Matthew 22:23-33
That same day, Sadducees approached him. This is the party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies childless, his brother is obligated to marry his widow and get her with child. Here’s a case where there were seven brothers. The first brother married and died, leaving no child, and his wife passed to his brother. The second brother also left her childless, then the third—and on and on, all seven. Eventually the wife died. Now here’s our question: At the resurrection, whose wife is she? She was a wife to each of them.”Jesus answered, “You’re off base on two counts: You don’t know your Bibles, and you don’t know how God works. At the resurrection we’re beyond marriage. As with the angels, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don’t you read your Bibles? The grammar is clear: God says, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living.” Hearing this exchange the crowd was much impressed.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Having just got this I am responding to my immediate reaction - shock! The way Jesus is speaking here is so clear, but what is surprising is that it is in the present tense. It draws attention to the sense that we are all living in the continuous present - each moment follows each moment. So when Jesus says that God is - I AM - it is not about the future or the past it is about now. Quite mind blowing really!
March 21st, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Yep, one of the harder things to understand about God is that to Him - it is always now. I have problems cos it makes me think “what’s the point in praying when God knows what’s going to happen anyway?”