Death cannot speak

Another pause from the study of parables that we might examine a powerful explanation given by our Lord. Christ gives answer to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:29-32. The Sadducees were those who believed a man did not rise to life after death. They asked a question of Jesus about the resurrection – which, if you think about it, someone who does not believe in the resurrection should never bother to ask.

They believed the end was death, while resurrection, as bodied forth by Christ, was set toward the end of life. This opened the possibility of two resurrections, and indeed, the answer Christ gave addressed both a resurrection of life and a resurrection of death. Let us first explore the question, and then those who posed it.

A woman who had seven husbands in life would need to settle accounts in the afterlife. In other words, she could only legally belong to one if all of them were alive. We are all well aware of the legalisms spouted by Sadducees, Pharisees, and that particular ilk. The tempters of Christ were doctors of the law and purveyors of pedigree. They prided themselves on being well versed in even the smallest facet of the law. They would divide and divide again, and no fine point was ever too fine for additional review.

As to those clever ones who thought they had a fine point, they were not unlike their rivals the Pharisees. Both groups were nationalistic in that they drew their authority from the law which God had given to Moses – a law that was legally recorded through the very lineage of the Hebrew nation. It was a proven standard and seal that was shown in the national pedigree they inherited through their fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Aren't we all a bit legalistic? Aren't we all over-burdened with too many fine points? Even in our modern mindset we recognize the division between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, but which do we lean the more toward? Our understanding is a rudimentary beast, born of personal prejudice and suckled on inopportune opinion. We take the parts we desire and jump to conclusions, clothing ourselves in the agreement with those of similar disposition, being equally prejudiced and opinionated.

Christ gave answer to the Sadducees, and to us alike. We do not know the scriptures, therefore our conclusions and fine points are erroneous. If we have not fully fathomed the what God has said to us, how can we fully comprehend the power at his disposal? If we have an incomplete understanding of the word of God, an understanding filtered by our own limited ambitions, then our understanding of God and what he is all about is also filtered.

Matthew 22:29, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”

A cursory review of the scriptures will accomplish no more than a limited understanding of God. The statement Christ gave the Sadducees was a lead-in to his explanation of one of the two resurrections: the resurrection of life. When a man, or a woman, rises to life after their physical death – they are like the angels of God. They are like the angels! They . . . “are as the angels of God in heaven.” So – how are they angels of God in heaven? What degree of life and freedom are they permitted in heaven? Well – according to the son of God, and who better to know, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. This statement was given in response to our filtered understanding of the scriptures.

A filtered understanding will thus conclude that the resurrected, like the angels of God, are sexless or have no binding relationships. In fact, Christ only states that there is no marriage like our filtered understanding is used to. There is marriage in heaven, to be sure: it is the marriage of the son of God to the church. So then, we must inquire: who exactly is the church? The church, in answer to our own question, is the entire body of those who reach heaven. They are the ones that live on.

Our misunderstanding of the scriptures is a monster of an obstacle. We not only know less of the power of God, but less of his true nature, and therefore, less of our own connection. We cannot assume that there are molecular bodies in heaven. They may be atomic. We cannot even be sure that there are bodies. We do after all speak of a spiritual plane. Perhaps all there is in the way of a body is a sense of personal identity. And what will that identity associate with?

Unlike the limited nationalistic view held by the Sadducees and Pharisees, a spiritual identity will associate with life. The Sadducees associated with Abraham, Issac and Jacob in a nationalistic and genealogical sense, all of whom had bodies that died. Christ turned that association against them with the very scriptures they were so well versed in.

Matthew 22:31-32, “Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

If the Hebrews found their continuance in their Patriarchs, and their fathers lived on in and through them, then how could those who rejected resurrection lay claim to them? The reference to scripture was a jab in the soft underbelly of non-believers and well deserved. If you do not believe in the resurrection, do you even get to talk about it? If you do not believe in God, do you even merit an opinion? I think not. Life is for the living: to be lived, embraced, and discussed by the living only. Death cannot speak.