Section 109 B

Section 109
JEWISH RULERS SEEK TO ENSNARE JESUS
(Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.)
Subdivision B
SADDUCEES ASK ABOUT THE RESURRECTION
MATT. 22:23-33
MARK 12:18-27
LUKE 20:27-39

Summary: The Sadducees put forth their argument that there is no bodily resurrection by asking Jesus what would happen in the case that a woman remarried her husband's brother after his death 7 times.

"The disbelief of the Sadducees manifested itself in a triple form, for they denied the resurrection and the existence of angels and spirits (Acts 23:8), but the basal principle of their infidelity was the denial of spirits. It was, as it were, the tree trunk from which their other errors sprang as branches. If there were such things as spirits, it was not worth while to deny that there was an order of them known as angels. If man had a spirit which could survive his body, it was reasonable to believe that God, having so fashioned him that a body is essential to his activity and happiness, would in some manner restore a body to him. Jesus therefore does not pursue the argument until he has proved a resurrection; but rests when he has proved that man has a spirit. Jesus proves that man has a spirit by a reference from the Pentateuch, that part of Scripture which the Sadducees accepted as derived from God through Moses. The reference shows that God was spoken of and spoke of himself as the God of those who were, humanly speaking, long since dead. But the Sadducees held that a dead man had ceased to exist, that he had vanished to nothingness." -Fourfold

"The Sadducees professed themselves to be bound by the Pentateuch, and to have searched in vain for evidences of a life beyond. They were greatly startled, therefore, when our Lord proved human immortality from the book of Exodus. He had never passed through their schools and sat at the feet of their great teachers, but He showed them that “at the Bush” the voice of God attested eternal life." -F.B. Meyer

"The risen life is no mere reproduction of the present, but a regeneration, new life added to the old, with new powers, acting under new laws, ranged in a new community." -Pulpit Commentary

"The key to the interpretation of the Scripture is faith. It is not enough to be acquainted with the literal signification; this is always inadequate, and denotes not the chief matter intended. To know the Scripture, in the sense of Christ, is to have a clear apprehension of its spiritual aspect, to feel and own the moral and mystical bearing of facts and statements, and to recognize that herein lies the real significance of the inspired record." -Pulpit Commentary

Paul:
"Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?" Acts 26:8

I find this statement an interesting glimpse into the dynamics of Heaven:

"But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:  ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”  -Matthew 22:29-32

What does it mean that they are "like angels in heaven"?  Here are some of Matthew Henry's thoughts:

"Man in his creation was made a little lower than the angels (Psa_8:5); but in his complete redemption and renovation will be as the angels; pure and spiritual as the angels, knowing and loving as those blessed seraphim, ever praising God like them and with them. The bodies of the saints shall be raised incorruptible and glorious, like the uncompounded vehicles of those pure and holy spirits (1Co_15:42, etc.), swift and strong, like them."