Resurrection and Everlasting Life

Mark 12:18-27

The Sadducees: What About the Resurrection?

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."

The resurrection and everlasting life are the hope of the good news which Jesus earned for us and offers to all He calls and opens the eyes and ears to turn from sin to Him (Mark 1:15, Acts 20:21) and receive Him in faith (John 1:12) as Savior and Lord (Isaiah 45:21-22, Luke 2:11, 2 Peter 1:11).   Those Sadducees who confronted Jesus were sad you see because they had no hope after death, only an annihilation of existence in their minds, thinking we are just temporal beings without an immortal soul.  They tried to trick Jesus into their sad outlook on life and the Law by proposing a preposterous situation of a woman who had married and widows seven brothers and died childless.  They slyly asked Him whose wife would she be in the resurrection after death to confuse Him and prove there was no life after death as if such an improbable situation would prove that.  The Lord and Savior spoke plainly and directly to the real issue of disbelief in the immortal nature of man and the word of God which proved their assumptions wrong.  He explained what the scriptures taught of life after death and the power of God to do what He said and was written for them to understand.  We will live again with bodies that do not ever degrade or die again (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 51-52), and continue to live forever with Him.  The simple answer from the scriptures already written when Yahweh showed Himself that Jesus used was the fact that the LORD is the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” as we read in Exodus 3:6, 14-15, all dead but living beyond death in immortality.  The three disciples even witnessed (Matthew 17:3) Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus even though their bodies were long dead.   God is the God of the living!  To ignore, deny, or explain away everlasting life is to be gravely mistaken about what God has said concerning the resurrection to come and eternal life after mortal death.  There is no eternal elimination of the soul because the “eternal destruction” in scripture refers to a forever apart from God in the torment of the lake of fire for rejecting Christ who alone can forgive sin once and for all (Hebrews 9:12, 10:10) and give an everlasting presence in company with God (1 Thessalonians 4:17, Revelation 22:3-4) after He raises us from death to unending life on that day of judgment and great reward.  There is also no need anymore for marriage because no more dying means there is no need to multiply and fill the new earth as Adam was commissioned to do.  We all will live forever after we die and leave this mortal coil behind, because as the bride of Christ we are already joined to Him in perfect unity with no more need of the representation seen in this earthly union of the institutional covenant of mortal marriage, a mere shadow and portent of that which is to come which we cannot see now (Ephesians 5:30-32).  The resurrection and the life are found in union with Christ, a certain hope we eagerly anticipate, for we are not as others without this hope and who are so sad you see in disbelief and rejection of Him.