Commentary - Luke 20:27-40

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the Lord Jesus is in His final week of public ministry, and the opposition is coming at Him from all sides. Having just silenced the Pharisees and Herodians on the question of taxes, He is now confronted by the Sadducees. These were the theological liberals of their day, the aristocratic, priestly party who held to the Pentateuch alone and denied the resurrection, angels, and spirits. They approach Jesus not with a sincere question, but with a carefully crafted logical trap, a reductio ad absurdum, designed to make the doctrine of the resurrection look foolish. Their hypothetical case, involving a woman who marries seven brothers in succession according to the Levirate law, is intended to create an intractable problem of marital claims in the afterlife.

Jesus answers them with masterful authority, dismantling their argument on two fronts. First, He corrects their fundamental category error about the nature of the resurrection life. He reveals that the age to come is not a simple continuation of this age; its realities transcend our current experiences of marriage and procreation. Second, He turns the tables on them by proving the resurrection from the very books they claimed to accept, the books of Moses. By quoting God's declaration from the burning bush, "I am the God of Abraham," Jesus demonstrates that the patriarchs were alive to God long after their physical deaths. His logic is so devastatingly simple and profound that it not only silences the Sadducees but also elicits praise from their rivals, the scribes. This encounter is a brilliant display of Jesus' divine wisdom, His authority over Scripture, and the glorious truth of the resurrection.

Outline

Context In Luke

This episode occurs in the Temple courts during the final week before Jesus' crucifixion. It is part of a series of confrontations where various factions of the Jewish leadership attempt to trap Jesus in His words. In Luke 20, Jesus has already asserted His authority over the chief priests, scribes, and elders (vv. 1-8), told the parable of the wicked tenants against them (vv. 9-19), and skillfully evaded the trap concerning taxes to Caesar (vv. 20-26). The Sadducees' question is the next volley in this intense theological battle. Jesus' complete victory in these debates serves to demonstrate His superior wisdom and divine authority, justifying His actions in cleansing the Temple and condemning the leadership. This entire section sets the stage for Jesus' lament over Jerusalem and His subsequent Olivet Discourse, where He will prophesy the destruction of the city and the Temple as a judgment upon that generation for rejecting their Messiah.

Key Issues

You Don't Know Your Bibles

At the heart of Jesus' rebuke to the Sadducees, both here and in the parallel account in Matthew, is the charge that "You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Matt. 22:29). This is a devastating critique. The Sadducees were the priestly aristocracy, the custodians of the Temple and the Torah. If anyone should have known the Scriptures, it was them. But their knowledge was academic, selective, and ultimately dead. They had a canon within the canon, accepting only the Pentateuch, and they read it through a materialistic, rationalistic lens that screened out the supernatural. They knew the words on the page, but they missed the God who spoke them.

Their ignorance of God's power was the flip side of the same coin. Because they didn't truly know the God of the Scriptures, they had no category for a God who could raise the dead. Their god was too small, constrained by their own limited reason and experience. Jesus' response is a master class in biblical theology. He shows that the doctrine of the resurrection is not a late invention found only in the prophets or apocalyptic literature, but is embedded in the very foundation of Israel's faith, in the self-revelation of God to Moses. A right knowledge of God's character ("I AM") and a right reading of His Word are inseparable. To get one wrong is to get both wrong.

Verse by Verse Commentary

27-28 Now some of the Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) came to Him, and they questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that IF A MAN’S BROTHER DIES, having a wife, AND HE IS CHILDLESS, HIS BROTHER SHOULD MARRY THE WIFE AND RAISE UP SEED FOR HIS BROTHER.

The stage is set. The Sadducees, Luke tells us, are defined by their denial of the resurrection. They were the materialists of their day. They come to Jesus with a question that is not a question, but a polemic disguised as a question. They begin by citing the law of Levirate marriage from Deuteronomy 25. This was a provision in the Mosaic covenant to ensure the continuation of a family line and the preservation of its inheritance in the land. By starting with "Moses wrote for us," they are attempting to beat Jesus on their home turf, the Pentateuch. The trap is being laid with what appears to be biblical fidelity.

29-32 Now there were seven brothers; and the first married a wife and died childless, and the second and the third married her; and in the same way, all seven died, leaving no children. Finally the woman died also.

They now construct their hypothetical scenario. It is an extreme and frankly absurd case, designed to stretch the law to its breaking point. Seven brothers, one after another, marry the same woman, and each one dies without producing an heir. The woman herself then dies. The story is a caricature, a theological cartoon. Their goal is to create a situation that, if the resurrection were true, would result in an impossible and chaotic state of affairs. The whole scenario drips with the smug condescension of unbelief.

33 Therefore, this woman, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as a wife.”

Here is the punchline, the "gotcha" question. If there is a resurrection, and all eight people are raised, you have one woman and seven men who all have a legitimate, legal claim on her as their wife according to the law of Moses. Who gets her? The question assumes that the resurrection life is simply a resuscitation of this life, with all the same social structures and legal arrangements. They believe they have cornered Jesus, forcing Him to either deny the law of Moses or admit the absurdity of the resurrection.

34-35 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.

Jesus immediately identifies their core mistake. They are confusing two different ages, two different orders of existence. He draws a sharp contrast between "this age" and "that age," the age of the resurrection. Marriage, as we know it, is an institution for "this age." It is a creational good, fundamental to the filling and subduing of the earth. But it is a temporary institution, designed for our mortal, procreative state. Those who are counted worthy to attain to the age to come, a worthiness that comes not by merit but by grace through faith, enter into a new mode of existence where marriage is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was instituted.

36 For they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Jesus gives the reason why marriage is no longer part of the order of that age. First, death is eliminated. "They cannot even die anymore." Levirate marriage was a provision to overcome the effects of death on a family line. Where there is no death, such provisions are obsolete. The human race will no longer propagate through childbirth because the family of God will be complete and immortal. Second, they are "like angels." This does not mean they become angels, losing their human identity. The likeness is in respect to their immortality and their direct, unmediated relationship with God, not requiring the structures of earthly family. Finally, they are "sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." Their identity is no longer primarily defined by their earthly lineage but by their new birth into God's eternal family through the power of the resurrection.

37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB.

Having corrected their faulty understanding of the resurrection life, Jesus now goes on the offensive. He will prove the resurrection from their own authoritative text, the Pentateuch. He points them to the account of the burning bush in Exodus 3, a foundational text for Israel's identity. At that moment, centuries after the patriarchs had died and been buried, God reveals His covenant name to Moses in relation to them. He doesn't say "I was the God of Abraham," but "I am the God of Abraham."

38 Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him.”

Here is the brilliant and inescapable logic. God is the God of the living. To be in a covenant relationship with the living God is to have life. If God still identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must, in some profound sense, still be alive. Their bodies were in the grave, but their persons, their spirits, were alive with God. And because God made covenant with the whole person, body and soul, this ongoing life of the patriarchs implies the future resurrection of their bodies. A God of the living will not abandon the bodies of His saints to death forever. "For all live to Him" means that from God's perspective, all His people, whether on earth or in the intermediate state, are alive.

39-40 And some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” For they did not dare to question Him any longer about anything.

The effect is immediate and total. The Sadducees are silenced. Not only that, but their theological opponents, the scribes (who were mostly Pharisees and did believe in the resurrection), are impressed. They recognize the wisdom and biblical force of Jesus' argument. "Teacher, you have spoken well." This is a rare moment of praise from His adversaries. The intellectual battle is over. Jesus has so completely demonstrated His mastery that no one dares to try to trap Him with questions anymore. He has won the field.

Application

This passage has several sharp points of application for us. First, it warns us against the Sadducean spirit of rationalism that seeks to confine God within the limits of our understanding. It is a constant temptation to domesticate the faith, to trim away the supernatural elements that don't fit neatly into our modern, scientific worldview. But our God is the God who raises the dead. We must not have a god who is too small. We must submit our reason to God's revelation, not the other way around.

Second, it gives us a glorious and robust hope. The resurrection is not a mere continuation of the status quo. It is a transformation into a higher mode of being. While our earthly relationships, like marriage, are good gifts from God, they are signposts pointing to a greater reality. In the age to come, the shadow will give way to the substance. Our relationships will not be erased, but they will be transfigured in the unmediated presence of God. All our loves will find their proper order and fulfillment in our love for Him.

Finally, Jesus teaches us how to read our Bibles. The whole of Scripture testifies to Christ and His gospel of resurrection. Deep and profound truths are not always lying on the surface; sometimes they are embedded in the grammar of a single divine statement. We must learn to read with the conviction that every word of God is pure and powerful. The God who spoke to Moses from the bush is our God, and because He is the God of the living, we who are in covenant with Him through His Son have an indestructible life and a certain hope of resurrection.