Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question: “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name. Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children. So the second brother married the widow, but he also died without children. Then the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them, and still there were no children. Last of all, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her.”

Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.

“But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.” (Mark 12:18-27)

Jesus told the Sadducees that their ignorance was showing. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, because they believed only the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy and could find nothing in those books about an afterlife. They did not believe the rest of the books of the Old Testament were authoritative scripture. According to the Law of Moses, if a man died childless, his brother was required to marry the widow. The first child born from the union would then carry on the name, and take the inheritance, of the dead man. The purpose of this law was to keep property in the dead man’s family.

To prove the existence of the resurrection, Jesus quoted from what the Sadducees accepted as scripture. Besides not understanding scripture, Jesus told them that they were blinded by their own culture. They were wrong to assume that the social relationships they knew in the present day would endure in the kingdom of God. The post-resurrection future with God would be nothing like the world. We can see the future only dimly: it will surprise us.

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