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!
Have you ever read something and had your mind trail off into a funny scene or odd picture?
Surprised as you might be when that happens, even more surprising for me was that happened while studying this passage – specifically when reading the phrase: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (v. 38a)
The scene that jumped into my mind is the easy-to-imagine-for-many scene of a red devil with a pitchfork in a hot fiery place making things very uncomfortable for those who are with him.
Why might this scene have jumped into my mind? Well, if the dead are still conscious, and those who died without accepting Jesus have met with their final punishment, then that is where they would be – maybe.
This dualistic thinking sets up the idea that there is a kingdom that God rules over (the living), and a kingdom that the devil rules over (the dead), but if you take that simple idea that is so commonly believed just one step further, it makes Satan (the devil) a “god” to those who have died and it places his kingdom in a separate place where God has no power – and this logic does not fit with an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God. Why would God let anyone He helped to form be tormented forever in a place where He has no jurisdiction. Nope, this train of thought does not make sense.
So if this isn’t the case, should we scrap the idea and say that death is the end of all life?
If death was the ultimate end, then the promised “resurrection” would not be true – and this cannot be the case with the broad context in this passage being that of the resurrection.
So if neither of these ideas work, what thought makes more sense in light of the resurrection discussion?
The only thought that makes sense for a loving God who has promised a resurrection is that those who have passed away, and who are “resting in peace” are resting an unconscious state waiting for resurrection day. We could call this “sleep”, but it is a step further than that since it is a state where only God can awaken us from, and it is unlikely that we dream in this state – though I have never been there to know this for a fact.
However, this logic presents a problem with my imaginary scene: Unconscious dead people don’t make for very good subjects in the kingdom of the dead. Not only that, Jesus conquered death at the resurrection, so if anyone has jurisdiction over the kingdom of death at this point, it’s Jesus – making death something that we need not fear.
This promise then becomes this amazing, climatic truth: God is not the God of those who will die the second death; but the God of those who will be saved.
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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