Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev19970309.htm

MATTHEW: JESUS AS ISRAEL'S MESSIAH AND HIS MESSIANIC KINGDOM
Part XI. The Crisis Of The Messiah's Offer Of The Kingdom
E. Realizing The Bible's Recorded Words To OTHERS Are ALSO God's Words To US
(Matthew 22:23-33)
  1. Introduction
    1. The Bible has 66 books in it, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. They were written between 3,400 and 1900 years ago in three different languages used in the Middle East. Because of this distance in culture and time of writing, it seems easy for the believer to treat it with respect, but at a distance.
    2. There is a lesson in Matthew 22:23-33 on how relevant the Bible should be considered to us today.
  2. Realizing The Bible's Recorded Words To OTHERS Are ALSO God's Words To US, Mtt. 22:23-33.
    1. The Sadduccees came to Jesus with a trick question to try and corner Him into admitting that there could not be a resurrection, Mtt. 22:23-28:
      1. The Sadduccees who came to Jesus with a question did not believe in the resurrection, Mtt. 22:23. In fact, we know from the ancient historian, Josephus that they didn't believe the soul existed after physical death so that there wasn't any entity after death left to raise, Z.P.E.B., vol. Five, p. 214 in alluding to Josephus, Antiquities XVIII. 1.4.
      2. The question was designed to force Jesus to admit that there could not be a resurrection, 22:24-28:
        1. The Sadduccees presented a case study in which a woman had married seven brothers in consecutive order in order to fulfill the Levitical law of Deut. 25:5-6. Following her marriage t o each, each man successively died without her bearing a male child by each to carry on the first husband's name. Finally she also died, Mtt. 22:24-27.
        2. With this situation, they wondered whose wife would she be in the resurrection as she had been married to all seven men at different times, Mtt. 22:28.
        3. The question was designed to leave Jesus either admitting that God would raise a woman into a bigamous arrangement or that there was no resurrection, saving God the embarrassment of creating an adulterous situation involving this woman and her formerly seven consecutive husbands.
    2. Jesus answered on the one hand that the Sadduccees did not understand God's power to raise men and women in glorified forms as asexual beings fit for heaven's non-reproductive existence, Mtt. 22:29b, 30.
    3. However, Jesus also pointed to the Scriptures to show that the Sadduccees had failed to heed God's Word to Moses for THEMSELVES to correct their errant doubt of the resurrection, Mtt. 22:29a, 31-32:
      1. Mark's Gospel shows Jesus alluded to the passage of the burning bush where God spoke to Moses in Exodus 3:6, Mark 12:26a.
      2. In that passage God speaks to Moses hundreds of years after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are dead and states that He then IS -- not WAS -- their God, cf. Ex. 3:6, Bib. Know. Com., N.T., p. 72.
      3. Accordingly, though deceased, these men still existed, totally annihilating the Sadduccean reason for denying a resurrection, cf. Mk. 12:26b-27.
      4. However, Matthew's Gospel records that Jesus applied this Exodus 3:6 statement of the deceased patriarchs that God had made to MOSES as God's Word to these SADDUCCEES, Mtt. 22:31:
        1. Mark 12:26 notes that God spoke to MOSES in the passage of the burning bush in Ex. 3:6.
        2. However, Matthew 22:31 shows Jesus applying that information not to MOSES, but to these SADDUCCEES, that, and I quote, "have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God . . ."
        3. The Greek New Testament specifically uses the pronoun humin, translated "to you", and since it appears in all the manuscripts according to the textual apparatus of the UBS, Nestle and Kilpatrick editions, there is no textual doubt but that the pronoun should exist there.
      5. Thus, God had expected these Sadduccees to apply His ancient words spoken to Moses to be as applicable in addressing their beliefs as it was to Moses. They were going to be held accountable by God to make that application themselves and thus correct their errant theology!
Lesson: As Paul wrote in Romans 2:16 that God would one day judge men according to the Gospel HE preached, every passage in Scripture is a passage that GOD expects we take note of as the lessons taught by that text will be used by God in making His judgment on our lives when we stand before Him.