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| The Pharisees and Saduccees Come to Tempt Jesus by Tissot |
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Sunday, November 10, 2013
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 20:27-38
The Resurrection of the Dead
27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and died without children; 30 and the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him.”
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading and its parallel passages in Matthew and Mark are cited in the Catechism paragraphs 330, 575, 581, 993 and 1619.
Commentary
20:27–40. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the body or the immortality of the soul. They came along to ask Jesus a question which is apparently unanswerable. According to the levirate law (cf. Deut 25:5ff), if a man died without issue, his brother was duty bound to marry his widow to provide his brother with descendants. The consequences of this law would seem to give rise to a ridiculous situation at the resurrection of the dead.
Our Lord replies by reaffirming that there will be a resurrection; and by explaining the properties of those who have risen again, the Sadducees’ argument simply evaporates. In this world people marry in order to continue the species: that is the primary aim of marriage. After the resurrection there will be no more marriage because people will not die any more.
Quoting Holy Scripture (Ex 3:2, 6) our Lord shows the grave mistake the Sadducees make, and he argues: God is not the God of the dead but of the living, that is to say, there exists a permanent relationship between God and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who have been dead for years. Therefore, although these just men have died as far as their bodies are concerned, they are alive, truly alive, in God—their souls are immortal—and they are awaiting the resurrection of their bodies. [See notes on Mt 22:23-33 and Mk 12:18-27]
Notes on Mt 22:23–33.
The Sadducees argue against belief in the resurrection of the dead on the basis of the levirate law, a Jewish law which laid down that when a married man died without issue, one of his brothers, according to a fixed order, should marry his widow and the first son of that union be given the dead man’s name. By outlining an extreme case the Sadducees make the law and belief in resurrection look ridiculous. In his reply Jesus shows up the frivolity of their objections and asserts the truth of the resurrection of the dead.
22:30. Jesus explains quite unequivocally that the blessed have transcended the natural condition of man and the institution of marriage therefore no longer has any raison d’etre in heaven. The primary aim of marriage—the procreation and education of children—no longer applies because once immortality is reached there is no need for procreation to renew the human race (cf. St Thomas Aquinas, Comm. on St Matthew, 22:30). Similarly, mutual help—another aim of marriage—is no longer necessary, because the blessed enjoy an eternal and total happiness by possessing God.
Notes on Mk 12:18–27.
12:18–27. Before answering the difficulty proposed by the Sadducees, Jesus wants to identify the source of the problem—man’s tendency to confine the greatness of God inside a human framework through excessive reliance on reason, not giving due weight to divine Revelation and the power of God. A person can have difficulty with the truths of faith; this is not surprising, for these truths are above human reason. But it is ridiculous to try to find contradictions in the revealed word of God; this only leads away from any solution of difficulty and may make it impossible to find one’s way back to God. We need to approach Sacred Scripture, and, in general, the things of God, with the humility which faith demands. In the passage about the burning bush, which Jesus quotes to the Sadducees, God says this to Moses: “Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Ex 3:5).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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