II. Tm: LoRn's REPLY. 1. To their question. "Ye do err," he said. They were wandering thie way and that, far from the truth ; and the cause of that error wa~ : (1) Their ignoranc11 of the Scriptures. We observe that the Lord did not attribute the error of the Sadducees to their rejecUon of an oral Mosaic tradition, which was one of the fundamental differences between them and the Pharisees. They received the Pentateuch as of Divine authority; it seems certain also that they regarded the other Scriptures of the Old Testament as sacred books, though this has been denied by Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome, and others after them. But they held the Pentateuch to be of paramount importance, far more sacred than other books of Holy Scripture; and they could not find there the doctrine of a resurrection. The Lord accuses them of ignorance; they knew the letter of Scripture, though probably not so well as their rivals the Pharisees; but they did not compare Scripture with Scripture; they had no spiritual insight; they did not penetrate into its inner meaning. Ignorance of the Scriptures is a fruitful cause of error. We all need to be diligent students of God's Holy Word; but we need more than study; we need constant earnest prayer for the Holy Spirit's guidance : "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrons things ont of thy Law." (2) Ignoranee of the power of God. They had not felt the power of God in their own hearts, lifting them up to himself. This absence of spiritual experience had led them to disbelieve that marvellous exercise of Divine power which is involved in the doctrine of the resurrection. 'l'he Pharisees accepted the doctrine, but they held it in a gross and carnal form. This the Sadducees rejected ; but they would not believe that, though flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, yet this earthly body, sown a natural body, shall by the power of God be raised a spiritual body, that this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, as the Pharisees taught. The resurrection-life is wholly different from this earthly life of ours. The resurrection-body has not the animal nature of this natural body. Love will con- tinue, purified and deepened; husband and wife, once joined together by God, cannot be put asunder. But the bond of love will be elevated, refined, spiritualized. For they which are accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead can die no .more, Marriage, in its earthly aspect, is no longer necessary. The redeemed a.re as the angels of God in heaven; " equal to the angels" (Luke x.x. 36)- equa.1 to them in purity and holiness and love; equal to them in joy and blessedness ; equal to them in all spiritual endowments, in beauty and glory and strength; capable of serving God as the blessed angels serve him, of loving God ns the blessed angels love him, of contemplating with adoring gaze his infinite perfections, his wisdom, love, power, holiness, as the blessed angels see him now ; needing rest no longer, but ever fresh and glad and unwearied in the ineffable fruition of the beatific vision; whers "they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God .Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 2. To their doctrine. The Lord turns to the fundamental error of the Sadducees. These men had come to him (according to the reading of several ancient manuscripts) asserting that error, saying that there is no resurrection. The Lord refers them to the books of Moses. "Have ye not read?" he said, in the form of words which he used so often. We mark how be insists upon the duty of searching the Scriptures, how he urges it again and a;ain. He quotes the Book of Exodus. There a.re more distinct assertions of the great truth of the resurrection in other books of the Old Testament, but the Sadducees regarded the Pentateuch as of supreme authority, and it seems that their rejection of the doctrine was mainly based on the supposed silence of Moses. 'l'herefore the Lord refers them to the Law, which they set above the other Scriptures. He insists upon the revelation made to Moses when the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The Lord draws out the deep meaning of the sacred words. That relation to A.bra.ham, Isaac, and Jacob implies their continued existence. For" Go<l is not the God of the dead, but of the living.'' He is the Eternal, the I AM, the Self-existent One, absolute and unconditioned in his everlasting, infinite Being. lie is the Life; he giveth life; he breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. That gift of life, the gift which ho gave to that man whom he created in his own image, after his own likeness, is not a mere temporary gift, not the gift of a few short years, to be spent, perhaps, iu troubl11 374 THE GOSPEL ACOORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, [<m. xxn.1-4.0..
Rn.: s 0 rro"'.. Su_oh a view of God's great gift of life is disparaging to the Almighty, the all-lovmg Giver. Surely more than this is contained in the relation in which he stands to his people; more than this is implied in the simple words in which that relntion is expressed: "their God," Indeed, he him~elf tells ua so in his J.Ioly Word~ " God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he bath prepared for them a city." Ile is the God of Abraham. Then Abraham is not dead. Abraham confessed that he wru; a pilgrim and stranger upon earth; he desired a better country, that is, a heavenly <1 ne; he looked for a city which bath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. "Abraham is dead, and the prophets," the Jews said to our Lord. But his· life is. hidden with God; "all live unto him." God knows, sees, comprehends, in· his Divine omniscience, the separate life of each inciividual soul, that from the time of the creation until now has passed into the assemblage of the countless millions in the spirit-world. They do not sleep idly; they live. He knows them every one, The thought is to 11&- overwhelming in its vastness, in the infinite complexity of the problems which it' suggests.. But with God all things are possible. The Sadducees greatly erred, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Let us ask him to teach us by the- grace of his Holy Spirit the deep meaning of his Holy Word; and let us believe in his almighty power, and walk before him in reverence and godly fear. . •• LESSONS. -1. Gunrd against the cold indifference of the Sadducees; pray for faith and love and zeal. 2. Search the Scriptures ; pray for grace to understand them. 3, Think much of the blessed resurrection. Oh that we may attain unto the resurrection of the just!