deny it for all practical purposes? How can we say that Jesus can come into our lives, forgive our sin, reconcile us to God, place His Holy Spirit inside of us, but not be sufficient to meet the deepest needs of our lives? How can God forgive sin, sanctify a believer, take our dead and stinking bodies and transform them into eternal vessels, but not heal our souls, change our attitudes and actions? How long will we remain practical atheists in our marriages, on our jobs, in our friendships, in our prayer lives, in the way we deal with one another? God has the power to raise the dead, but He does not have the power to deal with your mental and emotional inconsistencies. He does not have the ability to deliver you from pornography, lying, obsessions with food and sexual addictions? Does God have the power to give you victory in your life? Jesus has the answer. 7