Tuesday after the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on November 13, 2018 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 22:23-33 (NKJV)
22:23 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 24 saying: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 25 Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 26 Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. 27 Last of all the woman died also. 28 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.”
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
33 And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
Devotion
The Sadducees held that there would be no resurrection, so they constructed logic puzzles to demonstrate the brilliance of their philosophy. They refused to see the Creator’s power as able to raise up the dead, or the five books of Moses as requiring this article of doctrine, so they sought to harden and spread their denial.
Jesus goes outside of the framework of their riddle (and stays within the Word) to answer them. “You reject the resurrection and ‘reinterpret’ those places where Scripture specifically teaches of it? Well, you must think that God is the God of the dead, then, and not of the living, since He says he is the God of those who are long dead—if, indeed, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not alive with Him and are not going to rise on the Last Day!”
The foolishness of God is demonstrated once again to be wiser than all of Man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God stronger than Man’s strength! In the same way, the promise of God is more ‘solid’ than what Man can hold in his hand, and those who would use false philosophical notions to teach any false doctrine concerning our justification and everlasting life are tripped up by God’s Word like the Sadducees were, not only where it is speaking directly to their error, but by all Scripture in general. If their philosophy were correct, neither Abraham nor anyone else in the Old Testament could be declared righteous, but the Bible tells us otherwise (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; Heb. 11).
We pray: Help us, O Lord, lest anyone cheat us through human tradition, philosophy, and empty deceit; grant us trust solely in Your Word’s pure teaching. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
