That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and questioned Him. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses declared that if a man dies without having children, his brother is to marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died without having children. So he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brothers, down to the seventh. And last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be of the seven? For all of them were married to her.”
Matt 22:23-28
The Setting
The Sadducees' motivation was not to gain understanding, but to discredit Jesus and disprove the doctrine of the resurrection itself.
Let's break down their strategy and motivation:
1. The Players: Who Were the Sadducees?
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Theological Liberals (in a specific sense): They were a powerful, aristocratic priestly class who controlled the Temple.
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Scriptural Minimalists: They only accepted the Torah (the first five books of Moses) as authoritative. Since they claimed the Torah did not explicitly teach a resurrection, they rejected it (unlike their rivals, the Pharisees, who did believe in the resurrection).
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Pragmatic and Political: They collaborated with the Roman occupiers to maintain their power, prestige, and the political status quo. A teaching about a future resurrection and a coming kingdom of God threatened their comfortable position.
2. The Trap: The "Impossible" Scenario
Their question about the woman with seven husbands was a classic "gotcha" question, designed to make the idea of resurrection look absurd and logically incoherent. It was a well-known "stump the chump" scenario they likely used against the Pharisees as well.
The logic of their trap was:
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Premise 1: We accept the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 25:5-6, the levirate marriage law).
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Premise 2: This law creates a scenario where one woman has multiple husbands in this life.
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Premise 3: If a resurrection exists, it must be a simple continuation of earthly life and relationships.
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Conclusion: The resurrection leads to an impossible contradiction (Whose wife is she?), therefore, the doctrine of the resurrection is absurd and false.
3. The Motivation: A Multi-Pronged Attack
By posing this question to Jesus, they hoped to achieve several goals simultaneously:
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Discredit Him Publicly: If Jesus couldn't solve this logical puzzle, he would look foolish in front of the crowds, undermining his authority as a "teacher."
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Force Him to Take a Side:
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If he sided with the Pharisees on the resurrection, he would look like just another rabbi without a unique answer, and his teaching could be dismissed as illogical.
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If he couldn't answer, he would be humiliated.
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Undermine His Popular Movement: Jesus was teaching about the "kingdom of God," which for many had resurrection and final judgment as key components. By disproving the resurrection, they could pull the theological rug out from under his movement.
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Protect Their Power: A teacher gaining popularity by preaching a revolutionary doctrine about a future life and kingdom was a direct threat to their authority and the stable (though oppressive) system they benefited from.
In essence, they weren't asking a sincere question about marital ethics in the afterlife. They were using a crafted theological paradox to attack what they saw as a dangerous and false doctrine that Jesus represented. They intended to expose him as either a heretic (by their definition) or a fool.
Jesus' brilliant response didn't just answer the question; it completely dismantled their entire faulty premise, exposing their profound ignorance of both the Scriptures they claimed to hold so dear and the limitless power of the God they claimed to serve.
Consider His response:
Jesus answered, “You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
Matt 22:29-32
1. What "the Scriptures" Meant in This Context
For Jesus and his Jewish audience, "the Scriptures" referred to what we now call the Old Testament—specifically, the Law of Moses (the Torah), the Prophets, and the Writings. The Sadducees, the group Jesus was debating, only accepted the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as authoritative.
The Sadducees' entire argument against the resurrection was based on a law from the Torah (Deuteronomy 25:5-6, the levirate marriage law). Jesus, therefore, argues from the same authority they accept.
2. The Scriptural Basis for Jesus' Statement
Jesus's argument is built on two pillars from the Torah:
a) The Power of God: The resurrection is not a natural process but a mighty act of God's power. It transforms human existence into a new, glorified state. The Scriptures testify to God as the God of life, who can raise the dead (implied in passages like Exodus 3:6, which Jesus is about to use).
b) The Nature of the Resurrected Life: This is where Jesus makes his logical and scriptural leap. He points to the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3:6, where God says to Moses, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
Jesus' reasoning is this:
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God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
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Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must, in some real sense, still be alive to God, even though they had physically died.
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This implies a future resurrection and a continued relationship with God beyond death.
The conclusion about marriage flows from this: The institution of marriage, with its purpose for procreation and building a family line in this life, is unnecessary in the eternal, resurrection life. The resurrected are immortal, like the angels. Note that He does not say we become angels!
One important point here. This response from Jesus DOES NOT NULLIFY the experience of this life.
Let's examine this.
It's a concern that strikes at the heart of meaning, love, and identity. The fear that the resurrection might "nullify" the experiences of this life is one of the most significant emotional and philosophical hurdles in understanding Christian hope.
I like the way C.S. Lewis reframes this.
The promise of the resurrection is not nullification, but fulfillment and transformation. It's the difference between a caterpillar being "nullified" by becoming a butterfly, and a caterpillar's existence being fulfilled in its transformation into a butterfly.
Here’s why the Christian view is one of fulfillment, not loss:
1. The Continuity of Identity and Story
Your life, your relationships, your struggles, and your joys are not erased. They are redeemed and integrated into who you are for eternity. The resurrected Jesus still bore the scars of his crucifixion (John 20:27). Those wounds were part of his story, now transformed into tokens of victory and love. In the same way, the story of your life—including your marriages and deepest relationships—is not deleted. It is healed, purified of all brokenness, and taken up into your eternal identity.
2. The Transformation of Love, Not Its Elimination
The love you experience in a marriage or a deep friendship is a real, good, and beautiful thing. It is a foretaste of the ultimate love found in God. The C.S. Lewis analogy is helpful here: Imagine a child who loves playing in mud puddles because he cannot imagine the joy of a vacation at the sea. When his father finally takes him to the ocean, the mud puddles are not "nullified" as if they were bad; they are revealed as a small, shadowy hint of the immense reality he now gets to enjoy.
In the resurrection, the particular, exclusive love of marriage is not destroyed. It is transcended and expanded. The deep, intimate, self-giving love you learned in your best relationships becomes the mode of relating to all in the communion of saints. The unique bond you shared with a spouse will be part of your shared glory, not a source of jealousy or exclusion. The love is perfected, not lost.
3. This Life as Seed, Not the Harvest
Paul uses the metaphor of a seed and a plant (1 Corinthians 15:35-44). When you plant a seed, it "dies" and is transformed into something much greater—a stalk of wheat. You don't look at a field of wheat and mourn the loss of the seeds. You see the seeds fulfilled.
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The seed's potential is realized in the plant.
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The love and experiences of this life are the "seed." They contain the potential for something far more real and permanent.
The relationships of this age are for building and preparing us for the ultimate relationship with God and with each other in God. The joy you found in your spouse's eyes was a reflection of the divine joy that will one day surround you completely.
Addressing the Feeling of Loss Directly
It feels like a loss because we can only imagine reality through our current categories. We think, "If this particular form of exclusive relationship changes, then the substance of that love is lost." But the Christian claim is that the substance was always pointing to something more.
Consider this: The deepest moments in your most cherished relationships—those moments of perfect understanding, selfless love, and profound joy—what were they? Were they not moments where you felt you were touching something eternal, something that shouldn't end? The ache you feel when you think they might be "nullified" is actually a clue. It's the ache for that joy to be made permanent, unbreakable, and free from the shadows of selfishness, boredom, and death that haunt even our best relationships now.
The resurrection is the answer to that ache. It is not the negation of your story, but the guarantee that every true, good, and beautiful part of it will be saved, healed, and raised up to live forever in a world where "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4).
The "old order" that passes away is the order of decay, loss, and death—the very things that threaten to make our current loves feel futile. The resurrection doesn't nullify our experiences; it saves them from being nullified by death.
