18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, 19 Master, 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. 20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. 24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? 25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. 26 And 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? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. (Mark 12:18-27 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Our blessed Saviour having put the Pharisees and Herodians to silence in the former verses, here, encounters the Sadducees. This sect derived its name from one Sadock, who denied the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, angels, and spirits. Here they propound a case to our Saviour, of a woman who had seven brethren successively to her husbands: they demand whose wife of the seven this woman should be at the resurrection? As if they had said, “If there be a resurrection of bodies, surely there will be of relations too; and the other world, if there be such a place, will be like this, in which men will marry as they do here; and if so, whose wife of the seven shall this woman be, they all having an equal claim to her?”
Now our Saviour, to resolve this question, first shows the different states of men in this and in the other world. The children of this world, says our Saviour, marry and are given in marriage, but in the resurrection, they do neither. As if Christ had said, “After men have lived a while in this world, they die, and therefore marriage is necessary to maintain a succession of mankind; but in the other world, man shall become immortal, and live forever, and then the reason of marriage will wholly cease; for when men can die no more, there will be no need of any new supplies of mankind.”
Observe, secondly, That our Saviour having got clear of the Sadducees’ objection, by taking away the foundation and groundwork of it, he produces an argument for the proof of the soul’s immortality and the body’s resurrection. Those, to whom Almighty God pronounces himself a God, are certainly alive; but God pronounced himself a God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, many hundred years after their bodies were dead, therefore their souls are yet alive; for otherwise God could not be their God; because he is not God of the dead, but of the living.
From the whole, note, 1. That there is no opinion so monstrous and absurd, that having had a mother, will die for lack of a nurse. The beastly opinion of the mortality of the soul and the annihilation of the body, find Sadducees to profess and propagate it.
Note, 2. The certainty of another life after this, in which men shall be eternally happy, or intolerably miserable, accordingly as they behave themselves here. Though some men live like beasts, yet they shall not die like them, nor shall their last end be like theirs.
Note, 3. That glorified saints in the morning of the resurrection shall be like the glorious angels; not like them in essence and nature, but like them in their properties and qualities, in holiness and purity, in immortality and incorruptibility; as also in their manner of living, they shall stand in no more need of meat and drink than the angels do, but shall live the same heavenly, immortal, and incorruptible life that the angels live.
Note, 4. That all those who are in covenant with God, whose God the Lord is, their souls do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies at the resurrection shall be sharers in the same happiness with their souls; if God is just, their souls must live, and their bodies must rise; for good men must be rewarded, and wicked men punished somewhere; either in this life or in another. God will most certainly, at one time or other, plentifully reward the righteous, and punish the wicked doers. But, this being not always done in this life, the justice of God requires that it must be done in the next.
BURKITT : | Mark 12:1-8 | Mark 12:9-12 | Mr 12v13-17 | Mr 12v18-27 | Mr 12v28-34 | Mark 12:35-37 | Mark 12:38-40 | Mr 12v41-44 | KJV Comm