Matthew 22

Jesus bests the Sadducees

23 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him 24 saying: "Teacher, Moses said that if someone dies having no children his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring he left his widow to his brother. 26 So also the second, and the third, up to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died too. 28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife, of the seven, will she be? For they all had her."*To dream up hypothetical situations is typical of those who really do not want to acknowledge or obey the truth. No doubt they thought they were being clever. 29 So in answer Jesus said to them: "You are deceived,*I started out putting ‘self-deceived’, but the verb is passive Indicative and not inherently reflexive—it could be Satan deceiving them. not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God!*Alas! Is this not true of large segments of so-called evangelical Christianity? The Lord puts His finger on the Sadducees' real problem—they were spiritually bankrupt. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.*Jesus does not say that angels do not have sex/gender. Evidently no baby angels (good or fallen) are born, but if angels are of only one gender they cannot reproduce in kind. Whenever an angel takes on human form in the Bible, it is always the form of a man. Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of inferior quality, omit "of God" (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?*See Exodus 3:6,15,16—Jesus attributes this text to God! God is not God of dead people but of living."*Jesus argues on the basis of the present tense of the verb—if Abraham was simply eradicated it would have to be "was". Jesus implies that they should have figured it out for themselves. 33 Now as the crowds heard Him they were astonished at His teaching.