Jesus Teaches on the Resurrection, Part 2

Luke 20, Part 2 (cont)

Jesus goes on in v. 37 to address the issue with the Sadducees as to whether there will be a resurrection. Moses at the burning bush called upon the God of Isaac, Jacob, and Abraham as though they were extant or still living, though we know at the time of this encounter of Moses, these three patriarchs were no longer walking the earth. Jesus points this out, saying that God is not a God of the dead but the living, stating that all people live to God in eternity, whether they are dead to us or not. People pass on and then whether or not they were worthy of entering heaven, yet they exist somewhere. This statement of Jesus clears up another doctrinal misconception. Some actively teach the doctrine of annihilation. This is the belief that all or some people, when they die, simply cease to exist. This is the belief of the atheist, and it is the belief of many Christian sects, but the statements of Jesus here, that only those found worthy will enter heaven. Yet, all people, regardless live to God, whether they are dead to us or not, then tells us that yes, the righteous live before God in heaven, but the unrighteous also live before God somewhere other than heaven, vis-a-vis, hell. The Sadducees cannot gainsay Jesus’ words and leave off questioning Him any further after even one of their own grudgingly concedes in v. 39 that Jesus answered them well.

In verse 41, Jesus takes up a question about the Messiah, being descended from the line of David. The Jews, for the most part, believed that the Messiah would be a political reformer or a military deliverer descended from the lineage of David. For this reason, they called the Messiah, among other titles, the Son of David. Jesus asks them if that is all the Messiah is, a descendant of David, then why in the Psalms does Jesus say “The Lord said unto My Lord, Sit thou on My right hand…” The question Jesus poses is if the Messiah is only a natural deliverer descended from David, then why does David prophetically call this descendent standing in the role of Messiah “my Lord…” The implications are clear; the Messiah is not just a political or military deliverer. He is something much, much more. The Pharisees and Sadducees being familiar with the argument, simply maintained that to believe that the Messiah would not only restore Israel to its greater glory, but to believe that He would actually address the sin question, in their thinking was too general and too sweeping a conviction to ever be true. Because they refused to believe, to come as little children, but instead remained ensconced in their jaded belief system, they thence become the persecutors of Jesus and conspirators in His death.

Do any of these controversies have any bearing on modern life? We may not have modern equivalents of Pharisees and Sadducees, but we do have the challenge of agnosticism, atheism, and modern science so-called that challenge many of the central tenants of the Christian faith. Science cannot validate an afterlife, and Christians wanting to reconcile science and faith often waver in their thinking about the afterlife because they would be considered uneducated or naïve to do otherwise. Science points to evolution as fact, and because we cannot reconcile the Genesis account to Darwin’s theories, then we de-emphasize the creation narrative as being too simplistic to be accurate or to be accepted in any literal sense. When you fail to take Genesis literally however, most of the major doctrines of Christianity such as sin and redemption unravel from there, requiring you to dispense with them altogether if you are going to pay heed to the suppositions of science regarding the origin of the specifies. For instance, if there was no literal Adam and Eve, then there was no garden and no angels with the flaming sword, and no original act of transgression constituting man in a sin state needing to be addressed by a savior. What is the answer? Do we simply cede the ground to science and refuse to address the controversy? Paul, 2000 years ago instructed Timothy in these very things:

[1Ti 6:20 KJV] O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so-called:

Make no mistake about it, while we divide the secular and the sacred, they are nonetheless two opposing belief systems. The sacraments of science are the microscope and the archeological record. The sacraments of faith are the scriptures and the witness of the Spirit. Science is a belief system no different than Christianity or any other religion. They take a bone fragment the size of a thimble and extrapolate an entire species of proto-hominids, demanding that we accept their expostulations as very fact, but it is not, it is simply conjecture based upon empirical analysis. What is the answer? Do we simply get stuck there, unable to reconcile the two?

Paul’s exhortation to Timothy is to avoid these things as profane and vain babblings. It may seem like a scholarly debate, but the scriptures tell us it is merely a waste of time. You are not going to convince the empiricist. You are not going to change the mind of the agnostic or the atheist by argument alone. Because many of our most learned scholars today have attempted to do so, they most commonly will abandon their faith. More believing Christians abandon the faith in these inquiries than do non-believers come to faith by the same activity. Knowledge puffs up, Paul tells us. We are under no obligation to convince them. The effort is in Paul’s words, profane, vain, and to be avoided regardless of whether that makes us appear unsophisticated or no.

Jesus affirms Paul’s wisdom in v. 45 when He turns to His disciples, warning them not to follow in the ways of the Pharisee or the Sadducee. Their priorities set high emphasis on the opinions of men and to appear to be holy, wise, erudite, and learned. Yet, their lifestyles are a burden to the marginalized and the less fortunate. Because of this, their damnation is great, and we are to avoid them, and their company at all costs.

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