The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 389

common, earthly, sensual relRtions and associations; but man does not become true man save as he rises a.hove these, and, by the help of them, conceives the "uns-een.'1 It is the glory of man that he is able to create in imagination what he has never seen realized in fact. He can think of relations between beings in which no sex-elements are introduced, He can imagine a place where they neither "marry nor are given in marriage," and where the "propagation of the species" is not the dominant idea, as it is here. In the conception of such a place and condition, an all-su.flicing answer was given to the subtle entanglement of these Sadducees. I. THE RACE DEPENDS ON MARITAL RELATIONS. The law of sex is the universal earthly law, ruling the creatures as well as man. Seeding is the work of every plant; starting a new generation is the work of every living creature, and of every human being. .And God has made this universally to depend on the relations of male and female. 'l'he fact that man has made misery and sin out of God's design must noil blind us to the wisdom aud goodness of that design. II. CHARAOTER DEPENDS ON THE MARITAL RELATIONS. Neither can man be true man, nor woman true woman, a.part from marriage. Thie may be more impressively seen in woman, but it is equally true of man. Woman never reaches her nobles\ possibility save through motherhood. 1. Show what elements of character are developed, and what are refined, by the ass,ociations of marriage. 2. Show what mora.l good for the race comes through the influence on children exerted by those whose characters are improved through the marital relation. III. REDEMPTION DEPENDS ON THE MARITAL RELATIONS. Dr. Bushnell, in his very striking way, says the redemption of the world must mainly come about through the "out-populating or the Christian stock." There is a sense in which Christians will come to "possess the earth." IV. RESURRECTION-LIFE DOES NOT DEPEND ON MARITAL RELATIONS. There is (1) no race to propagate; (2) no character to be gained ; (3) no redemption to accomplish. Established righteousness can have friendship without marriage.-R. T. Ver. 32.-77ie so-called dead are alive. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.n Having separated the idea of marriage from the conditions of the after life, our Lord took the opportunity of showing these questioners how unspiritual the} were, and how unspiritual was their reading and rendering or Holy Scripture. They could see only the surface ; they could not discern meanings and suggestions. When God said he was the "God of .Abraham," something was involved in the saying. For the spiritually minded man this was involved-Abraham was alive. Abraham was risen and living. God was in actual, present relations with him. Allll what was true of Abraham is, for the spiritual man, true of all the so-called dead-they are risen, they do live. Our Lord here distinctly affirms the continued existence ot the soul, which is the real man, after death. He taught the "immortality of the soul." I. DEATH IS A raYSICAL EVENT. The soul is immaterial, but it comes into relation with a material body, and through its senses a.nd faculties it acts in a material sphere. Death is one of the things that bear relation to that body. It is the supreme form of disease. Disease may destroy a limb or an organ, a.nd the soul may keep within the limited body. Dut when disease affects wha.t we call vital organs, and when death. corrupts the body, the soul must go away from it--it is no longer usable. The soul, the man, does not die; it is only liberated from the limitations of a particular environ- ment. We are coming, in these days, more and more clearly to see that death is a. physical affair. II. DEATH IS A NEOEBBARY EVENT. Because the connection between soul and body is made for a distinct moral purpose. It is therefore made for a limited time; and the connection must cease when the issu 3 is reached. Life in the body and the earth-sphere is the soul's education-time, it is its moral probation; and so it is as necessarily limited as a boy's school-years. Life on earth is not the soul's real life ; it is not its manhood, it is its preparation-time. III. DEATH CANNOT TOUCH THE SOULS THAT MEN ARE, This has always been the Christian belief, though we express it nowadays in somewhat new forms. Se~ how the truth bears on the question of the Sadducecs They thought of humanity i.i 39' THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. (011, xxm.1---39,