MATTHEW 22:23-33
IN FOURTH GRADE I earned the prestigious honor of becoming the first boy in my class to have a girlfriend. She wasn’t nearly as attractive as her older sister who coerced me into establishing this relationship, but Miss Francesca Quantra (Franny) was a start, a start to a twenty-year quest for love. Sadly, Franny and I, due to various social, political, and economic factors, as well as the usual instability of fourth grade romances, were unable to live up to the bold inscriptions that defaced the covers of our notebooks: Doug + Franny/TLF (True Love Forever). Our relationship, for better or for worse, fizzled as quickly as it flamed.
Human love, as even a fourth grader can discover, is frail and impermanent. Yet to most of us this notion of “true love forever” is not merely an adolescent illusion. Rather it is a slogan ingrained upon the human heart as much as it is scribbled upon our notebooks. And that is likely why the one line from this passage that leaps from the sacred page is Jesus’ brief comment on the transience of marriage—“In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (v. 30). However there is another claim that Jesus makes here that should be just as surprising, if not more surprising.
I think because we Brethren believe in life after death, and because we live in a culture that generally assumes and accepts an afterlife in one form or another, we have the tendency to focus on Jesus’ brief revelation on the status of marriage in the Kingdom to the neglect of the central thrust of this passage— namely, Jesus’ defense of the resurrection. In the Kingdom, it is true, the sacred bonds of human matrimony will be forever severed, yet the more remarkable truth of this text (one that we are to marvel at, as we marvel also at our Lord Jesus) is that our dead bodies will one day rise again!
An Open Bible and an Open Mind
As you open your Bible to 22:23-33, I want you to open your mind too— especially to the mind-set of the Sadducees. That is, I want you to “go native” (a favorite phrase of my favorite church history professor). To “go native” means to try and understand how someone in history could arrive at a certain cultural or theological conviction.
With the Sadducees going native is not as hard as you might expect, for the Sadducees were like us in a number of ways. The most important similarity was that they, like historical Protestants, held that the Bible alone was to be the authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. Thus they were convinced that the Torah, the first five books of the Bible (which was their canon), gave no clear teaching on the resurrection. As Matthew points out in verse 23, this was their distinctive. As opposed to the Pharisees and to Jesus, they believed “that there is no resurrection.”
This conviction (based on their ancient version of Sola Scriptura) explains why when they approached Jesus, these men went straight to their Bibles and (in v. 24) referenced Deuteronomy 25:5, 6. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother’” (v. 24). This law was called the levirate law, a law graciously given by God to provide economic and social protection to widows, as well as to guarantee continuance of a family name. In other words, it gave a woman a chance of a future if her husband died young.
So, you see, the Biblical basis for the question they are about to pose (about this woman and her seven husbands) comes from Moses, from Deuteronomy, from the Bible, and (in their minds) from God. To the Sadducees, the implications of this God-given mandate were obvious. This law was the surest proof-text that the idea of a resurrection, in certain cases, was inconceivable, even ridiculous. To them, the whole notion of the resurrection was Biblically and philosophically absurd. And this is why these Sadusees happily presented our Lord with their inquiry. In verses 25-27, they said:
Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.
Their question, at first glance, was magnificent. It was apparently Biblically sound, logically tight, and extraordinarily clever. It was a question to which they expected no response, for it was designed more to ridicule than to obtain an answer. Likely comprised of fabricated circumstances, it was intended to strike like a dagger at the heart of Jesus’ predictions of his own resurrection, as well as his teachings on the reality of eternal life and the resurrection of the dead in general.
As I look at the complicated nuances of their question, it reminds me of word problems, those dreaded stories usually found lingering at the end of algebra examinations. To me, such mathematical narratives were psychologically deceptive because they always began with the plain details of an everyday event or situation (which you could get), but then concluded with a question the solution to which was not so easy to get (and especially to me, as I didn’t “apply myself’ to mathematics the way I should have). When we read the Sadducees’ question to Jesus, we can almost picture it at the end of our final exam:
There were seven brothers all of whom married the same woman. (Okay, I’ve got that.) Johnny, who was the oldest brother, was the first to marry Susie. Johnny, however, died before he and his wife had any children together.
So Johnny’s younger brother Tommy, under obligation to his brother, married Susie in order to perpetuate his brother’s name. (Right.) Tommy also unfortunately died before having any children with her. So Billy, Tommy’s younger brother, married Susie for the same reasons, but like his older brothers he widowed infertile Susie once again. Jimmy took over where Johnny and Tommy and Billy had failed, but sadly he too died before leaving Susie any offspring. So Sammy, Jimmy’s younger brother, and Charlie, Sammy’s younger brother, and finally Louie, Johnny’s and Tommy’s and Billy’s and Jimmy’s and Charlie’s and Sammy’s younger brother, married Susie. In due time they all married Susie, and one after another met the same fate. Now the question is, what is the square root of 529?
No, the question is, in the Kingdom of the seven whose wife will she be? You see, there’s a complexity to this seemingly simple question presented to our Lord.
I don’t know about you, but when I had the great misfortune of attempting to solve such word problems, I always took a separate sheet of paper and recorded all the necessary details. Then I tried to answer the question by getting a handle on these facts. My basic flaw was not in my method but in my inability to figure out how the many details provided before the question in any way related to or answered the question itself. Of course, when it comes to the “word problem” recorded in Matthew 22, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to solve this riddle. Rather it takes theological genius, a mind that possesses divine insight as well as a right understanding of the inspired Word of God.
The Mind of Christ
The Pharisees may not have had a good answer or any answer to this simple word problem offered by the Sadducees. But Jesus did. And with grace and wisdom and wit and authority, “the Son of David” and yet David’s “Lord”— that’s who was speaking to them (22:42-45)—opened his mouth and with a straightforward, almost effortless reply “silenced” (v. 34) their rejection of the resurrection.
Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (v. 29). How’s that for straightforward? “You are wrong. You are mistaken.” Why? “Because you don’t know your Bibles (although you think you do), and because you don’t know the resurrection power of God!” Jesus continues, “For in the resurrection” [or, “in the resurrected condition”] they [people] neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (v. 30)
Let’s stop here and look at this first part of Jesus' reply (vv. 29, 30).
The first loophole in the their argument, as Jesus saw it, was their wrongheaded notion that the institution of marriage was as central and as necessary a component of Kingdom existence as it is of present existence. To them the afterlife could never be a reality because the relationship structures of a resurrected people would be utterly confusing, especially in regard to remarriage.
I like to imagine that when the Sadducees got together for dinner parties, and they broke out expensive bottles of wine (the Sadducees were the rich religious leaders; they aligned themselves with “the priestly aristocracy and other men of wealth and influence”), they must have had quite the fun coming up with this prize question of theirs, this stump-Jesus question. And they must have had fun running it through various scenarios. One of them would say to another, “Do you think in the ‘afterlife’ (wink, wink) husband A will have to arm wrestle husband B, and husband B husband C (and so on) to find out who wins their earthly wife for eternal life?” Ha, ha, ha. They all laugh. What a hoot! Oh, these Sadducees had quite a question here. It was their top dog.
Ah, but with one simple statement Jesus puts this dog to death. Forever. It would never rise again (from them)! With one simple statement he rebukes and corrects the logic of Sadducean thought. Concerning the nature of the resurrected state, he reveals the truth that the present conditions (of marriage and remarriage) are not to be resumed in the Kingdom but surpassed. The resurrected life, Jesus tells them, is not an exact counterpart or continuation of present life. First surprise to them (and perhaps to many of us) is the fact that marriage is a temporary institution. Your marriage might be made in Heaven, but it’s not made for the Kingdom.
Now, of course, the purpose of Jesus’ statement on marriage here was not intended to provide a comprehensive theology of it. He only mentions marriage because he is working with and against their illustration, their story and question. He addresses the topic of marriage, in other words, only as a defense of the resurrection. Yet when we meditate on Jesus’ unexpected revelation on the relationships of eternal life, many of our own perceptions of the Kingdom and marriage are turned upside down. This little part of this little verse has grand implications.
A few years ago College Church in Wheaton (Illinois) hosted a marriage conference. My wife and I attended it. She attended all of it, and I attended most of it (I had to work a bit on a talk, a talk on this text no less). So I skipped the session on Saturday morning. When I told my wife I might have to do that, she said, “Oh great, what am I to tell people when they see me sitting all alone? Oh, I know,” she said with a downcast face, “I’ll just tell them my husband is upstairs working on his ‘there’s no marriage in the Kingdom' talk.” Yes, my wife can be quite funny at times; not as funny as me, but funny nevertheless.
Anyway, that conference was wonderful because it put marriage in the right perspective, teaching that the key to marital unity and love is not romance but worship. It is only when we worship God as Creator, King, and Savior that we will then love others as we should. The truth that God is to be first and that our love for him is to be first is the best way to keep a marriage strong.
Brethren can get so sidetracked by a kind of Hollywood perception of love—you know, the kind of powerful “love” where a man and woman accidentally bump into each other at the supermarket, causing their eyes to connect, which then produces a massive shot of romantic electricity that surges down their spines and then up through their hands as they instantaneously drop their produce and unabashedly throw their arms around each other. At first sight they have found the love of their life. Brethren get sidetracked by such idiocy. Sure, chemistry matters to some extent. (Read my talks on the Song of Solomon!) But gospel-centeredness and God-centeredness (God firstness) matters so much more. It matters in marriage, and it matters in all of life.
So as we come to the end of this excursus I want to ask you a delve-into-your-heart-of-hearts question. Here it is. I’m borrowing from Jesus’ illustration. Are you envious of the angels? More than anything, would you right now like to commune with God and to serve him perfectly, without hesitation and without weariness and without sin, “like angels in heaven” (v. 30b)? For singleness will be the social structure of the Kingdom and single-minded devotion its everyday reality. So the irony of the resurrected state will be that my marriage to my wife will be forever dissolved, but our love for each other and for God ever increasing.
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (v. 30). That’s the first part of Jesus’ answer. Here’s the second part. Look with me at verses 31, 32. With the Sadducees’ assumptions of the resurrected relationship crushed by Jesus’ brief declaration on the status of marriage in the Kingdom, he next continues his gentle assault by attacking, as he did with the devil in the wilderness, their understanding of Scripture. They have twisted Scripture one way; he will twist it back into its proper place. “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read [in your Bibles] what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? [Commentary:] He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
Jesus is quite remarkable here. I’d like to say he’s at his best, but if you read through the Gospels enough you realize he’s always at his best. Jesus always uses just the right words, and Jesus always gives just the right answer at just the right time.
Our Lord could have answered this particular question in a number of different ways. He could have given a lengthy treatise, beginning with the logic of Genesis 1, 2. He could have called the Sadducees’ bluff by laying down the card of creation. Every Jewish man or woman, child or slave, no matter what religious group or sect they were a part of, accepted the fact that God (YHWH), with infinite power, raised the dust of the earth and breathed life into it. So Jesus could have questioned his questioners, saying, “Don’t you think that a God who created man out of dust could also take the scattered dust of the dead and remold it into a resurrected body? Couldn’t he take these dead bones and breathe life into them?”
Then, after presenting this foundation from Genesis, Jesus could have piled text upon text to further prove the validity of the doctrine of the resurrection. He could have cited, for example, Daniel 12:2 (“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”) or Isaiah 26:19 (“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!”) or a few different verses from Job, including Job 19:25, 26 (“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last [day] he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God”), or, as the apostles did in the book of Acts, our Lord Jesus could have quoted a plethora of Psalms, like Psalms 16. 68, or 110, all of which testify to the reality of the resurrection.
Or think about this—we studied Matthew 17 a few chapters ago, and Jesus could have said, "You should have seen the transfiguration. Do you remember Moses (he died 1,480 years ago) and Elijah (he went away in that whirlwind about 900 years ago)? Well, Peter, James and John just saw and heard them. Those two prophets aren’t dead!” Or—even better, in fact best of all—Jesus could have said, “Can you guys just wait a few days? Watch me die. Check the tomb. Check it again. I will rise from the grave.”
Jesus could have argued his defense in this manner. But instead he took the approach of saying more by saying less. All our ingenious Lord did was recite and briefly comment upon the well-known and often quoted verse from the Torah, Exodus 3:6. This simple reference, which contains the words, “I am the... God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” would have been as recognizable to any first-century religious and patriotic Jew as John 3:16 would be to the average Brother today.
Every aspect of Jesus’ short defense is significant. It is significant that our Lord selected a verse from the Torah because he recognized that the Torah alone was the authority used by his opposition. Furthermore, it is significant that of all the verses he could have selected from the Torah, he cited Exodus 3:6. Instead of building his case on a pile of proof-texts, through this one verse Jesus reminded the Sadducees, in the simplest terms, that at the heart of the covenant is the promise of a real and living and lasting relationship between YHWH and his people. With words easy enough for a one-year- old to memorize, Jesus re-enrolls the teachers of Israel in Old Testament 101, Lesson 1: Since the Torah teaches that God is a covenantal God, it is therefore inconceivable that God’s promises and blessings cease when his people die.
The Sadducees’ understanding of death as extinction, without any hope of resurrection, implies that God is a “God of the dead” (cp. v. 32). Jesus reminded them that it would be foolish for God to undertake the task of protecting his people from calamity during their lives, but fail in delivering them from the supreme calamity of death. What kind of protection is that? If death has the final word, then God’s covenant has been breached or broken.
So by carefully selecting Exodus 3:6 as his star witness, Jesus demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt how resurrection faith is attached in a profound way to the central concept of Biblical revelation (the covenant) and how the salvation promised by God to the patriarchs and their descendants, in virtue of the covenant, contains implicitly the assurance of the resurrection. So the “grievous error” of the Sadducees was their failure to recognize and appreciate the necessary link between God’s covenantal faithfulness and the resurrection. They had overlooked the implications of this everyday passage. They never stopped to think about the language and theology of this short but crucial verse.
I told you, Jesus is at his best best here.
Their Response and Ours
The Apostle Matthew tell us in verse 34 that Jesus’ quotation of Exodus was so surprising and his brief interpretation of it so convincing that the Sadducees apparently found themselves muzzled by the plain truth of Scripture. When they heard Jesus' response, they had nothing more to say. Their proud riddle had been solved. Their party fun had come to an end.
The crowd, however, Matthew tells us, was “astonished at his teaching” (v. 33). Perhaps never in their whole lives had they witnessed such a spectacle, a complex religious question answered so quickly, so correctly, and so simply that even this uneducated mass of men, women, and children knew exactly who now held the religious and moral authority in Jerusalem, and perhaps over the entire world.
“They were astonished.” How about you? Matthew records their response to Jesus, but what’s your response to him? I would guess that you wouldn’t be reading a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew if Jesus had little or no appeal to you. But I wonder how often you are astonished by him. Are you envious of the angels? Are you at all astonished by Jesus? Those are two good questions to repeatedly ask ourselves.
My Own Astonishment
It has been over twenty years since I was first overwhelmingly astonished by the Lord Jesus Christ. I had grown up learning the stories of the Gospels, learning about God, learning about Jesus, but it wasn’t until I picked up this Gospel for myself, the Gospel of Matthew no less, that Jesus began to astonish me. I was astonished by his miracles—his healing of the paralytic and the two blind men, his raising of the dead, his calming of the storm, his feeding of the 4,000, and so on. And I was astonished by his teachings, his parables, and especially his claims and his callings. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” (5:5). “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (5:39). “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (10:39). “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (16:24). “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (16:26). “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (22:37).
Then it happened. This astonishment overtook me. I was nineteen years old. It was one o’clock in the morning. (By now you know the story.) I fell upon my knees. I cried out to God (this was the essence of it), “Forgive me, save me, bring me into a relationship with you. Love me as I now truly and finally love you. You are first in my life. You and me, me and you—true love forever.” I prayed this in no silly, superficial, fourth-grade way.
Human love, as even a child can discover, is frail and impermanent. But divine love is everlasting! The marriage between the Lamb and his Ecclesia is eternal. So God says to you today, “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love” (Isaiah 55:3).
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)