The Resurrection

If you use your imagination and try to conjure up the greatest possible experience that you would have in heaven, once you reach the pinnacle of that imagination, multiply it by a million times, and you still won't have reached what God is preparing for His people. When we have that kind of eternal perspective, as the hymn goes, the things of earth grow strangely dim. Welcome to Renewing Your Mind on this Lord's Day. Dr. R.C. Sproul is going to study the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark to show us that for the Christian, there is indeed something to look forward to after this life, and it's more than we could ever hope for.

Here's Dr. Sproul. We're going to turn our attention now once again to the Gospel according to Saint Mark, and we are still in the 12th chapter, and this morning I will be reading from chapter 12, beginning at verse 18 and reading through verse 27. Now ask the congregation to stand please for the reading of the Word of God. And then some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came to Him, and they asked Him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies and leaves his wife behind and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and dying, he left no offspring, and the second took her and he died, nor did he leave any offspring, and the third likewise, so that the seven had her and left no offspring. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?

For all seven had her as wife. Jesus answered and said to them, Are you not therefore mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But concerning the dead that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken. Beloved, let us never be greatly mistaken in our understanding of the Word of God, which Word you have just heard.

Please be seated. When we looked the last time at the confrontation that Jesus had with the Pharisees and Herodians, I mentioned that chapter 12 gives to us three episodes of encounters that Jesus had with various groups that were present in that day, each of which had their own agenda and each of which came to Jesus, trying to trap Him and impale Him on the horns of a dilemma. The Pharisees raised the issue of paying taxes to Caesar, hoping that Jesus would either get Himself in trouble with the government or with the people. And now today we're looking at the issue of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which was a serious dispute in the first century that divided these factions, divided the Pharisees from the Sadducees. Sometimes we tend to think that there was great unanimity between the Pharisees and Sadducees because of their commitment with each other to the destruction of Jesus.

But that's about all they agreed on. Both the sect of the Pharisees and the Sadducees presumably began in the second century B.C., but they had serious theological differences. On the one hand, for example, the Pharisees laid great emphasis and stress on the sovereignty of God. They were the Calvinists and Augustinians of their day, perish the thought, whereas the Sadducees were the Pelagians before Pelagius, who believed that the affairs of men and of history were determined not by a sovereign God but solely and exclusively by the unfettered free will of human creatures. Secondly, the Pharisees affirmed their belief in angels and in the demonic realm where the Sadducees categorically denied the very existence of angels or of demons. A third point of dispute had to do with what was contained in the canon of sacred Scripture. The Pharisees believed that the Scripture contained the Torah, which was the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, as well as the prophets and the writings, the wisdom literature and such, whereas the Sadducees had a much more restricted view of the canon, recognizing only the Torah as the Word of God. That is the first five books of the Bible. So any appeals to writings beyond the book of Deuteronomy did not count for the construction of theology as far as the Sadducees were concerned, and so they were convinced that since there was no teaching in the Torah about life after death, certainly there would be no resurrection at the end of the age.

The Pharisees, building their case largely on the teachings of the prophets, however, believed in life after death and in the resurrection. So since this was a key point of dispute among them, the Sadducees bring their case to Jesus, and they set up this conundrum, this poser about what would happen in the resurrection to these seven men who shared at one time or another the same wife. And so they put the question to Jesus, the man marries a woman, the man dies before the woman has any children, and according to the law of Moses, which is called the Levarite Law or the Kinsman Redeemer Commandment, the surviving brother of the man who perished was obligated to take his brother's widow as wife that his brother may have some offspring. But suppose the second the brother dies, and the woman still doesn't have any children. And they have another brother, so the third brother marries the woman, and still she has no offspring, and he dies, and so on until we have seven brides for seven brothers or something like that. We actually have seven grooms for one wife, and all of the men die without the woman bearing any children, and then at last she dies. And so the obvious question that the Sadducees put before Jesus is this, right?

The woman's had seven husbands. Who's going to be her husband in heaven? Now anytime I stand up to preach in this pulpit about anything, my chief responsibility is not to please you, not to please Burke or the choir, but my ultimate responsibility is to please God.

He's the one who's going to judge me for how carefully I have handled His Word. But today I have a dilemma of my own because not only do I have the responsibility of pleasing God, but I have the unenviable task of trying to please my wife on how I handle this text. And we all know that her name is she who must be obeyed. And this is one of her persistent theological inquiries that she brings to me. She said, honey, are we going to be married in heaven? And I'm not sure how to answer that because I try to flee from this text as fast as I can because I know the text doesn't give my wife very much comfort, or on the other hand, maybe it would be bad news for her to think that she would have to stay married to me for all eternity. So remember the vow was to death do us part.

You know, this is a strong commitment, but I don't know that it's an eternal one that we've entered into between us. But in any case, Jesus answered the inquiry of the Sadducees with a rebuke. Listen to this for a minute, folks, because it's so easy for us to sit back in the comfort of the twenty-first century and look in judgment at these contemporaries of Jesus of His day and think about how stupid or how arrogant they may have been where we harbor so many of the same ideas and same attitudes within our own hearts. But Jesus rebukes them, for this reason, you are mistaken because you don't know the Scriptures. You know, I think a hundred percent of the theological errors that we make are because we don't know the Scriptures, because God has revealed the same things to all of us that's in the same book.

We read the same book, but we don't always agree on what the book teaches, and that's because we don't really know what's in there. And every believer should strive with all of his might to have a sound knowledge of the Word of God. Lest we hear that same rebuke from Jesus, you're mistaken because you don't know the Word of God. You don't know the Scriptures.

And then He goes on to say what? And because you don't know the power of God. Christianity, whatever else it is, dear friends, is a supernatural religion. We live in a culture that does everything it can to squelch and to quench any idea of the supernatural. And we say that we believe in God, and yet we live sometimes as if our lives were totally in the grip of the powers and forces of this world.

We haven't begun to understand the transcendent power of God, the God who can say, let there be light, and the lights come on, the God whose power has been manifested throughout the gospel of Mark in the earthly pilgrimage of Jesus, who calms the storm, who raises the dead, who heals the sick. And so Jesus rebukes these Sadducees, who were very closely related to the priestly class and the ruling body of the Sanhedrin, and He said, you people have no understanding. You don't understand the Scriptures, and you don't understand the power of God, so you come with this sophomoric question trying to trap me about what happens to these men who were married to this one wife.

And so He now begins to correct their thinking. He says, for when they rise from the dead… Now that's strike one as far as the Sadducees say, because Jesus affirms resurrection here. He is saying to the Sadducees, you're mistaken about the resurrection because they will rise from the dead, but they will neither marry nor will they be given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. Now remember, He's talking to people who don't believe in resurrection and who don't believe angels.

Jesus said, there is a resurrection, and when we are raised, we'll be like those angels that you deny. Now what does He mean when He says there's no marriage or giving in marriage? Now when I read this text of my wife, this is where I am in jeopardy. I'm saying, Jesus says here in clear language that in heaven there is no marriage and there's no giving in marriage. So my dear, that should end the discussion once and for all. And it's almost like she says to me, well if we can't be married in heaven, I'm not sure I want to go there. And I say, well if you're not sure you want to go there, then maybe you won't go there. Don't leave, honey.

But I did give her some little grain of hope, and that's about all it is. It's an infinitesimal particle of hope that maybe that's not what Jesus means here because there are some thinkers who believe that what Jesus is saying is not that there will be no marriage, but He uses this Hebrew idiom of marrying and giving in marriage, where in the Gospel of Matthew, for example, when Jesus is talking about His coming in judgment, He's saying, Of that day no one knows the day and the hour, but that His coming would be like it was in the days of Noah. People will be marrying and giving in marriage. Now when you look back at the text that describes the flood that destroyed the world in the days of Noah, we see that God looks at the world and sees that men were only wicked continually, and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes. And when they describe the corruption of that day and Jesus said it's going to be just like it was in Noah's day, people are going to be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Now some scholars, and there are very few of them, argue that what the Scripture means by that is that what characterized the days of Noah that God responded to with such severe judgment was that the sanctity of marriage was so tarnished by sin that people were marrying, divorcing, marrying, divorcing. It was like a merry-go-round where the sanctity of marriage was not being honored at all, and that was one of the reasons why God sent the flood to punish him.

And Jesus said, it's going to be just like that when I come in judgment. And perhaps He's saying that people will be at ease in Zion totally disregarding God's regulation for marriage. But in heaven there will be no divorce. There will be no cheap marriage. Now maybe that's all Jesus is getting at here, but I don't see how that would answer the question that is being posed by the Sadducees.

I'm not persuaded by that particular option. I think Jesus is speaking straightforwardly here saying there's not going to be any marriage in heaven. We're going to be just like the angels. The angels aren't married. The angels don't have offspring.

They don't procreate. And when I say that, my wife is disappointed. And I say, but think of it, honey. Why would you want to be married to me in heaven? You want to put up with me for all eternity?

I said, think about it. When we're in heaven, there will be no sin. There will be no exploitation of women. There will be no insults one to another of husbands and their wives. Sin will be banished from all human relationships. And don't you understand that my relationship to somebody that I hardly know in this world will be deeper, more blessed, more intimate, more fulfilling than anything I can experience in marriage in this world.

Think of it. We will enjoy human fellowship and communion that will be far richer than the best communion we ever can possibly experience in this world. And I guarantee you, honey, if when we get to heaven you find out that we're not married anymore, it's not going to bother you at all. I was reminded of an episode I had in seminary when we heard a speaker in chapel who did everything but destroy the Reformed faith and attacked everything precious to classical Reformed theology. And on the way out in my distress, I caught up with my mentor Dr. Gerstner as he was on the way to his car. And I said, Dr. Gerstner, if John Calvin were in that chapel this morning, he would have turned over in his grave. And in mid-strive Gerstner just stopped and he turned to me and he said, young man, don't you know that nothing could possibly destroy the felicity that John Calvin enjoys at this moment.

I said, excuse me. But we fail to understand the depth of joy and delight that God has prepared for His people in heaven. If you use your imagination and try to conjure up the greatest possible experience that you would have in heaven, once you reach the pinnacle of that imagination, multiply it by a million times and you still won't have reached what God is preparing for His people with His power and with His Word. Now Jesus moves in verse 26 to this consideration, but concerning the dead, that they rise. Have you not read? And He's going to give them a quiz here on what they've read of their theological acumen, what they've studied in the Bible.

Have you not read? Now He doesn't take them to Isaiah. He doesn't take them to Jeremiah.

He doesn't take them to Job or to the writings. He takes them to the Torah. He takes them to the second book of the Old Testament where He says, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, that is to Moses, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He's not the God of the dead, but He's the God of the living.

Therefore, you are greatly mistaken. To prove His point of future resurrection, Jesus goes right to the very book that they thought did not teach life after death. And He said, what do you think the Bible is teaching? God's not the God of the dead.

And why would God say I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob unless He was still the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? Do you realize what that means to us today? That Abraham, dear friends, is still alive. Isaac still lives.

Jacob is alive and well because their lives are in the hand of the God of the living who will not let death end our personal existence. So that we find in this text, dear friends, not only a magnificent philosophical refutation of the views of those who would try to entrap Jesus, but we find from our Master's lips once again His bold and strong affirmation to the oldest question that man has, which is this, if a man dies, shall he live again? And our Lord, without hesitation, answers that question in the affirmative.

We have life, and we have it forever. And to miss that is not only to be mistaken, Jesus said, but to be greatly mistaken. My prayer, dear friends, is that that mistake may never be found among us. Among us. This life is full of pain and hardship, and you may be experiencing some sort of difficulty right now.

Dr. R.C. Sproul's message today points our attention beyond our present circumstances and provides us with an eternal perspective. I'm glad you've joined us today for Renewing Your Mind as we continue Dr. Sproul's verse-by-verse series through the Gospel of Mark. Each Sunday, we gain such valuable insight into this gospel, and when you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we will send you a valuable resource to help you in your own study.

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Just search for Ligonier in your app store. When questioning Jesus, the religious and legal scholars of the day did their best to trip Him up, but they met their match when they asked Him which commandment was most important. I hope you'll join us again next Sunday for another message from Mark's Gospel here on Renewing Your Mind. .