Matthew 22:23-33

This passage describes a conversation between our Lord Jesus Christ and the Sadducees. These unhappy men, who said that there was “no resurrection” attempted, like the Pharisees and Herodians, to perplex our Lord with hard questions. Like them, they hoped “to entangle Him in His talk” and to injure His reputation among the people. Like them, they were completely baffled.

Let us observe in the first place, that absurd sceptical objections to Bible truths are ancient things. The Sadducees wished to show the absurdity of the doctrine of the resurrection and the life to come; they therefore came to our Lord with a story which was probably invented for the occasion. They told Him that a certain woman had married seven brothers in succession, who had all died and left no children. They then asked, “whose wife” this woman would be in the next world, when all rose again. The object of the question was plain and transparent. They meant, in reality, to bring the whole doctrine of a resurrection into contempt; they meant to insinuate that there will be confusion, strife and unseemly disorder if after death, men and women were to live again.

It must never surprise us if we meet with like objections against the doctrines of Scripture, and especially against those doctrines which concern another world. There never probably will be wanting unreasonable men who will intrude into things unseen and make imaginary difficulties their excuse for unbelief. Supposed cases are one of the favorite strongholds in which an unbelieving mind loves to entrench itself. Such a mind will often set up a shadow of its own imagining, and fight with it as if it was a truth; such a mind will often refuse to look at the overwhelming mass of plain evidence by which Christianity is supported, and will fasten down on some one single difficulty which it fancies is unanswerable. The talk and arguments of people of this character should never shake our faith for a moment. For one thing, we should remember that there must needs be deep and dark things in a religion which comes from God, and that a child may put forth questions which the greatest philosopher cannot answer. For another thing, we should remember that there are countless truths in the Bible which are clear and unmistakable. Let us first attend to them, believe them and obey them. In doing so, we need not doubt that many a thing now unintelligible to us will yet be made plain; in so doing, we may be sure that what we know not now, we shall know hereafter.

Let us observe in the second place, what a remarkable text our Lord brings forward in proof of the reality of a life to come. He places before the Sadducees the words which God spoke to Moses in the bush: I am “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” (Exod. 3:6) He adds the comment, God “is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” At the time when Moses heard these words, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead and buried many years; two centuries had passed away since Jacob, the last of the three, was carried to his tomb: and yet God spoke of them as being still His people, and of Himself as being still their God. He said not, “I was their God,” but “I am.”

Perhaps we are not often tempted to doubt the truth of a resurrection and a life to come, but, unhappily, it is easy to hold truths theoretically, and yet not realize them practically. There are few of us who would not find it good to meditate on the mighty verity which our Lord here unfolds, and to give it a prominent place in our thoughts. Let us settle it in our minds that the dead are in one sense still alive. From our eyes they have passed away and their place knows them no more, but in the eyes of God they live and will one day come out of their graves to receive an everlasting sentence. There is no such thing as annihilation; the idea is a miserable delusion. The sun, moon and stars, the solid mountains and deep sea, will one day come to nothing; but the weakest babe of the poorest man shall live forevermore in another world. May we never forget this! Happy is who can say from his heart the words of the Nicene Creed: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”

Let us observe in the last place, the account which our Lord gives

of the state of men and women after the resurrection. He silences the fancied objections of the Sadducees by showing that they entirely mistook the true character of the resurrection state. They took it for granted that it must be a gross, carnal existence like that of mankind upon earth. Our Lord tells them that in the next world we may have a real material body, and yet a body of very different constitution and different necessities from that we have now. He speaks only of the saved, be it remembered: He omits all mention of the lost. He says, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

We know but little of the life to come in heaven. Perhaps our clearest ideas of it are drawn from considering what it will not be, rather than what it will be. It is a state in which we shall hunger no more nor thirst any more; sickness, pain and disease will not be known; wasting old age and death will have no place. Marriages, births and a constant succession of inhabitants will no more be needed: they who are once admitted into heaven shall dwell there forevermore. And, to pass from negatives to positives, one thing we are told plainly: we shall be “as the angels of God.” Like them, we shall serve God perfectly, unhesitatingly and unweariedly; like them, we shall be in God’s presence; like them, we shall ever delight to do His will; like them, we shall give all glory to the Lamb. These are deep things, but they are all true.

Are we ready for this life? Should we enjoy it, if admitted to take part in it? Is the company of God and the service of God pleasant to us now? Is the occupation of angels one in which we should delight? These are solemn questions. Our hearts must be heavenly on earth, while we live, if we hope to go to heaven when we rise again in another world. (Col. 3:1-4)