Monday Devotional: Marriage in the Age to Come? (Mark 12:18-27)
The Sadducees don't get it.
Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’ There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”
Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong” (Mark 12:18-27).
Of all the people who have ever written and taught about how to read the Bible, none compares in importance to Jesus. He is not only the Bible’s true interpreter but its destination. All of Scripture points to Jesus. The salvation history described in Scripture leads up to that historical moment when God became flesh in Jesus and broke the power of sin and death. Thus when Jesus speaks about the Bible, we must listen.
The Pharisees, scribes, chief priests, elders, and Herodians have all opposed Jesus since he came to Jerusalem. Now enter the Sadducees. They were a priestly group, aristocratic in bearing. They didn’t have much in common with the Pharisees. While the Pharisees had a developed body of teaching in addition to the Bible, the Sadducees, a more conservative group, did not recognize the validity of this teaching. The two groups did not get along. In this case, however, they had a common enemy: Jesus.
Mark tells us that the Pharisees did not believe in the resurrection. According to Acts 23:8, they likewise rejected belief in angels and spirits. Their question of Jesus is meant to demonstrate the absurdity of his belief in the resurrection. They are trying to shame him in public and gain honor for themselves in the process. Their tactic is to show that Jesus’ views are unscriptural. If they can stump him in a matter of biblical interpretation, he will lose face and credibility.
Their question has to do with what is called levirate marriage. Deut 25:5-6 describes this practice:
When brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
In other words, if a man died without a son, and if that man had a brother, the brother will take the wife of the deceased man and bear children through her. The firstborn would bear the name of the brother who died. This was a way of preserving the names and lineage of Israelite families across generations.
So, the Pharisees ask, if a woman has married multiple brothers, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Men do not share wives in Judaism. To anyone listening, Jesus would appear to be in a pickle.
Jesus is having none of it. He tells them that they “know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.” In other words, the question is based on faulty assumptions. It fails to account for the difference between the current age and the age to come. If they understood how to interpret the Bible properly, or if they understood the power of God to make all things new in the resurrection, they would not ask such a wrongheaded question.
He responds, “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” Put differently, in the resurrection, we will have a different kind of existence than we have now. Paul discusses this as well in 1 Cor 15. He writes, “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another” (15:40). Angels do not marry, Jesus says, nor will we marry in the age to come—at least not in the sense of marriage in the context of first-century Israel.
Morna Hooker addresses a concern many might have when reading this passage:
This saying raises problems, since it suggests that the life of heaven is a bloodless existence where the warmth of human relationships has ceased to matter. In speaking of marriage, however, Jesus would have been concerned—as was normal at that time—with questions of property and legitimacy, and what he is rejecting is therefore the notion that this social contract continues in the resurrection life. The implication is perhaps that the limitations of this bond will be removed in the age to come, allowing a wider and deeper experience of human relationships in an existence which will be very different from that of this present age (The Gospel according to Saint Mark, Hendrickson, 1991, 284).
Hooker, then, suggests Jesus may be saying that the institution of marriage—with its implications around legality, the transfer of a woman from one household to another, and the legitimacy of offspring—will no longer exist in the age to come. Relationships of love and commitment may yet persist in the resurrection.
Of course, the Sadducees don’t believe in angels any more than they believe in the resurrection, so they will not be persuaded by Jesus’ argument. Then again, their question was never sincere. It was a trap. Jesus does not attempt to persuade them. Rather, his point is to show those listening in that these Sadducees are false teachers. The priestly temple system they represent has had its day. A new day has come now. They cannot see it because they know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. Yet for those with ears to hear, salvation is near.
Jesus concludes his response with a remark about the Sadducees’ false teaching about the resurrection. God’s self-description as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old Testament means that these patriarchs are somehow still alive. Why would God describe himself by reference to the dead? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The Sadducees simply do not understand how to read Scripture.
Prayer: Lord, guide my mind as I read the Bible. Teach me how to understand your inspired word. Show me your ways that I may walk in them.
Questions:
Why would the Sadducees oppose Jesus?
What does it mean to describe God as “the God of the living.”
What do you think resurrection life will be like?