Luke 20:27-38 Commentary

This exchange is less about the topic and more about motive. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection so their question is not in good faith, but is actually an attempt to prove how unrealistic the whole concept is.

Underlying the Sadducees’ subject choice are two interconnected things: their love of Scripture and the way they understand legacy or heritage. They create this ridiculous sounding scenario based on the law of Moses. In their tradition, marriage (and having children) keeps a man’s name alive here on earth, so a widow marrying her husband’s brother is the way her husband’s heritage and lineage is protected. This is especially important to a people who do not believe in any sort of afterlife: if there is no resurrection, this earth and this time is the only space where our existence matters.

Jesus does not get wrapped up into the puzzle and instead critiques the mindset. “The people of this age…” think on these sorts of things, he says, “But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come…” come to realize there is more than we understand. Instead of being stumped into realizing his views are wrong—as the Sadducees hoped would be the case—Jesus doubles down on the resurrection from the dead.

His implied warning to the Sadducees is one we ought to all heed as we think about what is to come. Jesus describes a future reality that does not align with the present one or its ways. In the age to come, there will not be marriage in the way it is in this age. Those who are children of God will also be different: they will not die like we do here on earth but will be more like the angels who exist eternally. In fact, death is not an end: Jesus says resurrection is from the state of being dead.

Jesus and the Sadducees believe in the same God. They share the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And turning the tables a bit, Jesus confronts the Sadducees with their own inconsistency. The Scriptures that they love and make their meaning from make clear that there is something more to our existence than just this life. Jesus turns to Moses to make this point, arguing that the present tense language that God uses to describe himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, shows that God sees these three figures as “living” though they had long been dead in Moses’s time.

The Sadducees have made some big assumptions based on their reading of Scripture, but they have failed to let the Scriptures continue to shape, refine, and correct their beliefs. Looking for clarity and assurance on their views, they have not seen (or have avoided or ignored) the truth God has also revealed. It is a humbling reminder that each of our readings of Scripture are always incomplete.

Verses 39 and 40 are not included in the lectionary, but they reveal that at least some of those who came to confront Jesus accept that there might be some truth to what he is saying. If they take Jesus’s invitation, they will be able to go back and read the Scriptures they love in a new way. The lens that God is a God of living, both now and forever, can wildly expand how they understand legacy and heritage. Rooted in it all is God’s grander purposes and design—for wholeness and life for every created thing—a reality that started all living and will be the sum of eternal existence.

Children of the age to come, children of the resurrection, God’s children. This is the most important thing about us. Not what we produce (i.e., the literal as well as symbolic ‘children’/things we produce here on earth) to make our own legacy: we are God’s legacy— and we are already coming into alignment with that design as we live according to his life-giving purposes. After all, as Easter people, we do not look for the living among the dead.

Textual Point

Is there any significance that Jesus never says “heaven” in this passage, but repeatedly refers to “that age” and the “resurrection from the dead”? To me, resurrection of the dead brings the focus to the future new earth, whereas “heaven” draws my attention, well, heavenward… And yet, it’s likely that most of us are picturing heaven as the point of this exchange! As you think about how you’re going to preach, how can you make sure you are sticking to the language that Jesus uses and get people to focus on the new earth, not heaven?

Illustration Ideas

In the novel The Brief History of the Dead (2006), author Kevin Brockmeier plays with the concept of legacy and existence, creating a city where the dead “live” for as long as they are remembered by a living person on earth. I don’t want to spoil the book for you, but you may be able to guess how this story ends… Legacy and being remembered here on earth is beautiful, but it is not eternal.

Riddles with sinister purposes fill our folklore. Examples include the more comedic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and there are plenty of trolls living under bridges and demanding answers before you can pass by. A different version of the riddle is how one commentator referred to the Sadducees’ “Gordian knot” of marriage and remarriage. A Gordian knot is also folkloric from the time of Alexander the Great: King Gordius tied a knot so complex that it was believed impossible to untie—and if anyone did, prophesy had it that they would rule Asia. Alexander couldn’t untie the knot, so he took out his sword and sliced right through it. In a similar way, Jesus doesn’t try to unravel the Sadducees’ puzzle but cuts right through it instead.