27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Read Luke 20:27-40 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
We have covered most parts of this passage in previous journal entries, but there is still one piece left: the crowd’s reaction – which has been recorded in both Luke and Matthew.
Matthew tells us broadly that, “When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.” (Matthew 22:33)
We see here Jesus taught things from a completely different perspective than the perspective the other religious teachers taught from – and this new perspective, including the truth it contained, was astonishing to those in the crowds.
But that is not the only reaction. Luke’s reaction verse brings a little more information about how those who brought Jesus the question responded to His answer. Luke says, “Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.” (Luke 20:39-40)
Luke frames the leaders as caught off guard. About the only response they have is a perplexed compliment, as if to say, “We’d never looked at that passage that way before.” While Jesus taught, He seemed to always be trying to shift people’s perspective from an earthly one to a heavenly one.
Instead of looking at a situation from where we are on earth, look at it from heaven’s perspective.
Instead of looking at life in the immediate moment, whether that is the current hour, day, week, or year, look instead from the viewpoint of heaven – the viewpoint of eternity.
Instead of looking at the scriptures as a collection of verses that we can pick and choose from, look at all verses and passages as pieces of an eternal story of how God is moving and interested in this world.
Luke concludes this passage with the comment that from this point on, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. It would seem that at this point, after numerous challenges and questions, and Jesus always being a step ahead with a perfect response, that the religious leaders and teachers would have already picked up on the futility of trying to trap Him. But instead, it takes Jesus perspective shifting the entire foundation of the Sadducee school of thought to wake all the religious leaders up to the idea that He saw life, scripture, and truth from a completely different perspective.
At this point, they give up trying to trap Him and begin the early stages of thinking about killing Him. They realized that they would not be able to discredit Him, so the next best solution would be to get rid of Him by taking His life. However, the irony of that move is that Jesus actually came to give up His life.
In our own lives, are we too caught up in thinking at things from our human perspective?
What would happen if we saw life through God’s heavenly, eternity-filtered perspective?
Would that change our hearts to be more like His?
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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