{Note: This is an excerpt from my book, “The Sovereignty of God.” It looks at the error the Sadducees made when arriving at the conclusion that there is no resurrection. They used their reason to arrive at the wrong conclusion rather than using their reason to arrive at the correct conclusion. This serves as an example for us to be careful when we use reasoning to come to conclusions that we use to build our beliefs on. We must be careful we do not promote our reasoning to the level of “This saith the Lord.”}
Excerpt:
In the days of Jesus, there were many sects, all believing something different. You had the Essenes, who lived a communal existence and many thought may have been the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You also had the Zealots, who hated the Romans and believed God would conquer Rome through violence and might. Then you had the two more prominent sects who shared power in ruling the Jewish people through the Sanhedrin: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were the more conservative of the two and followed the law and the oral traditions. In contrast, the Sadducees followed the law alone, limiting their appeal for authority to the first five books of the Old Testament. A significant distinction between them was in their view of the afterlife. Pharisees believed in an afterlife and angels, while the Sadducees didn’t.
We see Jesus coming head-to-head with Sadducees on their view that there is no resurrection and no afterlife. The reasoning they used to arrive at this conclusion went something like this: The law taught what was referred to as the Levirate Marriage from Deuteronomy 25:5-10. If a man died without a son, his brother would take the widow as a wife and bear a son for his dead brother. The Sadducees reasoned that this inferred that there is no afterlife because if there was an afterlife and a resurrection, how would Levirate Marriages be handled when everyone met back up in the afterlife? This is how they would get Jesus to stumble and prove that there is no resurrection.
Remember, Jesus is God who created man in His image and instituted marriage in Genesis 1 at creation. The Sadducees had no idea the one they were about to test had firsthand knowledge of everything they were about to put to Him.
“The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.” (Matthew 22:23-28 ESV).
Understand, they had settled their authority that there is no resurrection, in part, by how they reasoned this situation through. Jesus tells the Sadducees that there is a resurrection and explains why. Remember, Jesus created man as an eternal being in His image. He was teaching the truth because He was the author of this truth. If you want to know how something works, there is no more qualified source than the creator of that something.
But look at the two charges Jesus lays at their feet which explains the error they made in how they arrived at their incorrect conclusion:
“But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29 ESV).
The first error was in not knowing the Scriptures:
“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘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.” (Matthew 22:31-32 ESV).
The second error was not knowing the power of God:
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30 ESV).
As we go through the rest of this study on the sovereignty of God, I will harken back to this lesson on the Sadducees’ belief that there is no resurrection. Our challenge is not taking a passage, inferring from that passage, and then building a belief system that may not be true. If we make an inference about the sovereignty of God or about how our free will intersects and affects the sovereignty of God, and that inference is incorrect, then we may have a whole house of cards that come crashing down upon us.
And sometimes, we may have to admit that we can’t figure out how everything works together because God has not told us. Sometimes we have to take what we read at face value and chalk it up to the power of God. Even though God has given us the ability to reason, there is no shame in saying, “I believe that God’s purposes will always stand. I believe that God gave man free will. And I believe that God will not always get what He wants. And I still believe He is supremely sovereign.” All of these statements are taught in Scripture, and nothing says we have to be able to fully understand things that may be too wonderful for us to understand.
To some, this may sound like a cop-out for an author. I get it. An author who has trouble backing up his point and says, “Well, you just have to have faith that my point is true,” argues from a weak foundation. But sometimes, that foundation is the only correct foundation to stand on. There is no shame in saying that we don’t understand how things work, but we believe it by faith.
The Lord is on His throne.
He is sovereign over all.
Choose to kneel before Him now,
Instead of kneeling as a conquered foe.
We either make a choice to kneel now,
or the choice will be made for us on Judgement Day.
The devil would have us look at the evil in the world, give up hope, and fall into despair with the direction away from God our society seems to be moving.
Jesus would have us lift up our eyes to see how ripe the fields are for harvest.
When despair starts to creep in, let’s focus on the souls who are hungering for more than what this world can offer. Let’s get out and feed them His Word that they are hungering for.
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” (John 4:35 ESV).
It’s interesting that early Christians were often found guilty of being atheists because of their denials of other gods and their refusal to worship the emperors.
This shows how society will often define terms in a way to find fault in followers of Jesus while really being guilty of what they accuse us of being.
Case-in-point: We believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father and no one can come to the Father except through Him.
Our society accuses us of being exclusive and not being diverse.
But the truth is that we know that God opens the way to every man and woman to the Father, regardless of race, sex, economic level, or nationality.
True Christianity is diverse and inclusive because it is open to anyone who chooses Jesus.
But we will still be labeled as close-minded and exclusive.
I suppose that the early Christians could be considered atheists through the lens that society used the word, just like we might be considered exclusive and close-minded through the lens that our society uses the words.
But early Christians were also faithful believers in the one true God, just as we are part of a spiritual family that spans the globe, made up of men and women, rich and poor, and people from all races and nationalities.
We welcome all who bend the knee to King Jesus and submit to His rule, whomever you may be.
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV).
What an exciting thought that millions of people around the world are gathering to worship the Son of God and remember His death.
As we commune with Him, remember that His kingdom is gathering for this purpose all over the globe.
We do this today with a small number of people on earth, but the day is coming when we will gather around His throne with all His subjects and see Him with our eyes.
Faith will become sight.
Six days until Christmas.
We all have plans to meet with family, prepare feasts, and share gifts.
Some have plans with family to participate in annual festive events.
If King Jesus returned to earth before Christmas, would we be prepared, or is all of our preparation centered around a holiday which may or may not come?
Let us enjoy the holidays while always keeping our focus on being ready for our Lord’s imminent return.
“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6 ESV).