No death no marriage!

Mark 12:18-27

Some Sadducees – who deny that there is a resurrection – came to Jesus and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died leaving no children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?’

  

Jesus said to them, ‘Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God spoke to him and said: 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 very much mistaken.’

Food for thought!

Yesterday, some religious leaders sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to test Jesus. Again today, another set of people came to Jesus with a test question designed to make the belief in individual resurrection look ridiculous. The question of the Sadducees was simply this, if there is at all any resurrection of the dead, whose wife will be a woman who in life got married to seven men?They thought that by asking that question they rendered the idea of resurrection completely ridiculous.

Jesus' answer really falls into two parts. First, he deals with the manner of the resurrection. He lays it down that when a person rises again, the old laws of physical life no longer apply. The risen people are like angels and physical things like marrying and being married no longer enter apply. In other words, Jesus is saying that marrying and get married is for this life alone. And this is because this life ends. And so, in order to prolong themselves, people marry and get married to get offspring, which is another way of living on after death.

It means that the reason why there is marriage is death; where there's death there is marriage; where there's no death (like in heaven) there's no marriage. In the life to come, there's no more death, and by extension, there cannot be marriage. No death, no marriage. Why would people marry and get married if they live on forever? This is the reason angels never marry; but humans do. God made marriage for this life, and this life only. Who misses it in this life misses it for ever.

Second, Jesus deals with the fact of the resurrection. He uses the Bible to prove the resurrection. From Exodus 3:6, God calls himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. If God is the God of these dead men, it means that they must still be alive, for the living God must be the God of living people, and not of those who are dead. And if the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob do live then the resurrection is proved.

Jesus comforts us that the relationship between God and good people is everlasting; it survives death; it goes beyond death. God was the friend of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they lived. That friendship could not cease with death. As the Psalmist said, «But I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand. You give me wise advice to guide me. And when I die, you will take me away into the glory of heaven. (Ps.73:23-24.)

Before we go, many of us are many times wrong just because we are many times wrong with the Scriptures (the Bible) and that is because we under estimate the power of God. Ignorance of the Bible and of the power of God is at the origin of our mistakes and errors and blunders. Many people believe the Bible from cover to cover, but very few people have read the Bible from cover to cover! We too have made a big mistake.