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Resurrection Question (Mk. 12:18-27)

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection [when they arise] whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, [the] God of Isaac, and [the] God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled (Mk. 12:18-27).”

The Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection because the Pentateuch does not speak of it.  They use Deuteronomy 25:5-10 as support for their position.  The reason for the OT practice of brothers marrying the wife of a deceased brother was keep property within the family.  Jesus explained that the resurrected life is different from life as they know it because it takes on an angelic character.  Jesus had to show that the resurrection of the dead could be found in the Pentateuch.  God said to Moses, I am the God of your father, he continued, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Ex. 3:6).”  God is God of the living.  It is through God that we have the resurrected life, and we know this by the resurrection of Jesus Christ through whom God brought life out of death.  

Almighty God, through your Son Jesus Christ we look forward to the resurrection of life when our toil is done.  Grant us the grace to serve you with sincerity of heart.  Lead us to a share in the joy of heaven, so that we may be where Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us.  This we pray through Christ our Lord.  Amen!

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References:

Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, & Roland E. Murphy, (Eds.). (1990, 1968). The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentis Hall, Inc.

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