Jesus is arguing, again. In Luke, he’s been doing it since he was 12 – and he’s very good at it.
Some Sadducees, who don’t believe in resurrection, pose a question to Jesus. They present a hypothetical scenario: there’s a woman whose seven husbands all die – whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Whilst the question might seem a little silly to us, it’s based on a serious but considerate instruction found in Deuteronomy 25:5–10.
Jesus responds that in the resurrection, there is no marriage; people are “like angels.” He then quotes Exodus 3:6, where God is speaking to Moses at the Burning Bush: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” All three are long dead, but God speaks about them in the present tense. So, if that’s true, Jesus reasons, then God “is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
Hot topic
At the time of Jesus, Judaism was diverse, and the question of resurrection was a hot topic:
- The Sadducees, mostly priests connected to the Temple, rejected the idea of resurrection or an afterlife. They held the first 5 books of the Bible, the Torah, as the only binding scripture, and they found no direct reference to resurrection there.
- The Pharisees were more associated with local synagogues and what the laity did. They affirmed resurrection, judgment, and life beyond death. The Pharisees thought all of what we call the OT was inspired by God, as well as oral tradition, and they drew from writings like Daniel 12:2 and Isaiah 26:19.
So, the Sadducees’ question to Jesus is not meant to be curious or pastoral. It’s a trap, a way of testing his interpretation of Torah.
Their example of marriage reflects genuine Torah law (Deut. 25:5–10), which aimed to preserve a deceased man’s name and lineage – and also gave protection to widows who might otherwise be left destitute. The Sadducees are using Torah logic to show that belief in resurrection is ridiculous. If resurrection means physical continuity, then what happens to complex human relationships in the hereafter?
Jesus’ response, citing Exodus 3:6, uses a form of reasoning used by the Rabbis. He infers that resurrection must be true by implication: If God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and does it in the present tense, in the here and now, then those Patriarchs, though physically dead, remain alive to God.
Grammar
This style of argument reasons from grammar and divine self-description to theological truth. A Jewish reader would recognise this as Jesus meeting the Sadducees on their own turf, since he uses the Book of Exodus, an accepted book since it was part of the Pentateuch.
So, Jesus is participating in a legitimate Jewish debate, not inventing new doctrine but interpreting Torah in a way that aligns more with how the Pharisees and later the Rabbis would understand resurrection.
For much of Jewish tradition, resurrection is not merely about individual immortality – it’s about God’s faithfulness to the covenant. If God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then divine justice and covenant loyalty imply that those promises extend beyond death.
In the Amidah (the central Jewish prayer which is like our Lord’s Prayer), one of the blessings praises God as: ‘You sustain the living and revive the dead. You preserve your faith with those who sleep in the dust.’
This shows that resurrection, in Jewish thought, is a communal hope – the ultimate vindication of God’s mercy and righteousness. A Jewish commentary might say that Jesus is affirming a traditional Jewish belief in God’s power to give life beyond death. His argument is Torah-faithful and uses methods of interpretation familiar to Jewish teachers.
Alive in God’s presence
While Christian theology later reads this as evidence of a transformed existence in the future, a Jewish reading would focus more on the justice and continuity of God’s covenant now and always – that throughout time, the righteous remain alive in God’s presence, even when physically dead.
So, the Sadducees’ question reflects a genuine Torah debate about resurrection; Jesus’ reply uses reasoning consistent with Jewish interpretive practice; the text shows diversity in Jewish thought, not opposition between Judaism and Christianity. And at the heart of the exchange is this: God’s covenant, God’s promise, is stronger than death.
Luke 20:27–38 is not a rejection of Judaism but a Jewish teacher engaging in Jewish debate about the nature of God’s life-giving power. Jesus is also saying that women cease to be treated like property, to be handed from one man to another.
The last word
But why would Luke include what might seem like just a storm in a Jewish theological teapot? Well, he was writing in a time of Roman control and after they had destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish people died in the process. And at the time of Luke’s writing, Christians were also being persecuted and martyred throughout the Empire. Luke wasn’t willing, and neither were the Pharisees or Jesus come to that, to let Rome have the last word when it came to God’s promises.
So, more than anything, this is a conversation about how eternal the covenant is, and how faithfulness outlives our mortality and those of our loved ones; that we remain alive to God even when physically dead – an idea at the centre of our hope, whether you are Jewish or Christian.
It’s also, perhaps, an object lesson from a skilled debater, about focusing on the question that should have been asked rather than on the one that actually was!
‘One bride for seven brothers’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St John and St Mark’s on Thursday 13th November 2025. It was based on Luke 20:27-38
References:
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/96599?lang=bi
Levine, A-J. & Brettler, M.Z. (2011). The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Oxford.