Discussion about Resurrection

 Meditations of the Gospel of Mark

 September 29, 2020

Discussion about Resurrection

So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.”

Mark 12:27

Read: Mark 12: 18-27

The Sadducees were the religious elite and very conservative. They considered the first five books of the Bible, The Pentateuch, as authoritative and didn’t put much stock in the other Old Testament writings of the time. They didn’t believe in the Age to Come where God would resurrect the faithful. In today’s reading, they concocted a convoluted story as a means to trick Jesus and cause a division among his followers.

Jesus debunked their story and their misunderstanding of God’s plan for restoring His Kingdom. The first error of the Sadducees was their notion that God’s Kingdom to Come will simply be a duplicate of their present life. Just as the Apostle Paul proclaimed “that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17), Jesus is affirming in the Age to Come everything will be different. The Bible does not give us specific details of life in the Age to Come, but what we do know is more than enough for me:

“Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.” (I John 3:2)

Jesus also taught the Bible to the Sadducees. In verse 26, Jesus quoted Exodus 3:6 to show that the only way God could still be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were long dead, is if they would be resurrected in the Age to Come.

My Takeaway: When a person dies, their family and friends are prone to offer all sorts of speculation as to the eternal destiny of the dearly departed. Much of such speculation is more folk tales than scriptural. The Apostle John nails it for me: “we do know that we will be like him.” That’s all I need to know.

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.