This incident was also relevant for Luke's original Greek readers. The question of the resurrection of the body was important in Greek philosophy (cf. 1 Cor. 15). Luke used this incident in his narrative to bring Jesus' confrontations with His critics in the temple courtyard to a climax.
20:27 Luke had not identified the party affiliations of Jesus' former critics as Matthew and Mark did. These Jewish parties would not have been of much interest to his original readers. However here he identified the Sadducees by name. He needed to do this because of their denial of the resurrection that was the central problem that they brought to Jesus. Most Greeks denied the resurrection of the body too (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12). Greek psychology viewed the body as the temporary prison of the soul that was immortal.
Jesus had taught much about the future and had implied that He believed in the resurrection of the body (e.g., 19:11-28). The Sadducees opposed the Pharisees at many points because they believed the Pharisees had departed too far from the teachings of the Old Testament. In one sense the Sadducees were liberal in their theology since they denied much that is supernatural (e.g., the resurrection, angels, and spirits; Acts 23:8). On the other hand they were quite conservative in that they based their views on a strict interpretation of Old Testament teachings.
20:28 The Sadducees' commitment to the Old Testament was evident in their approach to Jesus. They began by quoting Deuteronomy 25:5 (cf. Gen. 38:8). The practice in question was levirate marriage.450
20:29-33 Jesus' critics posed a possible but far-fetched case of levirate marriage. Their obvious purpose was to show that belief in the resurrection of the body was ludicrous and that Jesus was wrong to advocate it. However, they made the unwarranted assumption that life in a resurrected body would involve sexual relations as we know them now. The problem was that none of the woman's seven husbands had fathered a child by her. Consequently none of them had any special claim on her as his wife.
20:34-36 Jesus contrasted the present age with the kingdom age. People resurrected to live in the kingdom, sons or products of the resurrection (v. 36), will not marry (as men do) nor be given in marriage (as women are). They will be immortal, as the angels.
Like the angels they will also be "sons of God,"a common designation for the angels in the Old Testament (cf. Job 1:6; 2:1; et al.). This title stresses the God-like characteristic of the angels and the resurrected saints that is in view, namely their immortality. Even though believers are already sons of God we will become sons of God in a fuller sense through resurrection. Similarly Jesus was always God's Son in the administrative structure of the Trinity, but He became the Son of God in a fuller sense by resurrection (Ps. 2:7; Acts 13:33).
God considers these people worthy to attain to the resurrection of believers because of their faith, not because of any personal merit of their own (cf. Acts 5:41).
There will be people living in the kingdom who have not yet died and experienced resurrection. Jesus was not speaking about them, only about "sons of the resurrection,"namely those who had died and experienced resurrection (cf. Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2; 1 Cor. 15:50-57; 1 Thess. 4:13-17).
This explanation was important for Hellenistic readers. The Greeks believed that specially worthy mortals became gods, but this is not what Jesus taught. Rather He said that worthy mortals who are already sons of God will become immortal and incapable of reproducing following their resurrection.
20:37-38 Jesus also corrected the Sadducees by affirming that the dead rise. There is not just continuing conscious existence after death, as the Greeks believed. To prove His point Jesus cited a verse from the Pentateuch, which his critics respected greatly (Exod. 3:6; cf. Acts 7:32). However the Sadducees had misinterpreted what Moses had written about God's relationship to the patriarchs.
His point was that Moses spoke of God as presently being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all of whom had died. God could only be their God then if they would rise from the dead eventually. God will raise all people eventually. All live to Him in that sense. Therefore "to Him all are alive"(NIV). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will experience resurrection at the Second Coming and will live in the kingdom as "sons of the resurrection"(v. 36).
20:39 Luke is the only evangelist who recorded the verbal reaction of certain scribes, presumably Pharisees. They agreed with Jesus about the resurrection and disagreed with the Sadducees. Their comment confirmed the truthfulness of Jesus' teaching about the resurrection and affirmed Him.
20:40 Luke omitted the discussion about the greatest commandment that followed (Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34). He had recorded a similar conversation earlier in his Gospel (10:25-28) and may have wanted to avoid repetition. He jumped ahead to the end of Jesus' teaching in the temple that day and wrote that Jesus' answer ended the attempts to trap Him in His words.
