Bible Verse Lookup
Mt 22:23-33
Chapter 22
On the Resurrection
Later that day, some Sadducees approached Jesus. Since they deny the resurrection, they questioned him in this manner:
“Master, Moses said that if a man dies without children, his brother must marry the widow and have a child, who will be considered the child of the deceased man.
Now, there were seven brothers. The first married a woman, but he died; since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.
The same thing happened to the second brother, then to the third, all the way up to the seventh.
Then, finally, the woman died.
Now, in the resurrection of the dead, to which of the seven will she be a wife, since they all had her as a wife?”
Jesus replied:
“You are completely mistaken because you don’t understand either the Scriptures or the power of God.
First of all, in the resurrection of the dead, neither men nor women will marry, but they will be like the angels in heaven.
Regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you ever thought about what God told you:
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.”
The people who heard him were astonished at his teaching.
Commentaries
On the Resurrection.
It is now the Sadducees’ turn, who deny the resurrection and base their argument on the law of levirate marriage, which states that a brother-in-law must marry his brother’s widow if she is childless to produce an heir and preserve his family name (Dt 25:5-10; Rut 4). Their presentation is clearly mocking. Jesus responds straightforwardly. Their approach is flawed because it assumes the afterlife is simply a repetition and extension of this life. The life of the resurrected is a work of God’s power, and it is He who creates the new human condition (cf. 1 Cor 15:35-53). He then quotes a text from the Pentateuch (the only sacred text recognized by the Sadducees) in which God Himself presents and defines Himself (Ex 3:6): the God of Scripture is a living God, the God of life and the living.