Mark: According to

Part 60

Mark 12:18-27

Taxes and Death part 2

In our last post, we talked about the Taxes aspect of Christ’s interaction with the Pharisee, Herodians, Priests and Sadducees. Today we will look into the Death part. Have no fear, it is not as grew-some as you would think. It is actually quite encouraging.

¹⁸ Then some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him; and they asked Him, saying: ¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁰ Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife; and dying, he left no offspring. ²¹ And the second took her, and he died; nor did he leave any offspring.   And the third likewise. ²² So the seven had her and left no offspring. Last of all the woman died also. ²⁴ Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”

The Sadducees are a group of religious leaders that accepted only the Law of Moses, the Torah, our first five books of the Bible as the word of God. They did not accept the rest of the Old Testament. They did not believe in the existence of the soul, life after death, resurrection, final judgement, angels or demons (see Acts 23:8). Strangely, most of the Sadducees were priests and were wealthy. They considered themselves the “religious aristocrats” of Judaism and tended to look down on everybody else.

They brought a hypothetical question to Jesus, based on the law of marriage as given in Deuteronomy 25:7-10. As we have just seen, this hypothetical woman had seven husbands during her life time, all brothers and all of whom had died. Therefore, they asked, “If there is such a thing as future resurrection, then she must spend eternity with seven husbands!?” It seemed like a perfect argument as most arguments are that are based on hypothetical situations.

The Sadducees thought that they were smart, but Jesus soon revealed their ignorance of two things. The first is the power of God and the second is the truth of Scripture.

Resurrection is not the restoration of life as we know it. Instead it is the entrance into a new life that is different from that which we already have known. The same God who created the angels and gave them their nature is able to give us the new bodies we will need for a new life in heaven. (I Corinthians 15:38).

Jesus was not implying that we would become like the angel in everything. Interestingly sinful man after Christ comes in the clouds of glory will be elevated and become slightly higher than the angels (John 17:22-24; I John 3:1-2). The Sadducees proved that the education can be as ignorant and as steeped in error as the unlearned. Wise in their own philosophy though the Sadducees were their information on this subject was incomplete, and there was at least one vital factor they had not considered. – The power of God.” Jesus went on to show that although the doctrine of the resurrection may not be as explicitly taught in the Old Testament as some might wish, it is implicit throughout the Old Testament.

The Sadducees are said to have prided themselves on being more exact students of the Scriptures than the Pharisees, but Jesus here asserts that in spite of all their vaunted knowledge of the Word of God, they are profoundly ignorant. Theological concepts based on speculative reasoning from incomplete information are certain to lead astray those who resort to this fanciful method of arriving at truth. Christians today should beware lest they, too, “err, not knowing the scriptures.”

You and I are procreated beings have been formed because of the union of a man and a woman. Angels are not procreated, they are created beings. The original need for mankind to procreate was to fill the earth with people because it all started with just Adam and Eve. In heaven, there are 10,000 x 10,000 and thousand upon thousands of more angles that did not come about by procreation but creation. Therefore, when we reach heaven and eventually return to a remade earth, there will be no need for procreation because the earth will once again be full of people. A people that have been made righteous by their faith in Christ’s saving grace. Therefore, the point Jesus was making was that it doesn’t matter how many times she had been married, marriage completed man and woman upon an earth that needed to be filled, but not in an earth that is already filled with the redeemed saints. Thus, the hypothetical question of the Sadducees was made mute when one understood the regenerating of the person and body of the righteous at Christ’s second coming. They will be made complete in heaven by Christ as they had been made complete on earth which was represented by the use of the number seven in illustrating the number of times this woman had been married.

The things that brought completeness on this earth, will not be necessary to bring completeness in heaven or on an earth made new.

Through Christ, we will be restored to completeness in Christ, who broke the power of death when he died on the cross and then rose from the dead. Through Christ salvation is made complete and we are made complete through Christ, reconciled to God, through Christ.

His teaching astonished those that heard him and should astonish us today as well. Jesus cut through the traditions of mankind to bring us the truth of the gospel message that we can only be complete, when we being transformed by the power of Christ. Christ which bring completeness, that the human heart has been yearning for since Eve and then Adam sinned so many years ago.

But Christ was not done, nor were the Pharisees for again they asked of him a question which we will examine in our next post.

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