In my past few studies I’ve been highlighting Jesus discussion with the Sadducees in Luke 20:27-39, which, although it is not a parable, the phrases Jesus uses in that discussion are metaphoric in nature, so I’ve been highlighting this discussion, because it is often misunderstood by many believers, including scholars. The discussion is not about the literal conjugal relations of a man and a woman, although this is the point of view of the Sadducees. Nevertheless, Jesus turns the falsehood of a literal interpretation of a resurrection into a spiritual point of view, and this will be the point of view I take in this particular study.
In Luke 20 the Sadducees approached Jesus assuming their ongoing argument with the Pharisees about the resurrection (cf. Acts 23:6-8) would be a valid one with Jesus, as well. The argument is really about two ages—i.e. this age, the age in which Jesus and the Sadducees lived, and that age—the Messianic Age or the resurrection age. The Sadducees denied there was a resurrection, and, so, they believed the life one lived to God in this age was all there is. Yet, behind this argument lay the idea of how one could become a child of God (Deuteronomy 14:1). Under the Mosaic Covenant, this was done through the conjugal relations of a husband and a wife. So, the Sadducees used a myth, involving the levirate marriage law (Deuteronomy 25:5-10), in an effort to show that the idea of a resurrection is a ridiculous doctrine.
Some believers, even today, will tell us that Jesus’ response to the Sadducees’ argument (Luke 20:34-35) pointed to the time when men and women would not marry, nor would children be born anymore. That sort of thing would not exist in that age, i.e. the resurrection age (Luke 20:33). Many believers, today, believe we are really in the age to come, but we are not in the fulfillment of that age whereby marriage would no longer exist. Nevertheless, there is no support in scripture that shows we will begin that age by marrying and having children but much later (viz. nearly 2000 years) experience the age’s fulfillment in which men and women would no longer marry and children would no longer be born. Actually, the scriptures take the opposite point of view. Notice:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind… There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. (Isaiah 65:17, 20 RV – emphasis mine)
It seems clear that the prophet is pointing to that age, not this age, because he begins with the Lord saying “I create new heavens and a new earth…” In other words, it is a time for the New Covenant (cf. Revelation 21:1-5). The fact that the child would die after reaching an age of a hundred years indicates that Jesus couldn’t be speaking of physical death in Luke 20:36. Jesus is speaking of spiritual death when he claims “neither can they die anymore.”
Some believers conclude that Jesus must be talking about dying and going to heaven, but this isn’t logically true, because living in heaven isn’t an age. The ages were created for the physical existence (Hebrews 1:2), not spiritual, where God is. Jesus claimed that once we believe in him, we shall never die. Notice:
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26 KJV)
Here Jesus speaks of both physical death and life before physical death. Whoever believes in him will never die (spiritually). Our life in Christ is real today, and is just as real after physical death. Under the Old Covenant, folks died and had no consciousness in the grave (Psalm 146:4; Isaiah 38:18). It is only since the coming of Christ that we find death abolished and eternal life a reality (2Timothy 1:2).
It seems to me that it is quite clear that neither Jesus nor Paul could be speaking of physical death, because, if they were, it would mean that no one since Jesus made that statement in John 11 ever truly believed in him, because everyone who has ever lived, including Paul and all the other Apostles, have died, physically. Therefore, when Jesus made the statement: “Neither can they die any more…” (Luke 20:36), he was referring to the believer’s spirit, not his physical existence. Once we believe Jesus died to save us and God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-11) we are given eternal life. Never dying pertains to our spirits, which the Lord has raised, and that begins on earth before physical death.
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