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Sermon preached on Luke 20:27-44 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 10/23/2022 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We pick up again in Luke’s gospel remembering that Jesus had just triumphantly entered Jerusalem and began to put things into action that would result in his being put to death on the cross. This would happen through his conflict with the religious leaders who did not believe he was the Christ. For much of Jesus’ ministry, he kept his messianic identity fairly guarded. But now, in this final week leading up to the cross, he begins to make fully known his messianic identity. This conflict between him and the religious leaders and this revealing of his messianic identity is furthered in today’s passage.
There are two main sections in this passage, verses 27-40 and verses 41-44. We’ll deal with verses 27-40 first where we see Jesus asked a question about the resurrection. So then, beginning in verse 27 we see that his opponents here are the Sadducees. So far, Luke’s gospel has largely drawn our attention to the Pharisee’s opposition to Jesus. But, I mentioned earlier in the chapter when it mentioned how Jesus was opposed by the chief priests, elders, and prominent leaders in the temple, that that surely contained largely if not all Sadducees. These were two most major religious sects within Israel at that time, these Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Pharisees were by far more popular and influential among the people and thus more widespread, but the Sadducees were the ones in control of the priestly class and thus of the temple, and so they held much authority and resulting influence over the religious life of God’s people. Both groups had theological and moral problem, but today’s passage addresses the Sadducees and so I’ll focus on them today. Here, we learn something about their theological problems. They didn’t believe in the resurrection from the dead. They thought that this life was all that there was. They also only held to the first five books of the Bible as their canon of Scripture, what we refer to as the Torah or the Pentateuch. These things are interrelated because when you get rid of most of the Old Testament, you have a lot less revelation concerning the resurrection. They, in fact, mistakenly thought that it had no teaching about it.
So, then, another thing we see of the beliefs of these Sadducees is that they rejected Jesus as the Christ. For they come to him with a theological question. It’s a question related to the resurrection. It is a question that presumes the resurrection of the dead when they didn’t believe in the resurrection. In other words, this was not a genuine question. It was another one of those questions where they hoped to discredit Jesus. Because they come up in their mind what they think is some question that shows the absurdity of the doctrine of the resurrection. No doubt they thought their question would serve even two purposes – it would not only discredit Jesus, but also be another opportunity to make their doctrinal case against the Pharisees. So, in their mind, it was a great question.
Now you might be a little confused by their question, as it references an ancient practice call the levirate law. The levirate law was part of civil laws of Israel found in the Torah. It was also a widespread custom beyond Israel through much of the ancient Near East. The levirate law, also known as the husband’s brother law, said that if a married man dies before he has an heir with his wife, then his brother or otherwise nearest kin ought to take her as a wife and try to produce an heir with her. That heir would be counted legally as if it was the deceased brother’s child, and his inheritance and name would be passed on to that heir.
That practice of the levirate law becomes the basis then for the Sadducees question to Jesus. Notice, they begin their question with reference to Moses in verse 28, to Deuteronomy 25. That’s part of the Torah, so they would have received that authoritatively as canon. Here, they ask Jesus this question about these seven brothers who each work their way down through the levirate law with the woman. They imagine an initial marriage and then six subsequent levirate law unions after each brother dies. Still no heir. Then the women dies. They all end up in the resurrection, and then the question is whose wife is she?
Realize then, this is them trying to paint an absurd situation. Again, they don’t believe in the resurrection, so they are making an argument by trying to showing the absurdity of the position. In philosophy this is a form of argument known as reductio ad absurdum – argument to absurdity. That is why it is not a genuine question on their part.
So then, Jesus again answers well, see verse 34. He explains that their reasoning had a faulty presumption. Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither merry nor are given in marriage.” So, their faulty presumption was that in the resurrection there would still be the institution of marriage. Their argument of absurdity is inherently flawed because there will not be marriage in the afterlife.
Let’s process that for a moment. In this life, marriage, and its related conjugal aspects, is such a central part of our existence. When marriages are what they ought to be, they are such a central and fulfilling parts of our lives, not only for the married couple, but also for their descendants well. Marriage, and by extension, family, is generally the closest relationships we will have in this life, and typically so fundamental to who we each are. It can be hard sometimes to imagine how heaven will be far better than anything we have here, yet there not being marriage. But we can certainly trust God that what he said will indeed be the case, even if we don’t yet have enough information to know what that will look like.
While there is much mystery to this, we are told a little bit about this future in verse 36. There we are told that we won’t die anymore. Actually, it literally says we won’t be able to die anymore. God’s raising us up will be unto immortality. In this context it also says we’ll be equal to angels, though I think this is better translated as being “like” angels. To clarify, this is connected with the immorality idea. It isn’t saying we’ll become like angels in every respect, but that in regard to being immortal, we’ll be like angels then in that regard. In other words, we don’t become angels, but our immortal condition will be like how God made them immortal too.
Likewise, verse 36 says that we will be sons of God, as being sons of the resurrection. Again, just like being like angels didn’t mean we would become actual angels, so too being sons of God doesn’t mean that we become ontologically a son of God in the sense that Jesus is the eternal Son of God as the second person of the Trinity. But the sense in mind here is again explained by connecting being sons of God with being sons of the resurrection. In other words, that we are made partakers of the glory of the age to come is rooted in God saving us unto that. Our future in glory is because God, “Has caused us to be born again to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” as it says in 1 Peter 1:3. While our resurrection life is rooted in what God has done for us in this life, it is unto a whole new life in eternity as such sons of God and the resurrection.
So then, things will be different in the age to come; wonderfully different. Let me comment just a little further about this idea that there won’t be marriage there. This is closely connected to this idea that we will be immortal. You see, one purpose of marriage in this age is the idea of replenishing on earth because we do die. If in this age, suddenly marriage and thus procreation stopped, eventually humans would become extinct. But in glory, we won’t die, and so even though there won’t be any new humans born, there won’t need to be. Here’s a similar way to think about it. In glory, all the humans will be the elect. That number has always been fixed. The number of the elect won’t even decrease or increase. It is a fixed number from all eternity. In glory, all the elect will be there. We won’t be losing any elect in glory, nor will we be adding any elect in glory. It will be a fixed and permanent number of the saved.
Or, let me say this yet one more way. In glory, we won’t need any levirate law. Christ Jesus, our older brother, already died and actually in dying, found a way to bestow his divine inheritance and name upon us. That we are now sons of God because of Jesus, there will not be any need to raise up more descendants and heirs in the resurrection.
So then, Jesus unveils how the Sadducees had an inherently flawed question. It did not prove what they hoped it would prove. Instead, Jesus returns fire by making a case to them that the resurrection is biblical. He even used the Torah to make his point. Verse 37, Jesus refers to how “even Moses showed” that the dead are raised. Jesus references Exodus 3:6 when God appeared to Moses at the burning bush. God says, in the present tense, “I am the God of your forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By the time God appeared to Moses and told him this, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had been dead for centuries. But God doesn’t say, “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” but “I am” there God. As Jesus concludes, this shows that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. That God’s statement showed they were yet alive because they had been resurrected. When it says in verse 38, “for all live to him”, that’s likely is referring to this point, that it is saying, “These patriarchs are obviously alive to God, otherwise, God wouldn’t have said what he said to Moses.”
So then, these Sadducees set out to make Jesus’ position look absurd, and it was actually their position that ended up looking absurd. So we see the result on them in verse 39. They again call him teacher, and acknowledge that he has spoken well. They then no longer dared ask him any more questions. Realize then that they still didn’t come to really believe upon Jesus. If they said that Jesus answered well because they believed on him, then they’d surely ask him a lot more questions. If they had come to believe that he really was the Messiah, they’d surely break out all their theological questions for him. But instead, for them to say that they dared not ask him any more questions, it shows that they still don’t believe. They call him teacher, but believe him to be a false teacher. But apparently they are admitting defeat in trying to outwit him in his teachings.
So then, let us now to turn to the second part of today’s passage, to verses 41-44. Now Jesus again has a question for them. They had just brought a tough theological question to him, one that had been a big debated issue between the two main religious sects, the Sadduccees and the Pharisees. But now Jesus brings his own question to really challenge them to think about the nature of the Messiah. The religious leaders would have acknowledged and agreed that when the Messiah came that he would be a descendant of David. God had promised David in 2 Samuel 7 to raise up the Messiah and an everlasting kingdom through one of David’s offspring. That seems like a non-debatable point. And yet in this last section, we see Jesus ask, “How is he David’s son” in light of Psalm 110.
What I mean is that Jesus quotes Psalm 110 in verses 42-43. This is a psalm that David wrote. It is one of the psalms that is considered explicitly Messianic because it is all about the Messiah. The Psalm describes God speaking to the Messiah and promising him some wonderful things, such as a worldwide kingdom and an eternal priesthood.
But notice how David’s Psalm 110 starts out. “The Lord said to my Lord”. Remember how the prophets would often say, “Thus sayeth the Lord” and then give some prophecy to the people? Well, that’s how David begins his psalm. It’s a prophetic word, but not directed to all the people, but directed to the Messiah. But notice how David addresses this Messiah. David describes him as his Lord. Thus says the Lord to my Lord. To further help you understand the language here, let me give you a quick Hebrew lesson. In the Hebrew, the name of God is generally believed to be pronounced Yahweh, and means “I am”, like how God told Moses at the burning bush that his name was “I am”. So, in translation, Yahweh is typically translated as Lord. But in the original Hebrew of Psalm 110, the first word of Lord here is Yahweh. But the second word for Lord here in the Hebrew is the word Adonai. That is the more generic term for lord used in Hebrew. So in the Hebrew, this is David writing, “Yahweh said to my Lord”. Thus, David prophesies how God spoke to the Messiah. And thus, as Jesus pointed out, David then calls the Messiah his Lord.
Jesus makes that point because that is not what you’d expect David to do. If David’s offspring is the Messiah, that makes David the father, and the Messiah his son. That would mean that David would be the superior and the Messiah his inferior. Ordinarily, that would mean that the Messiah should be calling David Lord, not the other way around. But David calls him Lord. And Jesus’ question implies what must now be the obvious. The Messiah is someone more than simple David’s Son. Indeed, as Jesus Parable of the Tenants earlier in this chapter implied, Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is not just another prophet, nor is he just another Davidic king. He is the eternal Son of God come to man, nothing short of Immanuel, God with us.
Appreciate the context here. Jesus isn’t just raising another interesting theological question. He’s not just engaging in a rather intriguing question of exegesis from a beautiful psalm. He is speaking about himself. He is making a bold claim of his divinity. And he is making this point to the people who are already the most opposed to him. His question raises the heat in their conflict. But Jesus intends the conflict. He intends to confront these derelict religious leaders who have left this people as sheep without shepherds. But he intends to confront them because he knows it will result in them consummating their rejection of him in putting him to death on the cross. But that he did so he could save his elect people and thus fulfill his divine plan to save a people unto the resurrection of eternal life.
So then, realize ultimately that Jesus doesn’t just raise this question about his identity to confront these religious leaders. He also raises it for us today. That we would consider and recognize the answer to his question. Jesus is indeed more than just another son of David. He is the long awaited Christ, to rule over an everlasting kingdom in the resurrection. Even now, he reigns from on high as the risen and ascended Lord Jesus. Even now David and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob worship him at his feet. May we each recognize that today, and acknowledge Jesus as Lord and King.
Let me share a final application that came to me as I considered this passage. I thought, you know, there is much of the setting in the first scene that is very OPC. What I mean is that we tend to like to sit around discussing theological matters with each other. We love a good doctrinal conundrum ger our theological heads around. And for some people, sadly, that’s for them really what their religion is all about. They get enthralled in the doctrinal controversy and debate and in the exposing of false teachers. Sadly, for some this is all their religion is to them, and that is not good. So then, you have these Sadduccees, and they are sad you see, because they want to expose Jesus as a false teacher, when in reality Jesus is the best teacher that they would ever meet. And yet, even if they had recognized that, it would not be enough. For Jesus is far more than just a teacher, just as he is far more than just another priest or just another prophet or just another king. He is the Son of God and Sovereign Lord over all.
That means Jesus has dominion not just over your minds, but also over your heart, and all your life. If your faith is just about training your mind with good theology, that is not enough. Many unbelievers will acknowledge Jesus as a teacher. But he is also Lord. Let us submit to him. Yes, we have fallen short of this, and will yet fall short. But he came as both Lord and Savior. Repent and trust in him as such. If so, then you will find at the end, that you are part of that number who have been counted worthy to attain to the age to come and to the resurrection from the dead (vs 35).
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
