and narrow sense, ercording to some, pay the civil taxes to the government of Cwsar, and the didrachma, or temple-tribute, for the support of the sanctuary and sérvice of God. We understand it in the larger sense of obedience to our earthly sovereign and duty to our heavenly King, as co-ordinate and coexistent, perfectly compatible but not competitive ; or, according to the third view, the former may be regarded as part of the latter. This great principle, properly understood and acted on, would have prevented many an unseemly collision of Church and State, and many a sinful encroachment of one on the domain of the other. It would have prevented the papal power from trampling the crown of kings in the dust, as in the reign of John, and it would have prevented, on the other hand, the persecution of the Church by the State, as in the days of the Puritans. Our Lord intimated by his reply, that so long as the Jews were allowed to worship God according to his own appointment, and enjoyed the protection of the Roman f ght therein, they were under obligations to contribute to the taxes that supported that power. But these obligations to civil government were not to suspend, or set aside, or in any way interfere with the higher and holier obligations which they owed to God. Duty to God must be the regulating principle of duty te civil rulers; the latter is then part of, or rather part and parcel with, the former. Thus our Lord clearly indicated the respective provinces of civil rulers and of religious teachers—the relative positions of secular authority and spiritual power. Thus he solved ths problem of two kings and two kingdoms in one realm; thus he taught obedience to civil governors in temporal things, while in spiritual their duty to God was paramount, No doubt many nice points may present themselves, and many delicate questions may arise in practically carrying out the principle stated ; but we are not without light from other parts of Scripture to guide us in the application of this principle, even in cases of greatest difficulty.—J. J. G.
Vers. 18—27. Parallel passages: Matt. xxii. 23—33; Luke xx. 27—40.— Question of the Sadducees touching the resurrection. J. IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION. Though the question propounded in this section was proposed for a captious purpose, and in order to entangle, yet, divested of its technicalities, it is a most important one. There is no subject more closely connected with the immortal hopes of man than that to which the above section refers. The doctrine of the resurrection is implied, or directly inoulcated, in several passages of the Old Testament. In the New, in which life and immortality are so clearly brought to light, we find many plain statements in regard to it. The whole subject is discussed at large, and fully elaborated im that magnificent chapter, the fifteenth of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, while our Lord, in the Scripture under consideration, puts the argument pithily and peintedly in seply to a question from the Sadducees.
Ii. An assumprion. In clearing away the rubbish, with which they overlaid the difficulty whereby they thought to ensnare him, the Saviour charges them with ignoring the mighty power of God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth the things which be not as though they were. He taxes them with resting their reasoning on an unwarrantable assumption, to the effect that the condition of life in heaven would be the same as here on earth, while, on the contrary, the occupants of that spirit-world areas the angels of God. Having, moreover, affirmed their ignorance of those Scrip- tures vob they themselves acknowledged, he proceeds to the proof of the doctrine impugn
IiL immorranrry oy THE sovL. By his quotation from the third chapter of Exodus, he establishes the immortality of the soul. God is the God of the living, for the relationship thus indicated is connected with the bestowal of benefits and blessings, while the dead are beyond the reach of these: but the passage quoted affirms God to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; therefore these patriarchal men, whose earthly tabernasles, long dissolved, had mouldered and mingled with kindred dust, stil] lived in some sense and state and place. Their souls lived in God’s sight and in God’s pre- sence and to God’s praise. The immortality of the soul is thus clear enough con- clusion, but the proof is not so plain with regard to the resurrection of the body ; and bes this is the very point in dispute. It is a well-known fact that several of thr
eathen philosophers who believed in the immortality of the soul, seem never to hav) dreamt of the resurrection of the body. How, then. does our Lord’s plain proof of th
oa. xu, 1—44.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 193
former doctrine serve the purpose of establishing the latter? This is the difficulty of the passage. ‘he following considerations will resolve it :—
IV. Grounp or SADDUCEES’ DENIAL OF THE RESURRECTION. The chief reason of the Sadducees denying the resurrection of the body was their disbelief in the immortality of the scul. They repudiated the last-named doctrine, and on this very ground rejected the former. They said the soul does not exist apart from, or after, the dissolu- tion of the body. “They gainsay the duration of the soul” is the testimony of Josephus to their opinion on this point. From this they inferred that there is no likelihood of, nor need for, the body to be raised up, as, according to this erroneous opinion of theirs, there was no soul to reanimate, or reinhabit, or be reunited there- with. Our Lord meets inference with inference. Having proved, as we have seen, the immortality of the soul, he thus prepares the way for the corollary, that the body would be raised from the dust of death, and that soul and body would be then and for ever reunited. They insisted on the extinction of the soul at the death of the body, or its non-existence as distinct from that body, and so wished it to be inferred therefrom that the body would not be raised, and no reunion ever take place. The Saviour proves the distinct and undying existence of the soul, and leaves the Sadducees to infer the resurrection of the body and its reunion with that soul from which death had for a time separated it. In this way he opposed the inferential part of his argument to the inferential part of their doctrine, inasmuch as they did not, it would seem, employ expanded argument or developed reasoning. Having demolished the main pillar of their system, he left the frail fabric erected thereon to fall of itself. Our Lord’s reasoning, though concise, was nevertheless conclusive.