(4) As aji)plicd to the Patriarehs : Mk 12-^ ( , Mt 22''", Lk 2(P*) ovK euTLv debs veKpCjv, dWd ^Jjvtwv. — In expounding this cardinal saying, we have first to inquire what doctrine our Lord is here vindicat- ing. Beligious minds among the Jews had already arrived at the clearly defined hope of a future life (Driver, Sermons on OT, 92), which life they con- ceived of as comprehending ' the deliverance of an existent personality from Sheol, and its re-endow- ment with life in all its powers and activities ' (Hastings' DB iv. 2.32-'). Sadduceeism, which represented the old Jewish standpoint, rejected these doctrines. The Sadducees were hostile to our Lord's whole teaching resjiecting ' the king- dom of God,' which carried the consummation of the Kingdom into a future life, and accordingly implied that there would be a resurrection of the dead. It was with reference to the resurrection that they chose their line of attack on His teaching. In His discussion with them, it was our Lord's object not only to maintain that there is a life after death, but also to reveal what deliverance from death really imidied. Had He made use of Ex 3 simplj- to prove the continued existence of men after death. He would not have met the objections of His opjionents. It was their attack on the resurrection that He successfully repelled (cf. "Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. 222). The Sadducees. although not actually rejecting the other books of the OT, considered them as being very inferior in value to the five books of Moses (cf. Ennjc. Bibl. iv. 4240). It was from the latter, accordingly, that they dreAv their objection to the resurrection. Founding on the law of the Levirate marriage (see Levirate Law), thej' thought to put our Lord in an embarrassing position by pi'o- pounding the case of seven brethren, who, after having married the same wife in succession, had all died childless, and then asking, 'In the resur- rection, when they sliall rise, whose wife shall she be of the seven ? ' The story of Glaphj'ra (Jos. Ant. XVII. xiii. 4; cf. Addison, Speetator, No. 110) was probablj' much canvassed about that time (Holtzmann, Hand-Comrncntar, 245) ; and in it the marri.age-relation Avas conceived of as still standing in the Avorld beyond death. Our Lord took the opportunity atibrded Him by the dis- putation Avhich had arisen to set free the doctrine of the resurrection from such grosslj' materialistic notions as these, and to show that the resurrection life is not a continuation of the jiresent life of the body, or of human relations as they noAv exist (v."^). As to the main point at i.ssue, He met the Sadducees on their oaau ground. He directed their attention to a passage Avhicli they had oA-er- looked in one of their reA-ered books, and prefacing the quotation Avitli the words, ' As toucning the dead that they rise,' — thus shoAving that it Avas the resurrection He Avas A'indicating, — He asked them, ' Have you considered the bearing of this passage upon the doctrine in question?' As to our Lord's use of this passage of the OT, all that need be said here is that the rexelation given to Moses at Horeb, and made bj- him the ground of his appeal to the Hebrew tribes, — the revelation, namely, of Jalnveh as the God of their fathers, — lies at the verA' root of Israel's reli<rion (cf. W. R. Smith, Proph^ 32, OTJC- 303 {' Kautzsch in Hastings' DB, Ext. Vol. 624, 625'). Our Lord's argu- ment, based on the passage quoted, may be stated as follows : — The Avords of Ex 3^- ^^- ^^- '* spoke of the relation of the patriarchs to God as a still
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existing relation, and set forth a fellowship with God in which they, being dead, yet lived. But their fellowship with God contained in itself the jn-omise and the pledge of a more complete life and more perfect fellowship which should hereafter be granted them by God. It followed, by an inner l)rinciple of necessity, from their being united to Him who is ' the God of the living,' that He would not leave any part of their being for ever under the destructive power of death, but would in the end awaken them to a heavenly life with Himself (Wendt, I.e. i. 223; of. Bengel, note on Mt 22^2; Salmond, Chv. Doctr. of Immortality ^, 366 ; Swete, St. Mark, 266). Or, "to state the argument in a more comjiact form : — God is Life. The patriarchs are in God, therefore they partake of life. But life cannot die, therefore they must continue living for ever. But a purely incorporeal existence does not give the full conception of life in man's case. Each patriarch is soul plus body. Therefore the body, as well as the soul, is secured in an ever- lasting life. Compai'e the remarkable treatise on the Resurrection by the apologist Athenagoras (c. A.D. 177), especially chs. 14-17 (Donaldson, A Critical History of Chr. Lit. and Dortr. iii. 116, 136 ff.). The ground of the resurrection-hope which our Lord found in this passage was beyond ciuestion contained in it, seeing that He foimd it there and set it forth. He could see all that God meant when He called Himself ' the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He could discern the full witness borne by this title to the certainty of the hope which He defended. ' He who spoke in the OT was God, and from the first that which He spoke about was the consummation which filled His thought ' (A. B. Davidson, Expositor, 1900 (i.), 15 ; cf. OT Prophecy, 14). Further, in the Resurrection of Christ Him- self we have tlie conclusive proof that communion with God involves the restitution of the whole of our personal being. What the proper view of the resurrection body is we find later on from St. Paul, whose doctrine of a o-wAia irvevfiaTiKov as con- trasted with a crui^a \pvxi-Kbv (1 Co lo'"), and of a (Tw/xa TTJs 56^7/5 avTou as contrasted with a crQiixa t^s TaTreicwtrews riix(bv (Ph 3^^), was no doubt evolved from our Lord's saying.