Matthew 22:28-33, Sadducees Ask about the Resurrection

23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother.26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

Comments

The Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection, took the Pentateuch as their authority and not Isaiah and Daniel, which the Pharisees used for their theology of resurrection. By not understanding Scripture, Jesus pronounced the Sadducees’ failure to appreciate what God can do. He appealed to the Pentateuch to prove resurrection, where God told Moses he was still the God of the patriarchs. The Sadducees had assumed that resurrection life was subject to the same conditions as life on earth. There will be no need for procreation in resurrection life where humans will be like angels in that regard.

Prayer

Remember, O Lord, we beseech thee, the souls of them that have kept the faith, both those whom we remember and those whom we remember not; and grant them rest in the land of the living, in the joy of Paradise, whence all pain and grief have fled away; where the light of thy countenance shineth for ever; and guide in peace the end of our lives, O Lord, when thou wilt and as thou wilt, only without shame and sin; through thine only-begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

(Liturgy of John Chrysostom and Basil the Great)