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Pastor Lars Larson, PhD                                                                                           FBC Sermon #622
First Baptist Church, Leominster, MA                                                                        July 31, 2011
Words for children: law, Scriptures, power                                                                 Text: Matthew 22:23-33

The Gospel of Matthew (86)
The Sadducees:  What of the Resurrection?

Our current progress through Matthew:

I.  Prologue (chs. 1, 2)
II.  The Kingdom Comes (chs. 3-7)
III.  The Works of the Kingdom (chs. 8-10)
IV.  The Nature of the Kingdom (chs. 11-13)
V.  The Authority of the Kingdom (chs. 14-18)
            A.  Jesus’ Character and Authority (chs. 14-17)
            B.  The Fourth Discourse:  The Character and Authority of the Church (18:1-35)
VI.  Kingdom Blessings and Kingdom Judgments (chs. 19-25)
            A.  From Galilee to Jerusalem (chs. 19, 20)
            B.  The King enters Jerusalem (chs. 21-23)
                        1.  Triumphal Entry and Cleansing the Temple (21:1-22)
                        2.  Parables of Resistance to the King (21:23-22:14)
                        3.  Conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees (22:15-23:39)

*****************

        We are studying several encounters of our Lord with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem during the last week of His life and ministry on this earth.  We have described this section as…

        We read of our Lord confronting directly the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem.  Last week we saw how our Lord had conflict with the Pharisees and the Herodians (22:15-22).  Today, we will read how our Lord dealt with the Sadducees.

        B.  The Sadducees:  What about the resurrection?  (22:23-33)

       We read of this encounter of our Lord that probably took place within the temple courtyard:

       23The same day Sadducees came to Him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked Him a question, 24saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’  25Now there were seven brothers among us.  The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother.  26So too the second and third, down to the seventh.  27After them all, the woman died.  28In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?  For they all had her.” 
       29But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.  30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.  31And 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.”  33And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at His teaching. (Matt. 22:23-33)

       Let us first consider…

               1.  The challenge put to Jesus (22:23-28)

        Who were these challengers to Jesus?  In verse 23 we read of yet another group who approached Jesus who attempted to catch Him in His words and discredit Him.  Who were the Sadducees and what was the nature of their challenge?  We described this group in detail several weeks ago, we will not do so now except for a few words:  The Sadducees were a society of men who were relatively few in number when compared to the Pharisees.  They were largely comprised of men from the aristocracy; they were from among the sophisticated and privileged of the land.  They had control of the political institutions of the day.  But more importantly, they were the group which represented the Jewish priesthood.  Most priests were of the Sadducees.  They were centered in Jerusalem and controlled the temple.
        For our understanding of this section of the Gospel, it is important to note that they denied immortality and a future resurrection.  They denied a future judgment.  They also did not believe in angels.  Although they regarded themselves as religious, and they affirmed that written Scripture was authoritative, they were regarded as “secular” by the devout.  They claimed to believe that only Moses’ writings, Genesis through Deuteronomy, were the inspired Word of God.  But we will see that they did not believe even what Moses taught.

        What was their challenge?  They proposed a hypothetical situation, which to them, justified their denial of the resurrection and confounded any and all who believed in a resurrection.  The story they proposed is based on Mosaic Law in Deuteronomy 25:5ff, which reads

        5“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.  Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.  6And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.  7And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.;’  8Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ 9then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face.  And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.’  10And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’”  (Deut. 25:5-10)

         In the ancient world a man’s inheritance (property) was always passed on to his son.  If a man did not have a son, his lineage would cease with his death; his land would be forfeited.  So if the man died before he could father a son, the Law provided for his brother to father a son by his widow.  In this way the widow’s son would inherit the dead man’s property and his name would continue to further generations.
         The Sadducees present a situation in which a woman outlives seven brothers. (She would have been quite a woman!)  Finally she died.  Here is the issue which the Sadducees thought impossible.  If there were a resurrection, she would find herself with 7 husbands, a horribly immoral situation, and since God is not the author of immorality, there could be no such thing.
         I imagine that in the past the Sadducees had used this argument to silence all of their critics who differed from them regarding their refusal to believe in a future resurrection of the dead.  To them, this reasoned argument justified them and their belief system.  They saw themselves as right, most definitely so.  They were thoroughly convinced and committed to the proposition that their way of believing was the right way.  Here was an argument which proved it beyond doubt.  If any heard this argument, who believed in a moral universe and a holy and righteous God, that one would have to yield to reason and embrace their position.

          Was the nature of their challenge unique to their time?  No.  Many challenges against the Christian faith have been the same since the beginning.  Things have not changed.  Most non-Christians today would deny a future resurrection.  Most, I think, would acknowledge some kind of immortality--when one dies his existence continues in some spiritual form.  But most would deny a bodily resurrection, that one day God will raise all people from the graves and stand before Him in judgment, some being brought into the fullness of eternal life, and some or most being consigned to eternal wrath.  This is not a belief which is commonly held in this day.  But there have always been those who denied this, as we see even in during the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry.  Sometime later, the Apostle Paul would stand up in Athens and preach the Gospel.  But when he began to speak of the resurrection of the dead, most of his hearers some began to mock him (Acts 17:32).  Things have not changed.  There are those who deny the same things today.  Do not be discouraged when challenges come; they will come.  They always have.

               2.  The Lord’s response to the challenge (22:29-32)

                       a.  Our Lord rebuked them regarding their error and ignorance. (22:29).

         Jesus said to them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  Our Lord was of course rebuking them for their wrong understanding of the meaning of the Scripture.  Perhaps He was also rebuking them for not knowing the content of Scripture, or what constitutes the Scripture, but this would have been a more subtle charge, subordinate to the primary one.  The reason we say this is because the Sadducees and most all the other Jewish people differed from one another as to what constituted the Word of God.  As we have pointed out before, the Sadducees did not accept all of the Scriptures.  They only believed the “Law” was the written Word of God, which is the first five books of the Bible.  The Pharisees, who happened to be right on their view of what constitutes the canon, or the collected rule of Scripture, believed Holy Scripture included the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, which is the same content of our Old Testament.(1)
        But our Lord did not confront the Sadducees overtly on this occasion regarding their error regarding the content of Scripture; He rebuked them regarding their understanding of Scripture.  They claimed to believe the books of Moses, but our Lord shows them that in fact, they rejected what Moses had taught regarding the bodily resurrection of the dead.

        Do not be ready to embrace someone simply because they claim to believe and teach what the Bible says.  There are people who claim “to believe the Bible”, but deceive many.  Just as our Lord said that many would come in His name and yet deceive many, so many come with the claim that they believe the Bible, but deceive many.  You believe the Bible is the Word of God?  You do well, but that is not enough.  What is it that you believe the Bible teaches?  That is the crux of the matter.

        Our Lord rebuked these men, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  Will our Lord level that charge against you or me on the Day of Judgment?  He has given His written Word, the Bible, by which He reveals Himself and governs His world.  And one day it will govern the thoughts, attitudes, and actions of the people of this earth.  It is all important we not only believe that the Bible is the Word of God, but we must understand what the Bible teaches, particularly about essential matters that bear one the eternal standing of our souls.

        Our Lord not only rebuked these men regarding their error regarding Scripture, He rebuked their unbelief for not believing in the power of God to raise the dead.  Jesus said to them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  They did not believe God, not only because they were wrong about the Scriptures, but at the heart of the matter they did not believe that God could raise the dead.  Paul would later reason with perhaps some of these same men who were here standing before Jesus.  Perhaps 30 plus years after this event, Paul would stand before the local King of the area, probably with both Pharisees and Sadducees present.  We read of Paul’s challenge to them:

        And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day.  And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king!  Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? (Act 26:6-8)

Our Lord challenged them directly regarding their unbelief in the power of God.  Paul would later challenge them rhetorically concerning the same subject.   The fact is that many refuse to believe the Bible because at the heart of their refusal is their failure to believe in the power of God that could have done the things the Bible claims that He has done and they refuse to believe in the power of God that can do the things that He has promised yet to do.  Matthew Henry wrote of this:

        They know not the power of God; which would lead men to infer that there may be a resurrection and a future state.  Note, the ignorance, disbelief, or weak belief, of God’s power, is at the bottom of many errors, particularly theirs who deny the resurrection.   When we are told of the soul’s existence and agency in a state of separation from the body, which has lain many ages in the grave, and is turned into common dust, that this shall be raised the same body that was, and live, move, and act again; we are ready to say, How can these things be?...  If a man die, shall he live again?  And vain men, because they cannot comprehend the way of it, question the truth of it; whereas if we firmly believe in God the Father Almighty, that nothing is impossible with God, all these difficulties vanish.  This therefore we must fasten upon, in the first place, that God is omnipotent, and can do what He will; and then no room is left for doubting but that He will do what He has promised; and, if so, why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? Acts 26:8.  His power far exceeds the power of nature.(2)

        After having rebuked these men for their ignorance and unbelief, He next expounds the teaching of Scripture regarding the future resurrection of the dead.

                       b.  Our Lord’s teaching on the eternal state

        Our Lord taught that the marriage relationship is for this age only; it will not exist in eternity (22:29-30).  To me this is perhaps the most puzzling and troubling truth of Scripture.  I cannot fathom an existence for myself which is not characterized by a marital relationship to my wife of 39 years.  My only possible explanation is that the relationship we will all have with one another will surpass even that which is enjoyed in this age between husband and wife.
        Our Lord taught that those who experience the resurrection will never again experience death, for they are equal to the angels (20:30).  Angels do not die; resurrected people will not die.

        Perhaps a word here about a matter is necessary although it might seem most elemental.  When Christians die, they do not become angels.  When children die, they do not become angels.  This is popular mythology, but it is not Scriptural.  The older version of the movie, “Angels in the Outfield”, reflects this rather common error.  We will be as the angels in that we will not be subject to death.  But in character and nature we will be children of God.

        As children of God, our resurrection bodies will be fashioned like the resurrection body of the only begotten Son of God, as He was and is since coming forth from the grave on that first Easter morning.  If we may use His body as an example of what we will be like, then we will be able to eat and drink.  We will be able to transport ourselves at will from one place to a distant place.  We may be able to ascend into the sky.  We will be able to enter heaven, the very presence of God, and we will never die.

        We read of our Lord’s teaching from Scripture regarding the resurrection (20:31ff).  Interestingly, in the parallel account in Luke’s Gospel, we read that our Lord defended the Mosaic authorship of Exodus.  There we read, "But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Luke 20:37). Our Lord asserted that Moses recorded the event of his having encountered God at the Burning Bush. 
        The nature of our Lord’s argument is this:  God would not have referred to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,  if they were not to be raised from the dead.  God is not a God of dead people.  It follows that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were living at the time of Moses, which was well over 400 years after their passing, and one day they would have part in the resurrection.        For them to say that God is a God of dead people would be dishonoring to Him and would be in conflict with what God Himself declared to Moses.
        This was an argument that no one could refute.  The Sadducees themselves could not refute what He taught, for He taught them from the portion of the canon that they agreed were inspired of God.  Did the Sadducees claim to believe that only the books written by Moses were the Word of God?  Our Lord quoted from a book of Moses, Deuteronomy, to show their error and unbelief. 
        Note, again, that the Lords’ answer was from the Scriptures.  Here the Lord Jesus is demonstrating that His teaching was perfectly consistent with the Old Testament Scriptures.  Everything He taught was based on the Scriptures.  He had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.(3)
        All matters respecting faith--what we are to believe; and all matters of practice--how we are to live, are given for us in the Scriptures.  The Lord used Scripture, the same authority which is available to you and me, to prove the resurrection to those present.  Scripture is the God-given authority respecting all matters of what we are to believe and how we are to live before Him.
        This needs to be reaffirmed before us continuously in these days.  For even among evangelicals there is great defection from this stance.  And to me, when the authority of Scripture is abandoned, one’s claim to be an evangelical is forfeited.  But do professing Christians abandon the authority of Holy Scripture?  Yes, all the time.  Other things take the place of Scripture.  What are some substitutes for Scriptural authority?

        (1)  Theology.  Now I am a great proponent of good theology.  Every one of us has a theology.  If you believe in God, you have a concept of what God is like, then you have a theology.  Even if you are an atheist, you have a theology of God.  Every person who is rational and who has any opinion about God or about man’s relationship to God, is a theologian.  Now, you can either have good theology or bad theology.  If your theology is in accord with Scripture it is good; if it conflicts with Scripture, it is bad.
        It is good to have good theology-- to know, believe, and hold to the “faith which was once and for all given to the saints.”  And this faith is what is presented in the Scriptures.  But some, as did the Pharisees and Sadducees, although they claim to believe the Scriptures, in reality set them aside; their belief-system, their theology, colors the way they understand Scripture.  They have always been taught a certain way.  They assume it is in accord to Scripture.  They remain unchangeable and unteachable respecting at variance or deviance from that system of belief.  That is not good.  We should always be open to the Scriptures to confront, challenge, correct and modify our understanding, our theology.

        (2)  Experience.  This is the greatest danger of the day and poses the greatest threat to Scriptural authority in the churches.  Because of forces which have been at work in society over the past generation, the way of thinking by evangelicals has shifted radically from the past.  There is a great tendency to set aside the Scriptures as a less valid and true test of what to believe than what one may experience for oneself.  The line of thinking may go somewhat like the following:

(1)  “I may not really know very well what the Bible teaches, but I know what I have experienced!  I felt the presence of God!  I know that what happened to me was of God!”

(2)  “But there are so many different interpretations!  I know another man who is a good man who has a different opinion.  Nobody really knows or can know with certainty what the Bible teaches, apart from some general important facts.  This is sufficient: what is important is that I am sincere.”

(3)  “Too much head knowledge is hurtful to true heart-felt Christianity.”

(4)  “The Bible records what God said 2,000 years ago, what I want is to hear from God today.”

        The bottom line is this: Christian faith and practice are assessed from some other source that the Scriptures.  And once this procedure is adopted there is no corrective.  What results is total subjectivity, for there is no longer an objective standard.  Scripture is in effect rejected.  The individual who has exalted his/her experience above the authority of Scripture will reject the church, the pastor, and any voice which may seek to caution or correct.  The experience becomes unassailable and unchangeable.  The individual may associate with others who have similar experiences, because that validates their own and they feel a sense of kinship with them.
        Be aware of what is happening in our culture, what is transpiring in our society, because it is influencing the church.  Every evangelical Christian knows and believes that mainline denominations long ago departed from Biblical Christianity.  They deny the virgin birth of Christ.  They deny the bodily resurrection of Christ and believers.  They deny blood atonement for sin.  They deny a future judgment of the saved and the lost.  But what many Christians do not know is that the departure of these mainline denominations from the truth originated due to a deliberate emphasis on feeling and personal experience.  They came to believe that intellectual activity was non-spiritual, thinking and reasoning is superficial and trivial, feeling and emotions, which is non-intellectual, is what is truly spiritual.  What they said was that it is not the content of what you believe which is important, it is the fact that you believe.  And with this emphasis they were lost.  Many who would today call themselves “Bible-believers” have chosen to follow their path and they will arrive at the same destination.
        Historical evangelical Christianity has always held the Scriptures to be the sole authority in all matters of faith and practice.  The Apostle Paul himself, who had experiences which far surpassed any that anyone of this day could boast of, even after he had seen the Lord Jesus Himself and was taught by Him, went up to Jerusalem and met privately with the apostles and he spoke to them about his belief and practice in order to get their assessment and endorsement, lest he had “run in vain” (cf. Gal. 2:1f).  We are to do the same thing.  We bring every thought and every experience to the apostolic witness as recorded in the Scriptures and we get these things assessed and verified or corrected, or thrown out.
        When the Lord Jesus wanted to expound the truth on a matter He cited the Scriptures as authority.  We should do so as well.  He reasoned from the Scriptures.  He made declarative pronouncements based on the Scriptures.  In our account the first words from Jesus’ mouth in answering these men were: “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures” (Matt. 22:29).  Our first reaction when we hear assertions about God or life before Him should be, “What do the Scriptures say?”  And equipped in this manner we should do our thinking, reasoning, challenging, and disputing the error of belief and the sin of unbelief of those with whom we encounter.  This is what much of the nature of what it is to evangelize.

             3.  The people’s response to our Lord’s teaching (22:33)

        We read, “And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at His teaching” (22:33).  Matthew does not record the positive response of the scribes, as Luke did.  Luke wrote, “Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’  For they no longer dared to ask him any question.” (Luke 20:39f). 
        The Sadducees had failed in their challenge, and everyone knew it.  The Pharisees and their scribes present must have rejoiced, because they had probably been silenced on a number of occasions from this perceived unassailable argument of the Sadducees.  The Pharisees believed in the resurrection.  They differed sharply from the Sadducees over this and other matters.  And yet, they must have had somewhat mixed feelings about Jesus silencing their enemies.  They did not delight in Jesus’ victory, but they must have delighted in the discrediting of the Sadducees.  But they too, would soon be silenced and marginalized before the crowds by the Lord Jesus.  All of them concluded that they would be unable to refute him openly, rather, they would be discredited before the crowds if they continued in this manner of opposition.  They would have to resort to some other means to silence Him.

        But then take notice of …

             4.  How our Lord answered a question regarding God’s Law. (22:34-40)

        34But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.  35And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him.  36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  37And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  38This is the great and first commandment.  39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

        The “lawyer”, another name for a scribe, who was an expert in the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly the Mosaic Law, asked Jesus a question concerning the Law.  He was not enquiring of our Lord because he was seeking a truthful answer to his inquiry; he “asked Him a question to test him.”  The scribe was but one more effort to catch our Lord in His words that they might find some basis to discredit Him or convict Him.  And so he asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  Even though our Lord knew this man’s duplicity, He gave an answer that would have helped this man to understand the will of God, even the Word of God.
       The scribe had asked for the single most important law in God’s Word.  Our Lord answered by stating two of God’s laws, which are the sum of all of God’s preceptive will.
       And so, our Lord taught that the sum of all things is that we are to love God and we are to love our neighbors.  This is the summation of God’s will, of God’s law.  This summarizes the two tablets of the Ten Commandments—man’s duty toward God and man’s duty toward his fellow man.  Both of these qualities are essential to true spiritual life.  Both of these are characteristic of the true Christian.  This is what it is to truly live according to God’s law, which is the duty and the practice of every true Christian.  And both are necessary and essential of one’s claim to have eternal life is to pass the test of Scripture.  This was the assumption of the apostle John. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom He has not seen” (1 John 4:20).
       Furthermore, keeping God’s law, employing God’s law as the basis of our relating to God and our fellow man is the essence of love; it is, by definition what love is, how love looks.  (Now, when we say “basis” here, we are speaking of the standard which informs and governs our relationships, not the “basis” in the sense of the ground or reason that we have a relationship, for that is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.),  Again, John wrote,

1 John 5:2.  “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.”

1 John 5:3.  “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”

2 John 1:6.  “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.”

        Listen to these words in closing:

Let it never be forgotten that what the law demands of us the gospel really produces in us.  The law tells us what we ought to be, and it is one object of the gospel to raise us to that condition.  Hence our Saviour’s teaching, though it be eminently practical, is always evangelical; even in expounding the law He has always a gospel design.  Two ends are served by His setting up a high standard of duty: on the one He slays the self-righteousness which claims to have kept the law by making men feel the impossibility of salvation by their own works; and, on the other hand, He calls believers away from all content with the mere decencies of life and the routine of outward religion, and stimulates them to seek after the highest degree of holiness--indeed, after that excellence of character which only His grace can give...  I shall not hold up the love of our neighbour as a condition of salvation, but as fruit of it.”(4)