Lange Commentary - Mark 12:18 - 12:27

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Lange Commentary - Mark 12:18 - 12:27


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

4. The Attack of the Sadducees, and their Overthrow. Mar_12:18-27.

(Parallels: Mat_22:23-33; Luk_20:27-40.)

18     Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, 19Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 20Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the wo man died also. 23In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. 24And Jesus answering, said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? 25For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. 26And as touching the dead, that they rise; have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See Matthew, and the parallel in Luke.—In this section, Mark’s individuality appears only in the more pictorial description of the seven successive marriages; in special supplemental strokes; in the more positive tracing of the error of the Sadducees up to a want of knowledge of the Scriptures and to unbelief; and in the final statement, Ye therefore do greatly err. While the immediate effect of Christ’s word is not presented till the Evangelist comes to relate the next history.

Mar_12:28. When they shall rise.—The immediate, special reference is to the seven. Perhaps doubt is also expressed.

Mar_12:26. How in the bush; that is to say, in the appropriate passage, where the thorn-bush is spoken of—which ye will find something of a thorn-bush.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Comp. Matthew, and the conclusion of the Apostles’ Creed, Resurrection of the body, etc. John 5; 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 5; Daniel 12, etc. Comp the doctrine of the Scripture on the Resurrection, as unfolded in the works upon Biblical Theology, and the teaching of the Church as given in works on Dogmatics; the hopes of immortality cherished by the nations, recorded in histories of religion. Comp. the proofs of an immortality. The writings bearing on the topic from Plato’s Phœdo down.

2. Unbelief has always two springs: 1. The want of historic faith (Te know not the Scriptures); 2. the want of personal faith (Ye know not the power of God).

3. Belief in immortality and belief in angels, or a world of spirits, are most intimately united: so also the respectively opposed elements of unbelief.

4. Unbelief is, on the one hand, united with rude sensuality (“marrying” in that world too); and, on the other, with a wild phantasy (indulging in phantasies upon the future state), and a carnal view of the uniformity obtaining throughout God’s universe (tout comme chez nous).

5. Unbelief, which attacks one part of the truth, understands nothing of that part upon which it intends to support itself in attacking.

6. They tempted the Lord to the abandonment of the doctrine of the resurrection, or to the retaining of it, coupled with polygamy in the future as its consequence. They supposed, He must either state an absurdity, or be struck dumb by their supposed deductio ad absurdum. But they had political designs in addition. Comp. Matthew. They intended that, by a denial of the resurrection, He should deny His work, or should present Himself as an enthusiast, and yield up to the profane world the secret of His hope. Christ sent the especially “wise” home as the especially “foolish.”

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Comp. Matthew.—The Sadducees constitute the historical counter-picture to the Pharisees.—The Sadducees, the deniers of immortality, are immortal.—They invented an improbable, indecent tale to deny a most trustworthy and glorious reality.—They find in the Bible a thorny bush indeed, but not the burning bush.—The sentimental expectations of a bodily sight and possession are not tenable: 1. Too great for the reason; 2. for faith too little; 3. for both preposterous.—The external revelation is not in itself weak through too strong faith, but through credulity springing from too little faith, which believes, 1. Many things, but not much; 2. the extraordinary, but not the miraculous; 3. the spectral, but not the spiritual; 4. the earthly in heavenly hue and dress, but not the heavenly as the glorification of the earthly.—The Sadducees and their faith: I. How they attack faith (while they propound the most improbable views), either, 1. with an improper explanation of Scripture and of the law, 2. with an improper picture of life, and 3. with an improper view of the world; or, 1. with improper reasoning, 2. with improper wit. 2. How faith replies: with, 1. a deeper exposition of Scripture, 2. higher pictures of life, 3. a holier contemplation of the world in the light of God.—They say, our unbelief comes from our knowing: He says, it comes from your not knowing.—The belief in the angels makes the belief in the resurrection a necessity.—One truth of faith explains and strengthens another.—Unbelief in immortality a radical error: 1. A positive confusion; 2. a positive mistake.

Quesnel:—The devil gives the Christian no rest. If one temptation does not entangle, another is tried; hence watchfulness is essential.—Hedinger:—Preformed opinions constitute a hindrance to the truth.—Oh that there were none among Christians who doubt the resurrection! If they venture not to acknowledge their doubt, they manifest nevertheless by their deeds that they believe in no other life.—The thoughts of carnal men regarding the heavenly life are carnal and disreputable.—Canstein:—Christians must stir themselves up, in thinking of the eternal life, to separate themselves ever more and more from the lusts of the body and fleshly-mindedness.

Braune:—It was the extreme fleshly-minded (the Sadducees) who could not comprehend the reality and truth of the spiritual world.—The Gospel of the Risen One has brought forward more clearly for the spirit of man the kingdom of God and the hope of resurrection, of which we have frequent relations in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Sadducees repeatedly appear as foes.—The Saviour unites the Scriptures and the power of God. Hence comes Augustine’s statement, The more we see of the Scripture, the more we die to the world; the more we live to the world, the less we see.—“Reason digs beside (Scripture), Frivolity stalks by, and Pride flies away over” (Zinzendorf). Many of the Rabbis dreamed of marriages according to passages in the prophets, as Isa_65:20; Isa_65:23, where we read of a new heaven and a new earth; and this was not once deemed base by the Pharisees.—Of marriage, accordingly, that alone remains which was spiritual, just as sex in regard to physical distinctions is lost, and that alone remains which had spiritually been developed; for the distinction between sexes, consisting in the development of what relates to spirit, and in that which lays hold of the mind’s most inner nature, continues undoubtedly for ever.—Death breaks all bands, but destroys not existence.

Brieger:—He who has not in various ways experienced that God is the Living One, cannot from the heart believe in any resurrection. Is God called the God of Abraham? much more must He be called the God of Jesus Christ, Joh_5:29; 1Co_15:19; Rom_14:8.

Gossner:—One sort of evil men after another come to Jesus to trouble Him, to tempt Him, instead of seeking their salvation from Him.

Footnotes:

[Mar_12:19.—The áὐôïῦ after ãõíáῖêá is omitted by B., C., L., Ä ., Meyer.]

[Mar_12:20.—After ἐðôÜ , Elzevir and Fritzsche have ïὖí ; it is not found in A., B., C., E., F., L.]

[Mar_12:21.—Instead of êáὶ ïὐäå áὐôὸò ἀöῆêå , B., C., L., Tischendorf read ìὴ êáôáëéðþí .]

Mar_12:22.—The reading, êáὶ ïἱ ἑðôὰ ïὐê ἀöῆêáí óðÝñìá , [omitting ἔëáâïí áὐôὴí and the second êáß ,] is strongly supported by B., C., L., Ä ., [Tischendorf]; but the demands of the context go to strengthen the Codd. which give the other reading. That no seed was left by the seven, is in and for itself of no importance; it is merely the occasion of the seven taking the same woman to wife.

Mar_12:23.—̓́ Ïôáí ἀíáóôῶóé is omitted by B., C., L., Ä . Lachmann puts it in parenthesis; Cod. A., &c., support it; and the consideration, that its omission is easier to account for than its insertion, is an additional argument in favor of this reading.

Mar_12:27.— Èåüò is wanting with æþíôùí in A., B., C., D., Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf. [Tischendorf omits ὑìåῖò ïὖí , after B., C., L., Ä .]