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When Jesus met the Sadducees

We would have got on well with the Sadducees, they have a lot of very ‘modern’ impulses. They didn’t believe in an afterlife or the supernatural, they were quite content in the knowledge that this life was all there is. Yet as they argue with Jesus, we discover that the Sadducees know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. Jesus reveals in vivid terms the reality of the resurrection. He throws fresh light on the purpose of both marriage and singleness and the joy to be found in them. He gives us hope to face a broken and fragile world, trusting that in Him the best is yet to come!

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Luke 20:27–40 (Listen)

Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection

27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man1 must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons2 of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

Footnotes

[1] 20:28 Greek his brother
[2] 20:36 Greek huioi; see Preface

(ESV)

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.

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