Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,
The Sadducees came to question Jesus after the Pharisees had been silenced, joining with the Pharisees and Herodians in trying to entangle Christ with artful questions. They denied the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels, and a future life with its rewards and punishments. The resurrection was their chief point of dispute with the Pharisees, and they chose it as the subject of their question in order to trap and discredit Jesus, undermine belief in the resurrection, confuse others, and bring the Mosaic institutions into contempt.
To ridicule the resurrection they used the case of a woman who successively married seven brothers, arguing that resurrection would mean the same bodily matter and earthly relationships would return after death and thereby making belief in the resurrection of the body appear absurd. They reasoned that if the same material particles formed the future immortal body, it would retain flesh, blood, and the frailties and passions of earthly life, and believers in the literal resurrection were vulnerable to this argument because resurrection was understood as restoring the same body and its former way of life. Their arguments confused even the Pharisees about the future state of the dead, making death seem like a dark and fearful mystery.
Their challenge rested on error, because they did not understand the Scriptures or God's power. Christ answered their artful questioning plainly and intelligently, bringing precious truth to the crowd listening. The account is part of Jesus' warnings to the Jews, and those warnings apply in every age to people who refuse to receive him as Redeemer, so that unless they repent the doom foreshadowed by the warnings will be theirs.
The Sadducees came to question Jesus after the Pharisees had been silenced, joining with the Pharisees and Herodians in trying to entangle Christ with artful questions. They denied the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels, and a future life with its rewards and punishments. The resurrection was their chief point of dispute with the Pharisees, and they chose it as the subject of their question in order to trap and discredit Jesus, undermine belief in the resurrection, confuse others, and bring the Mosaic institutions into contempt.
To ridicule the resurrection they used the case of a woman who successively married seven brothers, arguing that resurrection would mean the same bodily matter and earthly relationships would return after death and thereby making belief in the resurrection of the body appear absurd. They reasoned that if the same material particles formed the future immortal body, it would retain flesh, blood, and the frailties and passions of earthly life, and believers in the literal resurrection were vulnerable to this argument because resurrection was understood as restoring the same body and its former way of life. Their arguments confused even the Pharisees about the future state of the dead, making death seem like a dark and fearful mystery.
Their challenge rested on error, because they did not understand the Scriptures or God's power. Christ answered their artful questioning plainly and intelligently, bringing precious truth to the crowd listening. The account is part of Jesus' warnings to the Jews, and those warnings apply in every age to people who refuse to receive him as Redeemer, so that unless they repent the doom foreshadowed by the warnings will be theirs.