Commentary - Mark 12:18-27

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the Lord Jesus confronts the theological liberals of His day, the Sadducees. Having just silenced the Pharisees and Herodians, He now faces a different kind of error. The Sadducees were the materialists, the rationalists, the ones who prided themselves on a sophisticated skepticism. They denied the resurrection, angels, and spirits, clinging only to the Pentateuch, and a flattened reading of it at that. Their challenge to Jesus is not a sincere inquiry but a smug trap, a carefully constructed "gotcha" question designed to show the logical absurdity of the resurrection. Their hypothetical scenario of the woman with seven husbands is meant to reduce the doctrine of the resurrection to a domestic farce.

Jesus' response is a masterclass in theological debate. He does not take the bait and get bogged down in their silly scenario. Instead, He goes straight to the root of their error, identifying two fundamental failures: they do not know the Scriptures, and they do not know the power of God. He corrects their childish view of the afterlife, explaining that the resurrected life is of a completely different order than our current existence. Then, using their own authoritative text, the book of Exodus, He demonstrates that the resurrection is not some later invention but is embedded in the very identity of God as the God of the living patriarchs. He thus vindicates the truth, silences the scoffers, and reveals their sophisticated unbelief as nothing more than biblical ignorance.

Outline

Context In Mark

This encounter is part of the final week of Jesus' earthly ministry, a period of intense and escalating conflict with the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. In Mark's gospel, this section (chapters 11-12) shows Jesus systematically dismantling the authority of every major faction of the Jewish leadership. He has cleansed the temple, cursed the fig tree as a symbol of fruitless Israel, and bested the chief priests, scribes, and elders on the question of His authority. He has just slipped the trap of the Pharisees and Herodians regarding taxes to Caesar. Now, the Sadducees, the priestly and aristocratic party, take their shot. This confrontation serves to further expose the bankruptcy of the existing leadership and to establish Jesus as the supreme teacher and authority. His victory here sets the stage for the final question from a scribe and His subsequent denunciation of them all, leading directly into the Olivet Discourse where He will prophesy the destruction of their entire world.

Key Issues

Two Foundational Errors

Jesus puts His finger directly on the two foundational errors that give rise to all sorts of theological mischief, both then and now. He says, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures nor the power of God?" Every heresy, every bit of theological nonsense, can be traced back to one or both of these deficiencies. The Sadducees thought they knew the Scriptures because they accepted the first five books of Moses. But their knowledge was superficial; they knew the words on the page, but they had missed the entire trajectory of what God was revealing. They read it with materialist blinders on.

And second, they did not know the power of God. Their worldview was cramped and small. They could not conceive of a reality beyond their immediate experience. A resurrection from the dead? A life where earthly institutions like marriage are transformed? It was too much for their little categories. They had domesticated God, reducing Him to something their rational minds could manage. But the God of the Bible is the God who speaks worlds into existence, who raises the dead, who does things that are far beyond our ability to ask or think. A failure to know the Scriptures and a failure to know God's power will always lead to a pinched, anemic, and ultimately false theology.

Verse by Verse Commentary

18 Then some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying,

Mark helpfully provides the doctrinal footnote for his readers. The Sadducees were the theological minimalists of their day. They were the establishment, the wealthy, priestly class who had made their peace with Roman rule. Their theological commitments were few; they held to the Pentateuch alone as authoritative and rejected the oral traditions of the Pharisees. More importantly, they denied any reality that did not fit their materialistic outlook: no resurrection, no angels, no spirits. Their appearance here is part of the parade of opponents trying to trap Jesus. They come not to learn, but to question, which is to say, to test and trip Him up.

19-22 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that IF A MAN’S BROTHER DIES and leaves behind a wife AND LEAVES NO CHILD, HIS BROTHER SHOULD MARRY THE WIFE AND RAISE UP A SEED FOR HIS BROTHER. There were seven brothers; and the first married a wife, and died leaving no seed. And the second one married her, and died leaving behind no seed; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no seed. Last of all the woman died also.

They begin by appealing to Scripture, which is a classic tactic of deceivers. They cite the principle of Levirate marriage from Deuteronomy 25. This law was given to preserve a man's name and inheritance within Israel. The Sadducees then construct an elaborate, albeit unlikely, scenario. A woman marries a brother, who dies childless. She then marries the second brother, who also dies childless, and so on, right down to the seventh. Finally, the much-widowed woman herself dies. The story is a caricature, a reductio ad absurdum, designed to make their point.

23 “In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For all seven had married her.”

Here is the punchline, the "gotcha." They believe they have cornered Jesus. If He affirms the resurrection, He must solve this tangled mess of earthly relations. The question assumes that the resurrection life is simply a continuation of this life, with the same structures and relationships. They are trying to show that the doctrine of resurrection, when pressed with real-world legalities from Moses, collapses into absurdity. It is a smug question, confident that there is no good answer.

24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures nor the power of God?

Jesus refuses to play their game. He does not get into the weeds of their silly soap opera. He instead goes to the root of the problem and delivers a devastating diagnosis. Their mistake is not a minor exegetical error; it is a fundamental failure on two fronts. First, they do not know the Scriptures. They can quote a verse from Deuteronomy, but they do not understand the meaning and purpose of the whole. Second, they do not know the power of God. Their imagination is too small. They have a God who is bound by the same limitations they are. This is a rebuke that should echo in every seminary and every pulpit. Theological error is born from ignorance of God's Word and God's power.

25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Here, Jesus corrects their first error, their ignorance of God's power. He reveals something about the nature of the age to come. The resurrection life is not a mere resuscitation or a simple reboot of our current existence. It is a transformation. The institution of marriage, as we know it, is a feature of "this age." It was given for procreation, for companionship, and as a picture of Christ and the Church. In the resurrection, its purpose is fulfilled. We will not be genderless, but the procreative and covenantal structure of marriage will no longer be necessary. To say we will be "like angels" is not to say we become angels, but that in this one respect, our mode of existence will be like theirs, not defined by marriage and reproduction. This does not mean our earthly relationships are erased, but rather that they are taken up and transformed into something far greater, something we can scarcely imagine.

26 But regarding the fact that the dead are raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’?

Now Jesus corrects their second error, their ignorance of the Scriptures. And He does it by going to their turf, the book of Moses. He could have gone to Isaiah or Daniel, where the resurrection is taught more explicitly, but He beats them with their own stick. His argument is profoundly subtle and deeply theological. He quotes from Exodus 3, where God reveals Himself to Moses. God does not say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He says, "I AM their God." The verb tense is present. Hundreds of years after these patriarchs had died and been buried, God still identifies Himself in relation to them in the present tense.

27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

This is the brilliant conclusion. If God is still, in Moses' day, the God of Abraham, then Abraham must still be alive in some meaningful sense. God is not the God of non-existent entities or scattered dust. He is the God of persons. The covenant relationship He established with the patriarchs was an everlasting covenant. Death could not break it. For God to be their God means they must be His people, living before Him. Therefore, the resurrection of the body is a necessary consequence of God's covenant faithfulness. He made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as whole persons, body and soul, and He will keep those promises to them as whole persons. The Sadducees, in their wooden literalism, had read right past the profound implication of God's own name. Jesus concludes by restating His initial diagnosis: "you are greatly mistaken." He has not just answered their question; He has dismantled their entire worldview from their own foundational text.

Application

This passage is a powerful warning against the perennial temptation of theological liberalism. The spirit of the Sadducees is always with us. It is the spirit that seeks to trim the Christian faith down to what is palatable to the modern, rationalistic mind. It denies the supernatural, it scoffs at miracles, and it cannot stomach doctrines like the bodily resurrection. It is a faith without power, a Bible without authority. We must be on guard against it in our churches and in our own hearts. Do we secretly harbor doubts about the power of God? Do we read the Scriptures in a flat, materialistic way, missing the glorious divine author behind the words?

Furthermore, this passage gives us a glorious hope. Our future is not just more of the same. The life to come is a radical transformation. Our earthly relationships, especially marriage, are good gifts for this age, but they are pointers to a greater reality. In the resurrection, we will not experience less relationship, but infinitely more. All our loves and friendships will be perfected and glorified in our love for God and our fellowship with the saints. And this hope is anchored not in wishful thinking, but in the very character of God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of our fathers and mothers in the faith who have gone before us. And He is our God. Because He is the God of the living, we who are in covenant with Him through His Son will surely live also. Death does not have the final word. The power of God does.