The Scriptures and the Power of God

After the Pharisees and Herodians had tried to catch out Jesus with a trick question it was the the Sadducees' turn. These were one of three groups of Jews (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) who lived at the time of Jesus. They seem to have distinguished themselves from one another by theological differences. In that respect, they were similar to our different denominations. Not much is known about them, other than what we can piece together from the New Testament, where they are mentioned 14 times, with some references in the Jewish historian Josephus and other early Christian literature.

From this scanty evidence, we can reconstruct several things about what they believed.

• There is no resurrection. The soul ceases to exist after death.
• They took the Pentateuch very seriously but didn't recognize the rest of the Hebrew scriptures.
• They didn't believe in angels (see Acts 23:8).
• They emphasized human responsibility and free will.

Their bogus question is designed to ridicule those who believed in the resurrection of the dead, in other words, the Pharisees.

But think twice before you put bogus questions to Jesus.

He refuted them by challenging them on the very points they prided themselves on. "You don't know the Scriptures." "When the dead rise they will be like the angels in heaven."

Their most serious error was ignorance of the power of God. They relied on human reasoning, with the result that they were "way, way off base" (v 27, The Message). The resurrection, whether Jesus' resurrection or ours, could only happen by the power of God. (see Acts 2:24, 32; Romans 4:24; 10:9).

Lots to think about here.

Respond in Prayer

Lord Jesus, help me to keep first and foremost these two aims: to know the Scriptures and the power of God—not only in my head but in my experience. For your sake, Amen.

Grace Fox