Matthew 22:29-33 29But in answering, Jesus said to hem, “You have been deceived, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but they will be like angels in heaven. 31And about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33And when the crowd heard it, they were amazed at his teaching.
The Sadducees had deceived themselves and taken the wrong path in their thinking. Deceived (planasthe) means to be misled or go in the wrong direction. They had allowed their theological biases to lead them to the wrong conclusion, and this thinking was also alienating them from Jesus, the Way, Truth, and Life.
Their thinking was wrong in two ways. First, they had the wrong interpretation of the Scriptures. They had a narrow interpretation of Moses’ teaching in Deuteronomy and did not understand the purpose of this instruction. Quoting a passage is not enough; one must also study the context and themes of a passage and interpret these in the light of the whole Bible. Second, they did not know the power of God, which they demonstrated by not believing in resurrection. If God created humans from the dust of the earthly, surely God can recreate people from dust again. Nothing is too difficult for the Almighty God, Creator of the universe.
The next part of Jesus’ response beginning in verse 30 is challenging to understand. He gives the reason for the Sadducees wrong understanding and so gives the right interpretation of resurrection. The scenario from the Sadducees implied that our future existence would continue on like it has been on earth. But Jesus states that resurrected life will be different. The purpose of marriage is to propagate. The first command God gave to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply. There will be no such purpose in heaven because we will become like the angels who are spiritual beings. We will not become angels, who are separate creations of God. We will have a new type of existence that does not need to continue the human race to overcome the power of death. Jesus does not say here that we will not see loved ones in the afterlife but simply that marriage will not part of it. His point here is not to give new revelation about marriage in eternity, although the implications are clear, but to counter the wrong interpretation of the Sadducees.
Jesus adds support to his logic in verse 30 by quoting Scripture, which seemed important to the Sadducees, at least for their selfish reasons. If they wanted to play the game of Bible proof texting, Jesus could do it also, but with the right interpretation. Jesus goes right to the top and quotes God’s famous statement repeated many times in the Pentateuch (see Exodus 3:6). Jesus appeals to the literal and grammatical sense of the present tense of the verbs. This quotation says something about God and about the Patriarchs, with Jesus’ emphasis the latter. Even though they died centuries before this statement, they must be alive in some fashion if God is still their God. The logic is indisputable and clear and impresses the crowds. Matthew does not record any response from the Sadducees, but their silence says a lot.
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