Luke 20:27–38
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is confronted once again by people who are not seeking truth—they are seeking to trap Him. The Sadducees approach Jesus with a question about the resurrection, not because they desire understanding, but because they want to mock him.
Luke tells us in Acts 23:8 that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection or in angels—unlike the Pharisees, and unlike Jesus. To them, this life was all there is. No future. No resurrection. No eternity. Their worldview was limited to what they could see, measure, or control.
The Sadducees were a priestly, aristocratic group—likely descendants of Zadok, tracing their lineage to Eleazar, the son of Aaron. They held political influence and had power within the Temple. They embraced a Hellenistic lifestyle and believed that only the written Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy) had full authority. The word resurrection never appears explicitly in those books, so they rejected it.
Because their Scripture was limited, their view of God was also limited. Because their view of God was limited, their capacity to be what God wanted them to be also was limited.
They come to Jesus with a hypothetical scenario: according to the law of levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5) a woman marries seven brothers, one after another. Then she dies. “Well then,” they ask, “at the resurrection, whose wife will she be?” Their logic is clever. But their logic is too small.
Jesus answers: “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.
But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection… will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (vv. 34–35). With this, Jesus is not belittling marriage. He is enlarging our vision. Resurrection is not this life extension into eternity; resurrection is foremost transformation.
In the resurrection: No marriage is needed for lineage or property security; in resurrection there is no fear of death ending relationships, no scarcity, no competition. Jesus adds, “They are like the angels.” Meaning we become deathless—fully alive in God.
Knowing that the Sadducees only accept the Torah, Jesus quotes the Torah—Exodus 3:6: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Not I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I AM.
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were gone forever, God would have said I was God of…
But He says, I am. Jesus concludes: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.” (v. 38). God’s relationship with His people does not end in a graveyard, it continues forever.
The entire New Testament declares the same message: Resurrection is real.
Paul writes: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor. 15:14) There is something important too, resurrection is not only about what happens after we die. Resurrection begins whenever Jesus brings a person from death to life, from our old life to his new life. John writes on his first letter chapter 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other.” This means Resurrection and Love go together: we Cannot Have One Without the Other.
Where love is, resurrection is, where love is absent, death reigns. Therefore: The Sadducees could not love as God commands because their understanding of God’s Word denied resurrection. If there is no resurrection -as they believed-: There is no eternal accountability, no future beyond themselves, no ultimate purpose beyond this life.
In the absence of resurrection, love is confined to a simple feeling this lifetime and remains temporary, while the relationship between God and humanity becomes solely transactional. If there is no resurrection, then why risk loving others? Why sacrifice? Why forgive? Why seek justice? Why obey God? Why love others?
But with resurrection, love becomes eternal. Resurrection turns love from self-protection into self-giving. When we believe in resurrection: We are free to love without fear of loss. We are free to forgive without fear of being diminished. We are free to give without fear of running out.
In verse 36, Jesus calls “those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection,” “children of the resurrection.” Children of the resurrection: Are not controlled by fear, scarcity, or loss, they live with a love that points to eternity. Here is the Good News, we do not have to wait to die to live our resurrection.
We live it every time we love. When we love: Hope pushes back despair, Justice becomes action and Mercy becomes our lifestyle. On the other hand. if we hate, we remain in death. If we love, we pass from death to life.
I invite you to take with you what 1 John 3:14 says: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love one another.” In other words, we know, we will enjoy eternal life with God and our loved ones because we have learned to love our neighbor because God loved us first. And that resurrected love does not stay theoretical it becomes movement, action, justice, mercy, and involvement.
For John to be children of the resurrection means: When the world chooses apathy, we choose compassion. When the world chooses fear, we choose courage. When the world chooses silence, we speak truth. When this world chooses not to feed, we feed.
We do not wait for heaven to live the resurrection, we live it now — in how we love, serve, give, forgive, advocate, and care.
May the world recognize that we are children of resurrection not because we say we believe in resurrection, but because our lives prove it. Have you passed from death to life?
Amen.
