Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward 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;…
Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise…(Lk 20: 27-38)
Jesus has raised the dead. At least three of them were raised to life: The only daughter of Jairus; the only son of the widow from Nain; and the only brother of Mary and Martha. Surely the Sadducees would have heard of these events. People have witnessed these events. How could the Sadducees ask such a question. However these are not the resurrection in the full sense. Today’s story is only to present Jesus’ view on resurrection.
The Jews believed in the resurrection with the idea that God would create a new heaven and a new earth and the people of Israel (even the whole of creation) would be raised. This was nothing to do with the idea of the ‘life after death’ ( a no-bodily state in which people existed in some form or another).
To argue on this the Sadducees invented stories of the sort we have read. Jesus, in trying to answer this question, makes two basic points. First, the resurrection life will not be like the present one. Relations will be irrelevant. After resurrection the people will living a deathless, immortal state of life (like angels). God is described as God of the living (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). The Patriarchs are alive to God.
