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.