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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 19. Jesus' Teachings—A Test Case
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Jesus' Teachings—A Test Case
One of the most positive teachings was given by Jesus in the running fire of dispute with some of the national leaders during the last few weeks (Mar_12:18-27 and parallels). It was in His answer to the prize or pet question of the Sadducees.
The Sadducees were the atheists, the rank materialists, of the Jewish nation. Their chief characteristic was a nonbelief in the resurrection. But that is merely made the outstanding feature in their creed of atheistic materialism.
Now they make a carefully planned attack upon Jesus. They feel so sure of being able to get Him in a corner that their attack is made in the open, before the thickening Passover crowds. They had a test case to present. It was clearly their standing illustration. They considered it simply unanswerable.
A man had died leaving his widow childless. In accordance with Jewish custom his brother had married the widow to perpetuate the family line. But he also died, and also, childless, and so in turn, seven brothers, each dying without leaving an heir. Now in the resurrection that Jesus believed in and taught, whose wife would she be, for they each had her in turn.
And one can see them chuckling under their breath, with an unholy hate and glee mingling in their gloating eyes. This had never been answered yet. It was unanswerable, they were quite sure. Ah, now they had Him ! And out in the open too. It would be a public defeat for this man they hated.
Jesus reply is so simple and quiet and clear and absolutely convincing that His questioners are utterly silenced. They have no reply. And that is saying a lot for an Oriental, and a Jew, and a Sadducee, and a skeptic.
Jesus answers in effect: "It's no wonder you make such blunders, for you evidently don't know your own Scriptures. And you don't know the power of God. For the other world has not the same limitations as this. There they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are upon the level of the angels. For neither can they die any more."
Then He goes on in quaint language: "as touching the dead, that they are raised; have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the Bush, how God spoke unto him saying, 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'." Then He adds with that convincing unanswerable quietness: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
God is a God of life. Abraham and these others were indeed dead in the common language and experience of earth; but they were not really dead. They were living when the word was spoken to Moses out of the burning unburnt bush four centuries and more after their death on the earth.
They were living as Jesus spoke the words. They were living with God. They had the same quality as He of being alive. Those in touch of heart with God have the same qualities as He. All continue to have some part of creative life. These have the same sort of full life as God Himself. He is a living God. They are living too, the same quality of life as He.
And the force of the answer is seen in the attitude of these critical quizzers. They are silenced, actually silenced! They haven't a word in reply There's a touch of the real in Jesus' words that gives a peculiarly convincing power to them. The Sadducees retire abashed, confounded, dumbfounded, utterly routed. It's such a victory for Jesus that another group of His. enemies muster their forces to try to gain some of the lost ground.
God is a living God. Those in touch of heart with Him are like Him. They take on His quality of life. Though they have died here yet they are living. They are living with Him. They are living His sort of life. It's His power that makes it so, overcoming all the power of death. The Book clearly teaches it. So Jesus teaches here.