Amongst the Jews were three particular parties.

The largest and in every way most important of these were known as Pharisees, who believed in a future life, to be attained by a resurrection at some future time, for which they waited.

Second to these in importance, yet very much smaller, were the Sadducees, who boasted of their intellectual acumen, claiming that a man when he died had no preeminence above a brute, except in the honors done to his corpse – disbelieving in a resurrection or future life of any kind, disbelieving also that there are angelic beings of a spirit order, holding extremely materialistic views, believing nothing that they could not appreciate with their natural senses.

The third party, Essenes, accepted the heathen teachings of Plato, disbelieving in a resurrection, and claiming that when a man died, he was more alive than before. This sect or party, although mentioned by Josephus a little later than our Lord’s time, was so small in the days of our Lord and the apostles that they are not so much as mentioned once in the New Testament.

The Pharisees, the numerous party, the orthodox at that time, were our Lord’s chief opponents in argument and otherwise; yet, as the records show, they uniformly failed to entrap him, though their ablest men were put to the fore with this end in view – that they might show our Lord’s teachings to be illogical or unreasonable to some degree, and thus to break his influence with the common people; or, failing to do this, that they might catch him in his words and have opportunity for a charge against him before the Roman governor, and thus bring political pressure to bear to stop his ministry. It was on such an occasion, after the discomfiture of the Pharisees, that the Sadducees stepped to the front with a question which they had every confidence would confuse our Lord in the presence of the people, and not only show his position to be illogical, but gain a feather for their own caps as philosophers and teachers superior, not only to Jesus, but also to the Pharisees.

WHOSE WIFE SHALL SHE BE?

The Jewish Law provided certain inheritances for each son, and it was the ambition of each to perpetuate his own family. This the Law inculcated, by providing that upon the death of any man childless, his brother, if he had one, should perpetuate his inheritance for him by taking the widow to wife. The skillfully arranged question of the Sadducees supposed seven brothers, the first one of whom married and died childless, the wife being taken by his brother, and so likewise until the entire seven had been husbands to the one wife. Lastly the wife died.

Which of these seven could claim the wife in the resurrection?

The question seemed to show an absurdity in the doctrine of a future life, implying that there would be such a muddle that all eternity would not straighten it out.

Our Lord’s answer was, “You do err, not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” That is to say, the difficulty of the Sadducees arose from the fact that they had not understood the Scriptures relating to the future life beyond the resurrection, neither did they give proper weight to the power of God, which is quite able to surmount every difficulty that could be imagined. Our Lord might have stopped there, giving the not unreasonable inference that his hearers lacked the proper knowledge of the subject to permit them to clearly comprehend anything he might say about it. But rather than appear to avoid the question, and, indeed, with a view to giving light upon the subject to us who would come afterward, our Lord explained the matter, saying,

“The children [people] of this world [age] marry and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [age] and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

True the glorified Church will not marry, but there is no reference here to the Church class, the bride class. The question did not refer to saints, but to any ordinary Jews under the Law, to whom the illustration might be in any degree applicable.

Nothing in the illustration implied that either the woman or any of her husbands were followers of the Lord or in any sense of the word “saints.” Our Lord’s answer should be understood from this standpoint, therefore. He did not say, ‘My disciples will neither marry nor be given in marriage, nor that those who are faithful in following me will have such experiences’, but he made his answer as broad as the Sadducees had made their question: he made the answer applicable to all Jews.

True, also, the Greek article (“The”) occurs before the word resurrection in the question and also in the answer, but this would be no positive proof that a special or chief resurrection was meant except two resurrections were referred to in contrast. Indeed, the distinction between the resurrection of the Church and that of the world was not yet taught by our Lord – was not set forth until after Pentecost. Hence the Sadducees could not know to refer to it. They did probably know that our Lord had awakened some dead ones, as had the prophets of old, and so probably referred to the anastasis of the future as in contrast and distinction from any temporary awakening of the present time.

Continued with the next post.