“THE GOD OF THE LIVING”
LUKE 20:27-40
I. Introduction
“Doctrine is divisive, but love unites.” Those words, or others just like them, are becoming more common among evangelical Christians today. In many Christian churches the very mention of the word “doctrine” elicits negative responses. Believers who want to promote the study of doctrine (biblical truth) are often accused of being arrogant, thinking they alone possess the truth. Such arrogance, they are told, makes them unkind and unloving.
One pastor I knew foolishly argued against preaching and teaching doctrine because he believed it was far more important to preach and teach love. He used to say the exercise of love was like meat for adults. He’d say love was a mark of a mature Christian, but doctrinal issues, discussions, and debates were like milk for babies. Furthermore, they were marks of less mature Christians. “Doctrine is milk, but love is meat!” Such thinking is utterly ludi-crous, but it’s not uncommon in the evangelical church today.
One of the inevitable results of this growing disdain for biblical doctrine is that tolerance for a wide variety of beliefs about theology – another word that evokes negative responses – has not only worked its way into the church, it has become elevated to one of the cardinal virtues in the church. After all, they say, tolerance for others’ points of view leads to unity, which is one of the other cardinal virtues. Thus, tolerance and unity reign, everyone loves everyone else, and they all feel good about it. “And isn’t that what it’s all about?”
They say things like, “Look at where debates about doctrinal purity have led us. There have been centuries of shameful division among Christians. Life, experiences, and feelings are what truly matter. Doctrine and theology are dry as dust. They’re fine in the seminary, but not in the church.”
This shallow thinking leaves too many Christians starving for truth and wandering around knowing precious little about what they say they believe. Others think they know what they believe but have no idea why they believe it. And when their beliefs are challenged, few of them can present a logical defense of their faith. Why? It’s because so few believers have a solid foundation in biblical truth and sound doctrine. So it should come as a surprise to no one when such people are so easily swayed into believing lies, and when they’re found ripe for the picking by every false teacher and cult out there.
Liberal theologians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Jesus Only” Charismatics, and people who’ve been caught up in the so-called “Word-Faith Movement” are just some of those who present tempting cases to the believer who knows little or no sound doctrine.
In this morning’s text in Luke’s gospel, the conflict between Jesus and those who hold to false doctrine will continue.
They’ll present Jesus with a question about the resurrection of the dead, a doctrine they reject. Yet they’ll ask Him to apply that doctrine to a ridiculous scenario they’ll invent. It’s all about making Jesus (and His doctrine) look foolish.
In order to set the stage, let me say this: When the representatives of the sect of the Saddu-cees ask Him their question, here is how Jesus will not respond. He will not say, “Guys, the most important thing is that we all love each other. We all love God, don’t we? Some of you say there is a resurrection of the dead. Some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead. But since none of you can know for certain, we won’t debate it. Let’s just get together on the things we can agree on and sing songs that make us feel good. Love, not doctrine, is the most important thing.”
That’s not what Jesus will say, or even imply. Rather, He will tell his questioners that they are greatly mistaken. Sound doctrine matters! One of the reasons it matters is because doc-trinal error disconnects us from the God of truth. And ask yourself this: How can you truly love someone who’s believing lies and embracing false doctrine? How can you love them and not warn them of their error? Doctrine mattered to Jesus, and it should matter to us.
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II. Review
By way of review, we’ve been studying the last week of Jesus’ life on this earth. He’s been preaching and teaching on Solomon’s porch in the temple in Jerusalem. The more He says, the more His enemies want Him dead, and they’re going after Him in every way they can.
In Luke 20:1-8 the chief priests and scribes challenged Jesus’ authority. They said, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authori-ty?” In vv. 9-18 Jesus told the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. In it He identified Himself as the Son of God and indicted them, the Jewish religious leaders, as His murderers. Then in vv. 19-26 the Pharisees and Herodians questioned Jesus about obeying the laws of men or God. They asked, “Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Try as they might, no one could outwit Jesus or “trip Him up.” In v. 26 Luke says, “…they were unable to catch Him in a saying in the presence of the people; and marveling at His answer(s), they became silent.” But Jesus’ enemies had one more card to play. The chief priests, the scribes (lawyers), the Pharisees, and the Herodians had all failed in their attempts to find Jesus guilty of a crime against Rome or blasphemy against God. Maybe they could make Him look like a fool in front of all the people. So they would send the Sadducees to ask Jesus a question that would not only be impossible to answer, but would also ridicule His teaching. “What a great idea! This’ll get ‘im!”
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III. Text
When you first read this morning’s text, you may be tempted to think it’s primarily about a widow remarrying multiple times.
Instead of seven brides for seven brothers, it’s one bride for seven brothers. Then, as you look at it a little closer, you may think that it’s about the Sadducees’ foolish attempt to do discredit Jesus, which was something no one else had been able to do. All of that is true, but the real issue, the issue at the heart of the text, is doctrinal truth as opposed to error.
Keep that in mind as we look at the Jewish religious leaders’ third attempt to discredit the Lord Jesus. The question they pose is constructed around a silly premise about marriage and a serious error about resurrection. But the Sadducees could care less about this fictional widow’s husbands. They were trying to prove that having faith in the resurrection of the dead was pure folly. But the OT taught the resurrection. The resurrection was sound doc-trine. The Sadducees just didn’t believe it.
*Luke 20:27-40 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
27 Now there came to Him some of the Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrec-tion),
28 and they questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that, ‘…if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up offspring to his brother.’
29 “Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died childless;
30 and the second
31 and the third took her; and in the same way all seven died, leaving no child-ren.
32 “Finally the woman died also.
33 “In the resurrection therefore, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in mar-riage,
35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrec-tion from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage;
36 for neither can they die anymore, for they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
37 “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
38 “Now He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him.”
39 And some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.”
40 For they did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything.
As I said, the heart of the issue before us in this text is sound doctrine, and just how it is that sound doctrine affects our thinking and our daily lives. Some doctrines are so important that to deny or pervert them is to deny or pervert Christianity itself.
These would include the Trinity, the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the deity of Christ, His birth in human flesh, His substitutionary atonement for our sins, His bodily resurrection from the dead, His bodily return, the judgment to come, and salvation by grace through faith alone. Every true Christian believes these things. Anyone who denies any of these doctrinal truths, regardless of what else they may or may not believe, is not a Christian. It’s really no more complicated than that.
Other doctrines do not reach that level, but are of critical importance because they affect how we live our Christian lives in this lost and dying world. It may be that the most contro-versial of these issues is the battle that rages over Calvinism versus Arminianism. Here’s a quote from Steven J. Cole, Senior Pastor of Flagstaff Christian Fellowship in Flagstaff, AZ.
“Holding to the Calvinistic view of God’s sovereignty in salvation dramatically affects a person’s view of God and of human nature. It affects how we deal with suf-fering, how we evangelize the lost, our doctrine of prayer, and many other practical issues. But those who hold to the Arminian view are still, for the most part, men who have been born again by God’s sovereign grace, even though they think it was by their free will! We must treat them as brothers in Christ, not as heretics.”
I think that’s well said. I suspect most of us, when we first came to saving faith in Christ, thought we made the decision to do so by exercising our own “free will.” It was only later, when we began to study and understand the Scriptures, that we came to the realization that the decision to save us was made by a sovereign God in eternity past. Ephesians 1:4 says, “…He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
Then there are some doctrines, like the various modes of water baptism or the order of events of the end times, that are worthy of study and discussion. They can be fascinating topics. But disagreements over them should never cause division among Christians.
So some doctrines make for lively debate, some are important enough to have an effect on how we think and how we live our lives. And some literally define whether or not we are truly saved. The resurrection is one of those. It’s been called a “fundamental of the faith.”
*Luke 20:27-28
27 Now there came to Him some of the Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrec-tion),
28 and they questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that, ‘…if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up offspring to his brother.’
The beliefs and religious practices of the Pharisees and the Sadducees were vastly different. While the Pharisees placed great value on the entire OT and their own traditions, the Saddu-cees only followed the written word. Furthermore, they believed the Pentateuch, as written by Moses, was of greater value than the rest of the OT.
But most of the teaching about the resurrection comes after the Pentateuch. Listen to just a few of those teachings.
Job 19:26
26 “Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God.”
Psalm 17:15
15 As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.
Psalm 49:15
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol (the grave); for He will receive me.
Psalm 139:7-8
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
The point is simply this: If you find yourself in the presence of the Lord it means you still exist in the presence of the Lord, doesn’t it? And if any question remains, Isaiah says, “Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy (26:19a).” And listen to Daniel.
Daniel 12:2
2 “…those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.”
Whereas the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, and angels and demons, the Sadducees did not believe in those things. Beyond that, the Sadducees rejected the whole idea of God’s eternal decrees – things that we would associate with divine sovereignty – so they believed in the freedom of the will. Individually, they were usually wealthy. Corporately, they wielded a lot of political power. With that power they tended to support the status quo in both social and political circles. “We like things the way they are – don’t rock the boat!”
The Pharisees were trying to work their way into heaven, and the Sadducees were trying to accumulate wealth and power in this life. But Jesus had been exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and He had been threatening the social and political status quo in Israel. So even though the two sects had next to nothing in common, and even though their agendas and goals were radically different, and even though the Pharisees and Sadducees just did not like each other, there was one thing they could agree on – this Jesus was “rocking the boat.” So they would lay aside their differences and work together put Him out of the boat!
In v. 28 the Sadducees were shrewd in asking the question they did because it would not only serve to ridicule Jesus’ teaching about the resurrection, it would also mock the Phari-sees’ belief in it. “Two birds with one stone!”
Their question, albeit an absurd one, has its roots in Deuteronomy where the law required the brother of a deceased man to bear children with the dead man’s wife so that the deceased brother’s genealogical line would continue.
*Deuteronomy 25:5-6
5 “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go into her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. (Why?)
6 “And it shall be that the first-born whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, (so) that his name may not be blotted out from Israel.”
Israel was to be the channel for the Messiah, the Christ. In v. 6 you can see that this was one of God’s ways of protecting and preserving the nation for His ultimate purpose. But what would happen if there were multiple husbands? While the Pharisees would obsess over such things, the Sadducees would make a joke of them. So here is their question. It’s so foolish as to be laughable. (back to the text)
*Luke 20:29-33
29 “Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died childless;
30 and the second
31 and the third took her; and in the same way all seven died, leaving no child-ren.
32 “Finally the woman died also.
33 “In the resurrection therefore, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”
Is it possible such a thing has happened sometime somewhere? Of course, it’s possible, but it’s hardly likely. You can’t help but be reminded of the female black widow spider who, after she mates, turns and kills the male. This woman is dangerous! Marrying her can be fatal. I mean, what if you’re the fourth brother, or the fifth? Wouldn’t you take the next caravan out of town, or just look for a really fast camel and hit the road?
But seriously… You can almost see the smirk on the faces of these Sadducees who have the gall to present our Lord Jesus with this absurdity. But why wouldn’t they? They don’t know who He is, they have no respect for Him or His teachings, and to them, the resurrec- tion is nothing but a joke.
How does Jesus respond? Luke tells us that in the next few verses He corrects them. But in Matthew’s account of this incident, Jesus is more forceful.
Matthew 22:29
29 But Jesus…said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scrip-tures, or the power of God.”
This is a “verbal slap down” of these smug and arrogant men. Remember that they were rich, important, powerful, and thought they knew the Law of Moses better than anyone. They did not make mistakes, and they understood everything. How dare anyone tell them otherwise! But what Jesus told them was essentially, and I paraphrase, “You’re wrong, you don’t know what you’re talking about, and you have no idea who God really is.”
The lesson for us should be clear. If you don’t understand God’s Word, how can you expect to understand God? And if you don’t understand God, you are spiritually blind and deaf. This is why doctrine, sound doctrine, is so important for all of us! (back to Luke 20)
*Luke 20:34-36
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in mar-riage,
35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrec-tion from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage;
36 for neither can they die anymore, for they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
The Sadducees get it wrong twice! There is not marriage in heaven and there is a resurrec-tion. That’s sound doctrine. Notice the words “this age” in v. 34, which refers to this life here on earth, and “that age” in v. 35, which refers to eternal life in heaven. We live tem-porary married lives here, not there. We will live eternal resurrected lives there, not here.
In v. 35 Jesus speaks of those who are “considered worthy.” We know that none of us are worthy in ourselves. So what does He mean? Those who are worthy are those whom God, by grace, has chosen to save and resurrect to eternal life. They and they alone are “worthy to attain to that age…” where there is no marriage. All right, but why is there no marriage?
• First, in v. 36, Jesus says that people will not die. Hence, there will be no need to propagate the race, no need to replace anyone.
• Second, there will be no need for the imperfect intimacy of the sexual union with a person of the opposite sex because that intimacy will be perfected by the spiritual union with God in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our heavenly Bridegroom, is He not?
• Third, the redeemed in glory are sons of God, having been born of Him, and are there-fore, like Him.
In v. 36 Jesus says the redeemed in heaven are like angels. He’s not saying they are angels; He says that they are like angels. In what respect will we be like angels? We’ll be like them in that we’ll possess eternal life. Just as a son possesses the identity of his earthly father, so too, we will possess the identity of our heavenly Father. Aren’t we children of God?
1 John 3:2
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.
One more thing before we move on – none of what Jesus has said indicates that husbands and wives will be separated in heaven. Though we husbands and wives will not be married in the earthly sense of the term, our relationships will be perfected. The intimacy we know and experience in this life here on earth is merely a symbol, a picture of an infinitely greater intimacy that we will know and experience in glory.
Marital joy will not be taken away. On the contrary, it will be multiplied as we live in bliss and harmony that’s beyond our comprehension in the here and now. And more than that, our relationships with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ will be perfected as well.
Jesus’ answer in Luke 20:34-36 eliminates the need for the Sadducees to ask their question. You don’t need to worry about which of those seven brothers that black widow spider will be married to in heaven. There’s no marriage in heaven. But what about the resurrection?
*Luke 20:37-38
37 “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
38 “Now He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him.”
Remember the Sadducees claimed to believe in, and place great emphasis on the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Pentateuch, or the Torah. These books were written by Moses. So Jesus will use Moses’ writings to correct the Sadducees’ error in saying that there is no resurrection. The implication is clear. “If Moses wrote it, and Moses believed it, why don’t you?” When Moses met God at the burning bush, God identified Himself.
Exodus 3:6
6 “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…”
Listen please; this is careful exegesis of a passage with careful attention given to the verb tenses. There’s no smoke or mirrors to cloud our thinking. There’s no playing fast and loose with an interpretation in order to get the Bible to say what I want it to say. God says, “I am the God of your fathers…” He does not say, “I was the God of your fathers…” He is telling Moses, and again I paraphrase, “Your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead, but they live. I am, therefore, they are.”
The fact is that if God is alive, our loved ones, our brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone on before us, are alive too. Do you see? This isn’t fantasy or wishful thinking. This is Jesus’ salient point in Luke 20:38 – “…(God) is not the God of the dead, but of the living…”
On the day that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He told his sister Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies (John 11:25).” Then they went to the tomb, Jesus called to the dead man, and the living Lazarus walked out.
Jesus used the truth of the Scriptures against the unbelief of the Sadducees. He didn’t argue with them, or even try to reason with them. He just tells them they are wrong. Mark’s gos-pel says Jesus told them, “…you are greatly mistaken (Mark 12:27),” as He took them apart with sound doctrine. “Oh, how we need to know sound doctrine!” Nothing else will do.
So how does the crowd respond to all of this?
*Luke 20:39-40
39 And some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.”
40 For they did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything.
How beautiful, how wonderful, how magnificent is this! Nothing can stand against truth.
Nothing can stand against sound doctrine.
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IV. Conclusion
We should care about doctrine because Jesus cared about it. He taught that there is doctrinal truth and there is doctrinal error, and He taught that truth matters. In one of Paul’s lists of the qualifications for elders, he speaks of the importance of doctrine.
Titus 1:9b
9b (an elder must be able) …to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.
Let me close with some practical advice…
• If you are unclear of some aspect of doctrine, please don’t pretend you understand it, or just ignore it. Ask me or one of the elders and we’ll be more than happy to talk about it.
• We all have busy lives, but I urge you to make time to spend in your Bible. Pray and read; read and pray. Let the Spirit of God teach you. We often tell new Christians to read the Gospel of John. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, dive into Romans. There’s a reason it’s often called “the high water mark of the NT.”
• Maybe most important of all – do not buy into the modern church philosophy of sacri-ficing truth on the altar of tolerance and unity. We are called to be kind, gentle, and gracious, but we must never compromise truth.
~ Pray ~