Mark 12:18-27

¹⁸ Then some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him; and they asked Him, saying:

¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

²⁰ Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife; and dying, he left no offspring.

²¹ And the second took her, and he died; nor did he leave any offspring. And the third likewise.

²² So the seven had her and left no offspring. Last of all the woman died also.

²³ Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”

²⁴ Jesus answered and said to them, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?

²⁵ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

²⁶ But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

²⁷ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.”

Also found in Matthew 22:23-33 and Luke 20:27-40.

This is Mark’s only reference to the Sadducees, whom he introduces with a word of explanation. They were a priestly aristocracy, less numerous than the Pharisees and less popular Religiously they were the rationalists of the day, although conservative in their attitude to the Scriptures in the sense that they denied the validity of the oral tradition which the Pharisees held to be binding. They took their stand particularly upon the authority of the Pentateuch. They were therefore as obnoxious to the Pharisees on religious grounds as were the Herodians on political grounds. But the Pharisees were willing to work with either for the destruction of Jesus. It may be, however, that the Sadducees now hoped to succeed where their adversaries had failed.

Their question was less dangerous than the previous one, being a matter of exegesis and speculation rather than politics, doctrinal rather than ethical. — Guthrie, page 877.

The Sadducees did not believe in angels, spirits, or the resurrection. It wasn’t that they denied any particular resurrection, but that the possibility of any sort of resurrection from the dead did not exist. And even though their approach was more direct and not filled with fake praise, they were testing Jesus. They weren’t seeking knowledge.

Like the rationalist of every age, [the Sadducees] stood coldly aloof from popular movements, and we seldom find them interfering with Christ or His followers until their energies were roused by the preaching of His Resurrection, so directly opposed to their fundamental doctrines.

Their appearance now is extremely natural. The repulse of every other party left them the only champions of orthodoxy against the new movement, with everything to win by success, and little to lose by failure. There is a tone of quiet and confident irony in their interrogation, well befitting an upper-class group, a secluded party of refined critics, rather than practical teachers with a mission to their fellow-men. They break utterly new ground by raising an abstract and subtle question, a purely intellectual problem, but one which reduced the doctrine of a resurrection to an absurdity, if only their premise can be made good. … [The Lord’s answer] lays great and special stress upon the authority of Scripture, in this encounter with the party which least acknowledged it. — Chadwick, page 331.

Moses wrote (v.19) — Deuteronomy 25:5

The literal Greek [of v.24] is, “Because of this do you not err, not knowing the scriptures an the power of God?” The Greek negative ou when used with a question, expects an affirmative answer. This form of question is stronger than a formal direct statement would be. The words “because of this” point ahead to the cause of their ignorance which was two-fold, both inexcusable in members of the priesthood, which most of these men probably were, ignorance of the Old Testament and ignorance of the power of God. The Sadducees (and the Pharisees also, so far as they connected marriage and the propagation of the race with the future life). showed themselves incapable of conceiving a power which could produce an entirely different order from any within their experience. They assumed either that God could not raise the dead, or that He could raise them only to a life which would be a counterpart of the present, or even more replete with material pleasure. — Wuest, pages 235-236.

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like angels (v.25) — Angels were originally created. There are the same number of angels in existence today as when they were created. They do not propagate their kind. Human beings in the next life will not be angels, but human beings. They will be like angels in this respect, that they will not propagate their kind. Thus the hypothetical case of the Sadducees has no relation to the future life. — Wuest, page 236.

The quote in v.26 is from Exodus 3:6.

[Jesus’] argument … is based upon the immutability of God, and, therefore, the imperishability of all that ever entered into vital and real relationship with Him. To cancel such a relationship would introduce a change into the Eternal. And Moses, to whom they appealed, had heard God expressly proclaim Himself the God of those who had long since passed out of time. It was, therefore, clear that His relationship with them lived on, and this guaranteed that no portion, even the humblest, of their true personality should perish. Now the body is as real a part of humanity, as the soul and spirit are, although a much lowlier part. And, therefor, it must not really die. — Chadwick, pages 335-336.