Luke 20
DODDLuke 20:27-40
Parallels: Mark 12; Matthew 22
Our Lord proves the resurrection to the Sadducees, and answers their foolish objection against it. Mat. XXII. 23—33; Mark XII. 18—27; Luke XX. 27—40.
LUKE XX. 27.
SECT. THEN on that day in which our Lord had thus confounded the Pharisees and the Herodians, some of the Sadducees came to him, who (as it was before observed) were a set of pretended freethinkers among the Jews, that deny there is any resurrection of the
LUKE XX. 27.
es urge a di cu ty against the resurrection.
ead,ᵃ or any future state in which the soul exists after deathᵇ to receive the reward of its actions. And they applied themselves to Jesus, and asked him a question, in which they put a case which they used often to urge against those who were of a different opinion from themselves, and with which they also hoped to puzzle him: Saying, Master, if there be, as we know thou teachest, a resurrection of the dead, how can this difficulty which we are going to propose be adjusted? Moses, as thou well knowest, said, [and] wrote to us this precept (Deut. xxv. 5), “That if a man’s brother die, and leave a wife and no children behind him, his surviving brother should take his wife, and raise up seed to his brother;” the first child of this second marriage being esteemed the child of the deceased, so as to inherit his whole estate and bear up his name. Now it so happened, that there were with us, in a certain family in our neighbourhood, seven brethren; and the first of these brethren, when he had married a wife, died quickly after, and having had no children, left his wife of course to be married to his brother. And upon this, the second followed the direction of the law, and took her to wife; and he likewise, after he had been some time married, died childless, as his elder brother did. And then the third took her, and he also died as the others had done, without issue: and in like manner also all the rest went on, till every one of the seven brothers had married her; and they all died, and left no children behind them. And last of all the woman herself also died without any issue, not having married into any other family but this. The
ᵃ We deny there is any resurrection.] It is generally known that their master Sadoc, from whom the Sadducees took their name, taught that God was not to be served from mercenary principles, that is (as he crudely explained it), from hope of reward, or fear of punishment. His followers interpreted this as an implicit denial of a future state, and so imbibed that pernicious notion of the utter destruction of the soul at death, equally uncomfortable and absurd. See Drusus, in loc. The story which they mention here seems to have been a kind of commonplace ob-
ection, as we meet with it in the old Jewish writers. See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in loc.
ᵇ Or any future state, &c.] As it is expressly said, Acts xxiii. 8, that they denied any spirit, and consequently the existence of the soul in a separate state, so our Lord’s answer here, and much of St. Paul’s reasoning in 1 Cor. xv. goes on the supposition of such a denial on their part. See 2 Mac. xii. 42–44, where the author proves that Judas believed a resurrection, from his offering sacrifices for the souls of the slain.
Jesus shews their mistaken notion of a res
question therefore is, When they shall rise, as you say they all will, in the general resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven ? for all the seven had her to wife : and as they stood in an equal relation to her, in this world, they all seem to have exactly an equal claim to her in the next.
Thus they attempted in a sneering manner to overthrow all the arguments for a future state, which might be advanced either from reason, or from scripture. And Jesus therefore answered and said to them, It plainly appears from your manner of stating the question, that you are greatly mistaken, and go entirely on a wrong supposition ; not knowing, on the one hand, what is so plainly intimated in the scriptures of a resurrection, which, if well understood, implies no contradiction at all ; nor attending, on the other hand, to the power of God, which is able with infinite ease to effect what to man seems most difficult and improbable.
And as to this particular difficulty which you now object, it ought to be considered, that *the children of this world do indeed marry, and are given in marriage, according to the wise provision which God has made by that institution, for repairing the wastes of mortality by the production of new generations. But they who shall be counted worthy to obtain that blessed world which God has prepared for his people above, and to be admitted to the never fading honours that will succeed the resurrection of good men from the dead, will be in very different circumstances when they shall rise, and neither marry, nor are given in marriage : For they can die no more, and therefore the rise of new generations is no longer necessary ; since in this respect they are equal to the angels of God in heaven,*ᶜ
ᶜ Are equal to the angels of God in heaven.] Matthew and Mark say only that they are as the angels (ἐκ ἀγῆλαι), and though Luke expresses it by a stronger word (ἐκ ἀγῆλαι), that they are equal to the angels, yet all arguments drawn from hence, as proving an entire equality of glorified saints with angels in all respects, must be apparently weak and inconclusive. It is indeed the
glorious scheme of redeeming love to incorporate angels and saints into one happy society under Christ as their common Head (Eph. i. 10) ; but there are subordinations in united societies. And if the fall of the apostate spirits occasioned any thing like a vacancy in the celestial hierarchy, it would seem most probable it might be filled up from heavenly spirits of an inferior
ves the resurrection from the law of Moses.
and are the children of God, and heirs of immortality and glory, being the children of the resurrection,ᵈ which shall instate them in a complete felicity, answerable to so near a relation to the Divine Being; and consequently all such difficulties as you have now been urging are entirely superseded by the happiness and perfection of so exalted a state.
But as for the evidence of the resurrection in general, not to insist on many plainer passages in the other books of scripture, for which you do not profess so great a regard,ᶜ I may say, that even Moses in effect shewed that the dead are to be raised, when speaking of what happened at the burning bush (Exod. iii. 6), he calls the Lord, from whom he there received his commission, “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And he had the highest authority for the expression; for have ye not read in the book of Moses how God spake to him in the bush by this title? and have ye not observed what was then in effect spoken to you by God, saying in express terms,
order, who might be preferred to the rank their degenerate brethren lost, as a reward for their approved fidelity to God. But it becomes us to be exceeding modest in our conjectures on such subjects as these, lest we incur the censure of intruding into things which we have not seen. Col. ii. 18.
ᵈ And are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.] This plainly intimates that good men are called God’s children, with a view to the inheritance to which they are adopted, on the final possession of which they enter at the resurrection. Compare Rom. viii. 17; Gal. iv. 7; 1 John iii. 2; and Rom. viii. 29. See the Essay on Divine Dispensations, p. 8, 9.
ᵉ Other books of scripture, for which you do not profess so great a regard.] The Sadducees are thought by many to have agreed with the Samaritans in rejecting all the other parts of holy scripture but the five books of Moses; which is particularly contended for by Serrarius. (Trihæres. lib. ii. cap. 21, and Minerval. lib. iv. cap. 14.) But this is questioned by Drusius (de tribus sectis, lib. iii. cap. 9), and Relaud (Antiq. Heb. part ii. cap. 11); and Scaliger maintains the contrary, and shews that the passage from Josephus (Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 10
(al. 18), § 6), which is commonly alleged in defence of that opinion, only relates to their rejecting all traditions. (Elench. Trihæres. cap. 16.) And indeed, as it appears from the Talmud that other parts of the Old Testament were often quoted by the Sadducees, and arguments were brought from thence against them by the Pharisees to prove the resurrection, which they endeavoured only to evade, without disputing the authority of texts, though they were not taken from the law of Moses; it is more reasonable to believe with Dr. Lightfoot (in his Hor. Heb. on John iv. 25), that they did not reject the other books of the Old Testament, but only gave a great preference to the five books of Moses; and, laying it down as a principle, to receive nothing as an article of faith, which could not be proved from the law, if any thing was urged from other parts of scripture that could not be deduced from Moses, they would explain it in some other way. And this might be sufficient to induce our Lord to bring his argument to prove the resurrection from what Moses had said, and to confirm it by that part of scripture which was most regarded by the Sadducees, and upon which they now had grounded their objection to it.
VOL. 2.
God is not the God of the dead, but of the
“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?”⁶ Now certainly God is not to be called the God of them who are entirely destroyed, and left to continue in the state of the dead, but the God of those who may be yet considered as the living: nor would he ever own the high relation of a God to those whom he finally abandons, and suffers to sink into nothing; much less would what he did for the holy patriarchs, whose names he commemorated with so much honour, answer such a title, since he left them exposed to so many trials and calamities, which multitudes escape of whom he has never spoken in such language: so that those good men must be considered as still in existence; and therefore it may be concluded, by a strong train of consequences, that all the faithful live unto him;⁸ for he, on the foot of Abraham’s covenant, owns himself the God of all such; and consequently he must be an everlasting patron and friend to them, even to their whole persons, so as to recover their
“I am the God of Abraham, &c.] It is surprising to me to find learned men so much divided in their sentiments on this easy text. The force of the argument cannot surely rest on the word [am]; because though it be in the Greek, it is not in the Hebrew, where the words may possibly signify, I [have been] the God of Abraham, &c. and the possibility of such a version would affect the conclusion on that supposition. But our Lord’s argument is equally forcible either way; for it is evident, that it cannot properly be said, that God either actually is, or hath been, the God of any whom he has suffered finally to perish: and (as the apostle strongly intimates) he would, humanly speaking, be ashamed, or think it infinitely beneath him, to own that relation to any for whom he had not provided a city, or a state of more permanent happiness than any which could be enjoyed in this mortal life. (See Heb. xi. 16.) So that the argument by no means turns (as Archbishop Tillotson and Grotius suppose) on the calamitous circumstances in which these patriarchs often were; but would have held good, had all their lives been as prosperous and glorious as that of Abraham seems generally, notwithstanding his peregrinations, to
have been. I cannot, as some modern writers of note do, fall in with Mr. Mede’s notion (in his Works, p. 801, 802), that our Lord refers to the necessity of Abraham’s being raised from the dead to inherit Canaan, in order to the accomplishment of God’s promise to give it to him; both because I can see no such necessity, and because then I think it would have been much more to our Lord’s purpose to have quoted the promise of the land of Canaan, than these general words.
“So that all the faithful live unto him.] It is evident that yag must here have the force of an illative particle, and may be rendered [therefore], or [so that]; for what introduces is plainly the main proposition to be proved, and not an argument for what immediately went before. In this connection the consequence is apparently just; for as all the faithful are the children of Abraham, and the Divine promise of being a God to him and his seed is entailed upon them, it will prove their continued existence and happiness in a future state, as much as Abraham’s. And, as the body, as well as the soul, makes an essential part of man, it will prove both his resurrection and theirs, and entirely overthrow the whole Sadducean doctrine on this head.
ne is admired, and the Sadducees confounded.
mortal part from the ruin and desolation of the grave. And therefore, on the whole, you greatly err, in denying this doctrine; and your error tends to bring a disgrace on the whole series of Divine revelation, and to weaken one of the strongest motives to a life of holiness and obedience.
Then some of the scribes who were present, being of the sect of the Pharisees, were pleased to hear a doctrine of their own so judiciously defended, and said in reply, Master, thou hast spoken so well upon this subject, that nothing solid can be objected to thy discourse. And indeed when all the multitude that was present in the temple at the time heard [this] unthought of, yet convincing argument, together with so clear an answer to a cavil in which the Sadducees used to triumph as invincible, they were greatly astonished at his doctrine, and plainly testified the admiration and delight with which they had attended his discourse. And as the Sadducees had nothing to reply, they were ashamed and disappointed; and after that they durst not any more presume to ask him any thing at all, but retired in silence and confusion.
IMPROVEMENT.
WITH what satisfaction shall we read this vindication of so important an article of our faith and hope! Easily was this boasted argument of the Sadducees unravelled and exposed, and all the pride of those bold wits, who valued themselves so much on that imaginary penetration which laid men almost on a level with brutes, covered with just confusion. Indeed objections against the resurrection, much more plausible than this of theirs, may be answered in that one saying of our Lord’s: Te know not the scriptures, nor the power of God. Were the scripture doctrine of the resurrection considered on the one hand, and the omnipotence of the Creator on the other, it could not seem incredible to any that God should raise the dead. (Acts xxvi. 8.)
How sublime an idea does our Lord give us of the happiness of those who shall be thought worthy to attain it! They shall be equal to the angels! Adored be the riches of that grace which redeems us from this degenerate and miserable state, in which we had made ourselves so much like the beasts that perish (Psal.
After that, they durst not ask him any as limited to them; because in the very thing at all.] It is evident that this is meant next section we read of a question which of the Sadducees, and must be understood one of the scribes put to him.
Mat. xxii. 23-2
Luke xx. 35,36
Reflections on the certainty of the resurrection.
xlix. 12), to raise us to so high a dignity, and marshal us with clv. the armies of heaven!
Let us esteem so glorious a hope aright, and with the greatest 34 intenseness of soul pursue and insure it. And as for those enjoyments of this present world, which are suited only to the mortality and imperfection of it, let us moderate our regards to them, and cultivate those higher entertainments with the most solicitous care, which will be transplanted into the paradise of God, and ever flourish for the delight of his immortal children.
Christ, we see, argues a very important point of doctrine from premises, in which, perhaps, we might not have been able to have discovered it without such a hint. Let us learn to judge of scripture arguments, not merely by the sound, but by the sense of the words. And as our Lord chose a passage from the Pentateuch, rather than from the prophets, for the conviction of the Sadducees, let us be engaged to study the tempers, and even the prejudices, of those with whom we converse; that we may, if possible, let in the light of Divine truth on their hearts on that side by which they seem most capable of receiving it.
Mark In a word, let us with pleasure think of the blessed God under xii. 26 that gracious title by which he manifested himself to Moses at the bush. Still he is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; the God of our pious ancestors, the God of all our departed friends who are now sleeping in Jesus: for all their Luke souls now live unto him, and their bodies shall ere long be xx. 38 awakened by him. In like manner, if we are followers of them who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises, when we are gathered to our fathers, and our names, perhaps, forgotten among succeeding generations, he will still be our God. He will shew us, by the blessed experience of eternity, that when he treated with us by that title, and admitted us into the covenant by which he bears it, he intended for us something far nobler and better than the transient scenes of earth and of time could admit.