Word of Salvation – Vol.39 No.37 – October 1994

 

He Is The God Of The Living

 

Sermon: by Revd. R. Brenton

Text: Mark 12: 18-27

 

My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

It is one thing to believe in a God who in the beginning created all things.  Many people believe that some superior power or life source is the only thing that can account for the existence of a living universe, such as the one in which we find ourselves.  Some of these people call this power, or life source, ‘God.’  Yes, God the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth!  As I said: it is one thing to believe in such a God, but it is quite another thing to believe that the ‘Life Creator’ can raise our bodies of flesh from the dead.

The reason I say ‘quite another thing’ is because I am taking note of our human fate in this fallen, sin-cursed world.  The preacher of Ecclesiastes (in the Old Testament) puts it this way: Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both.  As one dies, so dies the other.  All have the same breath.  All go to the same place.  All come from dust and to dust they all return (Eccl.3:18-20).

The prophet Isaiah joins the sad chorus as he cries out loud: All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  The grass withers and the flowers fall (Isaiah 40:6-8).

What more can you expect in a world such as ours where sin holds sway and corruption is king?  In this kind of world all of creation is in bondage to decay.  Dust is the destiny of all.   In this sad world countless millions of Human bodies have died.   Many of these bodies, of course, were placed in the grave in one piece.  But what about all the bodies that were deprived of their rest in peace?  Some were mangled by tragic accident and cruel warfare; some of them were incinerated by the flame; some were drowned in the deep blue sea; some were buried under a mountain of earth-quake activated rubble.  What can we say, considering the fact that the dust of human death lies scattered over the face of the earth?  If all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put poor Humpty Dumpty together again, is it within reason to believe that God is so great that He can gather the scattered dust of our death and raise us to life again?

Human reason does not raise such great expectations – even of God.  Human reason has no basis for believing that God can gather the dust of our death from mountain top to ocean floor and raise that dust to life immortal.

My friends, it is far easier to believe in a God who is the life-source of the universe than to believe that God can raise dusty, dead bodies back to life; to believe that this God can release this sin-cursed creation from its bondage to decay and bring it into the freedom of His own indestructible life.

And yet, our God tells us to believe the harder of the two truths (as well as the easier).  He asks us to believe in Himself as the One who raises the dead to life, releasing our bodies from their bondage to decay as He wonderfully transfers us from that corrupt kingdom of darkness to His own Kingdom of immortality and light.   Indeed, He requires us to believe in the resurrection of the dead because it is a reality to which He Himself is a witness.  We have His word on it.  And in writing, no less!  The Scriptures – God’s word written – attest that the resurrection of the dead is real.  And our faithful God is always true to His word.  He does what He says.  By His power, what He says is done.  His wish is His command.  His will in time becomes His accomplishment.

Let us now turn to that Good Word.  Let us see for ourselves that our God is faithful and true.  And let us find comfort in what He has promised to all who rely upon Him.

My brothers and sisters, when God’s Son Jesus was ministering to the common people, He was encountered by a party of politically powerful and religiously influential people known as the Sadducees.  The ‘Sadducee spirit’ is the spirit of the liberal elite, found among those who are economically wealthy, culturally sophisticated, and philosophically rationalistic.  This ‘Sadducee spirit’ requires logical and verifiable scientific proof behind any truth claim.  Anything put forth as ‘the truth’ must have a rational or reasonable explanation in order to be accepted as the ‘truth’.

Now the Sadducees were a part of Israel, God’s chosen people, and they believed in Israel’s God.  They believed in the God of creation, the maker of heaven and earth, the life-source of all living beings.  The Sadducees accepted the book of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) as the Holy Scriptures of their God.  They did not accept the writings of the prophets subsequent to Moses.  But at least they had the Law of Moses.  And they professed their faith in the God of creation.  But, they denied the reality of the resurrection!  In their thinking, no logical reason to believe in the resurrection of the dead could be found.   So they said ‘yes’ to a creator, life-source, God but ‘no’ to a God who releases His fallen sin-cursed creation from its bondage to corruption and decay.

It was these Sadducees who came to Jesus one day with a question.  By this question, the Sadducees intended to draw Jesus into a debate over the ‘truth claim’ of the resurrection, so they could discount the claim altogether and make Jesus look foolish in the process.

Here is how the Sadducees went about their work.  They set up a scenario based upon a legal provision from the book of Moses.  The provision was this: if a married man dies leaving his wife with no children, it is the duty of that man’s brother to marry the widow so that he might have occasion to father children for the man that had died (Deut.25:5-6).  So far simple enough!  The scenario of the Sadducees, however, is not simple at all (although within the realm of possibility).  The scenario goes like this: the original husband (the man who died) happened to have six brothers.  As it turned out all six brothers had to take their turn marrying the widow.  One after the other died, passing on the responsibility of marrying this widow to the next brother in the line of succession.  The upshot was that all seven had a turn being married to the woman without a single one of them giving her a child.  End of scenario.

It is on the basis of that far-fetched scenario that the Sadducees popped their question on Jesus; a question they believed would explode the irrational myth of the resurrection.  The question, as to whose wife she would be at the resurrection, since the seven were married to her, was to show how ridiculous belief in the resurrection is.

It ought to be obvious to all that the Sadducees were not really interested in knowing which one of the seven brothers would be the lucky husband of this woman in the life to come.  They really weren’t looking for an answer to their question.  You see their aim in setting up this outlandish scenario was to make a mockery of the resurrection of the dead.  They were trying to trap Jesus into a corner from which there was no escape.  They were using Moses to make Jesus admit the utter absurdity of the resurrection.

The Sadducees were devilishly clever.  They had reasoned in advance that since Jesus could not possibly succeed in answering their question by assigning to the widow the proper husband according to the law’s provision, the impossibility of a correct answer therefore proved the impossibility of a resurrection-life in the age to come.  The Sadducees thought they had reduced the resurrection to a logical absurdity.  If they could leave Jesus speechless by their question – and they were ‘dead sure’ they could – then they would have from Jesus’ own silent lips the virtual admission of what they were trying to prove: the absurdity of the resurrection-life.

Much to the Sadducees’ dismay, Jesus was not silent.  Jesus joined the debate.  In a manner of speaking, Jesus said: So you think you can use the book of Moses to dismiss the doctrine of the resurrection, do you?  You think you’re really clever?  You’re not nearly as clever as you might think.  You are in error on the resurrection because you are ignorant of the Scriptures.  Your Scriptures!  You who dare to manhandle Moses should first know what God said to Moses.  And you should know God’s power too.  You should know that God backs up what He says He will do with an action which accomplishes His will.  To use the actual words of Jesus: Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?  You Sadducees come to me with the book of Moses thinking you can make me admit that the resurrection is an absurdity.  Well, let me tell you something.  You don’t have a clue what God says in the book of Moses.  Worse than that, you don’t know God’s power to perform what He has promised to do.  If you knew the Scriptures, you would never have dared to try to make me look foolish by putting to me a question concerning marriage in the age to come.  If you knew your own Scriptures, you would have understood that marriage is ill suited for God’s plan in the coming age.  It is only in this age that we have a mandate from God to fill the earth and subdue it for His glory.  It is therefore in this age that the partnership of marriage and the power of procreation are in order.  In the coming age, when the dead are raised, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage because God will then be all in all.  So, we will be like the angels in our relation and service to the Lord.

Not knowing what God says in His word is bad enough.  The Sadducees should have known better.  The real tragedy of unbelief, however, is not knowing God’s power – not being acquainted with God’s action which fulfils His word and does His will.  The thing that especially disturbed Jesus about the Sadducees was their ignorance of God’s power.  You see, within the realm of their own experience, they denied God’s power.  It is on this score that Jesus makes them face up to their own Scriptures.  He said: now about the dead rising, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?’

Surely, you Sadducees are familiar with the account of the bush, and God’s revelation to His servant Moses at the site of the burning bush!  That revelation: I am Abraham’s God, I am Isaac’s God and I am Jacob’s God – that is all the knowledge a Sadducee needs in order to prove God’s power in raising the dead.  In fact, it is all the knowledge anyone needs to believe in the resurrection.

‘Well’, you say, ‘that’s not a lot of knowledge to go by.’  Perhaps!  But it is all the knowledge you need to believe in the resurrection and to find comfort in the God who raises the dead.

Let me tell you why this is so.  When God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, He did not give him a lecture on the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.  Not one word of explanation was even offered on how the dead are raised.  What God did was simply this: He revealed Himself to Moses as the God of certain people of faith who had long since died.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years.

Notice what God did not say to Moses.  He did not say I was Abraham’s God.  I was Isaac’s God and I was Jacob’s God way back in the distant past when they were still living.

Instead God said to Moses: I AM Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God and Jacob’s God.  I AM!  That’s right!  God is the great I AM, whose past faithfulness promises a hopeful future for His people.  The Lord God was not only Abraham’s God, but He is Abraham’s God.  And Isaac’s.  And Jacob’s.  In fact He will continue to be Abraham’s God and Isaac’s and Jacob’s.

You need to know this truth.  When God introduces Himself to Moses, as the God of Moses’ forefathers, who lived long ago, He shows Moses that He remains the God of his forefathers.  He is still their God!

How can that be?  It can be that way because of God’s power.  By God’s power Moses’ forefathers who died and were buried, are to God very much alive!  And that, my friends, is precisely Jesus’ point.  The God of the Sadducees has revealed Himself in the book of Moses as the resurrection and the life.  The one who trusts in Him will LIVE, even though he DIES.  Indeed, whoever lives and believes in Him will never die (John 11:25-26).

Abraham, while he lived, believed on the name of the Lord.  He relied upon God’s resurrection power.  So, even though Abraham died, he lives!  So does Isaac.  And so does Jacob.  And so do all who truly believe in the Lord their God.

For you see, He is not the god of the dead, but of the living (Mark 12:27).  God’s people are alive by God’s power!  Though we die, we live.  Better yet, ‘in the Lord’ we never die because our God is the God of the living.

Once He enters into covenant with us and unites us to Himself through the bond of faith in His Son Jesus, there is no power in heaven or on earth that can break that bond of life and love between us.  Listen to the confidence which exudes from the apostle Paul as he writes in Romans 8:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Are you so convinced?  Listen, you can be just as confident as Paul in the power of our God who keeps us alive in His love.  The reason we can be so confident is that the resurrection of the dead has already become a reality in this world through a man.  That’s right.  God’s power of an indestructible life is manifested in His Son, the man Christ Jesus.

We know that death came into the world through a man (see Paul in 1Cor.15:21-23).  The first man Adam, the father of us all, sinned and plunged the entire human race and all of creation with him head-long into the abyss of death; into that kingdom where corruption is king and humanity is in bondage to decay.  That’s the miserable truth: death came through a man.  Our Humpty Dumpty human race had a great fall.  But there is a liberating truth: the resurrection of the dead came also through a man – the man Christ Jesus.  God by His word of Power put Humpty Dumpty together again when He raised up Jesus from the dead!  ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.  But each in his own turn.  Christ the first-fruits, then, when He comes, those who belong to Him.’

What a sweet note of victory!  Now listen to the harmony as Peter chimes in: For He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who by faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1Peter 1:3-5).

My brothers and sisters, the day is coming when God’s great salvation will be revealed in the full splendour of His glory and grace.  At that moment we will realise the hope that is ours by virtue of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  For at that moment of full revealing our flesh – our corrupt and mortal selves – will be released from their bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

How God raises us to immortal life lies beyond the scope of today’s message.  That God raises us immortal can be our comfort and our confidence.  It ought to be enough for us to know that our God is the God of the living.   To know that is to truly know God’s power – the power that breaks the chains of death and ushers us into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Yes, it’s true: All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.  So let it be!

AMEN