Ah, the old reductio ad absurdum ploy. What? You don’t know what that is either. Hold on a minute and let me Google it. I’m back. It is Latin for “reduction to the ridiculous.” It is an argument that takes a line of thought and displays it within a scenario that is designed to make the whole think look absurd. Here is an example of one that is used on me somewhat frequently: You say God is a loving God right? Well, how can a loving God send people to Hell? In their minds, the people who pull out this particular reductio ad absurdum believe that the concept of Hell makes the idea of a loving God look ridiculous. Ah, but that is because they misunderstand love and Hell. But love and Hell are not my topic today.
Luke 20:27-40 begins with the Sadducees presenting a reductio ad absurdum to Jesus concerning the resurrection. The Sadducees, originally named after the high priestly family of Zadok who rose to prominence during the post-exilic period (Ezekiel 40:46; 43:19). In Jesus’ day they seem to represent an aristocratic group who supported the current high priestly family. They emphasized the Torah and most likely considered the prophetic sources as of secondary importance. They did not believe in a resurrection, among other things, but the resurrection is key to our passage. So, they present this scenario, this reductio ad absurdum based on the Levirate marriages found in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, though the practice existed well before the law (cf. Genesis 38:8). So, if a brother has a wife and no children and he dies, his brother is commanded to marry her and the first-born son is to be raised in the name of the now dead brother. This was a way of keeping the brother’s name from dying out. Interestingly, the law referred to brothers who lived in the same house.
Okay, so the scenario: Because of the levirate marriage command, seven brothers marry the same woman and none of them have a child with her. This keeps the marriages going down the line. It may have even been suggested by the account in Genesis 38. It also keeps all the marriages on an equal footing. They were all married to her and none of them have children. Doesn’t this make the resurrection seem ridiculous? I mean, which of the brothers will she be married to? This may have been a standard reductio ad absurdum scenario that the Sadducees used often. And maybe, until now, nobody had been able to give them a satisfactory answer.
Jesus counters with “the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.” The sons of this age, as apposed to the sons of light or the sons of the kingdom. The phrase “marry and are given in marriage” is used in 17:27 to refer to the people in Noah’s day who go about their business seemingly without a care in the world and then the little thing called the Great Flood happened. Maybe Jesus’ point is that the people who are not in the kingdom are concerned about the things of this life; like a family name that is secured for at least another generation. There are many who assume that Jesus’ point here is that in the resurrection there will no longer be marriage because the whole point of marriage – procreation – will no longer exist. But if procreation were the whole point of marriage, shouldn’t it be listed along with adultery as a reason for divorce? But what if Jesus’ point was that in the resurrection age, the whole not being able to die and being equal to angels, sons of God, sons of the resurrection, will sharpen the concept of marriage beyond the short life span of life on this earth? I don’t know. I am confident, however, that in God’s kingdom marriage is so much more than procreation.
Jesus’ second point is taken from Exodus 3 in the burning bush account, where God describes himself a couple of times as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Is God the God of the dead? Nope. God is the God of the living and all live to Him. But what exactly does that mean? Were Abraham and the rest whisked away to heaven living it up? Or, is it that what we think of as final, is for God not at all final. If God holds the power of resurrection, then those who are in the shadowy realm of the dead, are not really dead. They are merely waiting for the resurrection. They are alive to God; to his power; to his resurrection.
The Sadducees are silenced and the scribes give Jesus a big thumbs up and the antagonistic questioning stopped. At least for the moment. There is a resurrection! We are not given a whole lot of information, but we are told we will be equal to the angels. I don’t believe we will become angels. I believe we will be sons of God; crowned in glory and that we will not be able to die again. Isn’t that enough?