The Sadducees acknowledged only the five books of Moses as of divine authority : and therefore our blessed Lord, passing by the many plainer passages which are contained in the prophetic writings, adduced one from the book of Exodus b, which, obscurely indeed, but certainly, contained the doctrine in question —
[God, when he spoke to Moses in the bush, announced himself to him as " the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob." Now this was two hundred years after the youngest of them was dead : and yet God speaks of the relation to them as still existing. But " God is not the God of the dead, but of the living :" the very title therefore which God assumed, implied that those persons were yet alive. Nor did it less forcibly imply, that their bodies also should be restored to life : for they, as men, consisted both of body and soul ; and God was as much the God of their bodies as of their souls ; and therefore if their bodies should never rise again, that relation had ceased with respect to their bodies. If it be said, that death had already terminated that relation ; I answer, that their bodies were merely " sleeping in the dust" till the morn- ing of the resurrection, when they shall awake to everlasting life ; and that, as God was no less their God when they were asleep on their beds, than he was during the day, so is he their God now that they are sleeping in their graves, as much as he ever was, or ever will be. In respect of God, with whom all things, past and future, are ever present, and " who calleth things that be not, as though they were," they are now alive, seeing that they certainly shall live at the last dayc.
But the terms here used to designate the Deity, imply, that that these patriarchs had an interest in him, and were partakers of blessings from him. But if their souls were not alive, they inherited no blessing from God ; and if their bodies were not to rise, they would only be partially blessed : but they had served God with their bodies as well as with their souls : and therefore their bodies were entitled to a share of that reward which they had looked forward to, and in the prospect of which they had submitted to many hardships and privations : and that God, who had promised to be " their exceeding great reward d," would not deprive them of their expected benefits.
What weight this argment may have with modern infi- dels, I know not; but it convinced and confounded all the
b Exod. iii. 6, 16.
c This seems to be the true sense of these words, irdvTs c yap avra> tuaiv : Luke xx. 38. See Beza's note on the place. Most other commentators seem to mistake their import.
d Gen. xv. I.