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“If a man die, shall he live again?” This is the great question asked by countless numbers of people since the Fall of man into sin. This is the question asked by Job as a representative of all who face death (Job. 14:14). In our Christian funeral services we proclaim with joy the answer of Job’s faith: “I know that my Redeemer lives and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” (19:25 ff.) YES, we believe and know of the resurrection from the dead unto life eternal for all those who trust in their Redeemer from sin. And we comfort one another with this truth at the Christian’s grave-side. We believe and teach that the Christian’s physical death does not interrupt his blessed fellowship with his Savior. We say only that the body has fallen asleep in death, but the SOUL or life of the Christian goes on in even more blessed fellowship with God. What blessed comfort this is when we must face the death of the body, whether our own, or that of our loved ones. But tell me, what would you do without the knowledge of God’s Word which reveals to you the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body? There have been materialists and rationalists of all ages who have denied the immortality of the soul. Today the theory of evolution and the religion of humanism, which plague our public schools, deny the very existence of an immortal soul. Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses do not like the idea that God will punish forever those who reject Christ. So they deny the immortality of the soul. In one Adventist book, the author claims that “the grave receives the whole person.” Yet Jesus told His disciples that they should not be afraid of those who “kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” (Mt. 10:28) How shall we answer those who deny the life of the soul after death, and deny the resurrection of the dead unto life everlasting? In love we must say with Jesus: “YOU ARE MISTAKEN, NOT KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES NOR THE POWER OF GOD.”
The Sadducees were the Jewish rationalists of Jesus’ day. They denied the existence of angels and the souls of men after the death of the body, and they denied the resurrection of the dead. In order to prove their case, the Sadducees tried to use the law of Moses concerning the “Levirite” marriage. What was a Levirite marriage? According to Deuteronomy 25, if a married man died without leaving children, his brother was to marry his wife and bring forth children for his deceased brother. But the Sadducees brought a case to Jesus which they thought would make the whole idea of a bodily resurrection seem ridiculous. They told a story about seven brothers, all of whom had married the same woman. As each husband died without leaving children to carry on the name, the next brother would marry her, and so on, until the seventh brother died. Then the wife also died. Now comes the question put to Jesus: “In the resurrection, which of the seven brothers will have her as his wife?” Do you see what the Sadducees tried to do? If Jesus answered that she would be the wife of the first husband only, the Sadducees would holler, “Not fair!” If Jesus pointed out that the words of Moses do not speak of the conditions of a life after death, then the Sadducees could say, “It’s just as we thought! Moses knew nothing about a resurrection from the dead and there is nothing in the first five books of Holy Scripture which speaks of such a resurrection.” “In fact,” they would say to Jesus, “These words of Moses even deny the possibility of a resurrection from the dead!” The devil still uses this trick today. When someone does not like a particular teaching of Christ, he will often try to set another passage of Scripture against it. This happens whenever we point out that our Savior does not want us to have prayer fellowship with those who hold, teach, or support false doctrine. Right away, people bring up the passages of Scripture which tell us to love one another, as if we cannot love our neighbor and still refuse to pray or worship with him. Didn’t Jesus love the Sadducees? Yet His answer concerning their denial of the resurrection is strong and clear: “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Remember, it is possible to quote Scriptures without really knowing them. People do it all the time. This word of Moses, quoted by the Sadducees, was indeed inspired by God, but did not apply to life after death. Moses’ words applied to marriage. There is no marriage in heaven. “In the resurrection unto life,” Jesus says, “we are like the angels of God in heaven” — The angels in heaven are not married, and neither shall we be married in heaven. As the children of God in the resurrection, we who were mortal shall have put on immortality. Our joys and pleasures will be of a different and higher nature than they are in this world. The Sadducees knew nothing of this “power of God.” Neither did they know the Scriptures! They had tried o argue from a law-passage in Deuteronomy that Moses did not teach the resurrection from the dead. And the only part of the O.T. which the Sadducees regarded as God’s Word were the five books of Moses. So Jesus, in His wisdom, chose a passage which teaches the resurrection from the second book of Moses — EXODUS. He says in v. 31: “Have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying: ‘I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” This is recorded in five different places in the book of Exodus (3:2,6,15,16; 4:5) Still, the Sadducees had failed to really know what Moses wrote in his inspired record. At the burning bush God identified Himself to Moses by saying: “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” But these fathers of Israel — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for over 400 years when God spoke these words to Moses. Still, God says: “I AM their God.” So Jesus says to these Sadducees: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!” Although Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead to us and have been for 4,000 years, they are alive to God. Abraham lives and rules with God! Even though the resurrection has not yet taken place in created time, at the very moment of Abraham’s death, his believing soul passed into the eternal presence of God, where there is no time at all! For Scripture declares that to the Lord “a thousand years are as a day”! Now, what was spoken to the Sadducees in these words of God through Moses in Exodus is also spoken to YOU, dear friends. What applies to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, applies to all who believe in the true God as they did. For Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Whom these O.T. believers hoped for, has come! This Christ has become the great “I AM” of your souls also. Think! God told O.T. Israel “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” — implying that they were all alive with Him in heaven, even without their bodies. So also the Son of God says to us in John 11: “I AM the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall NEVER die!” We also comfort one another with the truth that our departed brother
or sister in Christ LIVES WITH God and is taken to be with God at the moment
his body dies! We know that after our Lord gave Stephen a view
of heaven “opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God,”
Stephen said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Stephen expected Jesus
to receive him into heaven, not the next day or the next hour, but at the
moment of his physical death! So also Jesus promised the dying thief on
the cross: “today, you will be with me in paradise!”
Those who deny the life of the soul after death, who reject the resurrection are “mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God.” On the other hand, YOU, dear Christian, may greatly rejoice in the truth! Amen.
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