?Questions? (Mark 12:18-27)

They were well-educated. They were aristocrats with both political and religious standing. They had taken the name Sadducee from the High Priest Zadok, whose name meant “just.” They only accepted the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and rejected all the other writings including the prophets. It was from the Sadducees that the High Priest was chosen. They were powerful. The only time they joined forces with the Pharisees was when they came together against Jesus.

I can almost see the smirk on their self-satisfied faces when they came to trap Jesus with their question about the resurrection. It was well-known that these highly-educated men did not believe in such things as angels and people being reassured from the dead. With an arrogant contempt they laid out their story. It was clearly obvious to anyone listening that their story was intended to ridicule the belief in the resurrection.

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaves his wife behind, and leaves no child,
his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother” (Mark 12:19). Then they proceeded to tell the story of how seven brothers took the wife and died without leaving an offspring. Finally, the woman died too. With a lifted eyebrow and a half smile they asked Jesus, “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven married her” (Mark 12:23)?

How do you relate to Scripture when it doesn’t make sense to you? It is not only in the time of Jesus that there are those who scoffed at what doesn’t make sense to them. 2 Peter 3:3 says, “Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Someone who scoffs at or mocked the Scripture is following the example of the first one who quoted God. That would be the serpent who asked Eve with scorn, “Did God really say...?”

When Jesus answered their question with a question of His own, it must have cut like a knife. “Jesus told them, ‘Are you not deceived because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God’” (Mark 12:24)? Though they were highly-educated, they had been led astray. They failed to grasp spiritual truth because of their earthly focus. Jesus confronted both their disbelief in the resurrection and their disbelief in angels at the same time. He used a passage from the Torah to do it! Jesus finished by saying, “You are badly deceived” (Mark 12:27). To whom would Jesus say this today?