The FaithOfJesus2 Daily Devotional

Focus:

kjv@Revelation:14:12 @ Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

( FaithOfJesus thread begun by rRandyP )

Today's Verse:

kjv@Mark:12:18-27

kjv@Mark:12:18 @ Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,

kjv@Mark:12:19 @ Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.

kjv@Mark:12:20 @ Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.

kjv@Mark:12:21 @ And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise.

kjv@Mark:12:22 @ And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also.

kjv@Mark:12:23 @ In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.

kjv@Mark:12:24 @ And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?

kjv@Mark:12:25 @ For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

kjv@Mark:12:26 @ And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

kjv@Mark:12:27 @ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

Today's notes:

Context:

Before - knowing their hypocrisy
After - saw he answered discreetly

Key Concepts:

What is God's righteousness observed doing?:

Pointing to an great error in the logic of the Sadducees.
Revealing a future truth about the state of man in the resurrection not previously revealed in scripture.

What does this tell us about God's righteousness?:

Error riddles holes in the logic of the Sadducess like a dilapidated old barn. What they allow themselves as divinely inspired and authoritative is so narrow and limited (see notes below) that there is little other than legalism and enforcing morality upon others that they hold true. Their faith in God is about as dead as their belief in their forefather's whereabouts which says much about their comprehension of God's truer righteousness. They may be too distant to even bother with had it not been that they were so plentiful in the religious leadership of that age (and this).
There is likely plenty of the future life that scripture is presently silent on. And it may not be even that it is silent, it may all be there, but the veil has yet to be lifted. Think of all the prophecy that we see now because of His resurrection affirming Jesus as Christ, how it all neatly ties together that this people of that time were unable to see for the veil not having been lifted. Think of how Jesus is having to reason from scripture at points instead of pointing directly to certain scripture. Yes the scripture says that if one is not coming from a alternate angle as we often are or as we are looking now back on it. I believe had Jesus sat down with the disciples this day and opened up the scriptures to them He could have convinced them of a great many things of the life everlasting such as men and women not being given in marriage like angels and beyond. It seems though that one veil has to be lifted at a time; one must adjust their eye sight to the present revelation first before being able to focus toward the next.

How is man reacting?:

Attempting to ridicule all that Jesus stands for by means of their own faulty logic.

Notes:

f[OT@brother's+wife]

Historical evidence suggests that the Sadducees rejected all scripture except for the Pentateuch as divinely authoritative. Therefore all old testament reference to resurrection (kjv@Job:14:12-15 kjv@Job:19:25-27 kjv@Psalms:16:9-10 kjv@Psalms:17:15 kjv@Psalms:49:15 kjv@Isaiah:26:19 kjv@Daniel:12:2 kjv@Daniel:12:13 kjv@Ezekiel:37:1-10 kjv@Hosea:13:14) is mute. Imagine from that all the other things that they wouldn't believe in either. Jesus may be alluding to this in His statement " ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God" and "ye therefore do greatly err". Neither did they believe the oral law, which Jesus never did scold them over however.

Given this scriptural limitation with the Sadducees, Jesus reasons with them from kjv@Exodus:3:2-6. This limitation includes angels and spirit (kjv@Acts:23:8). Their error is great enough that there is little means of talking to them other than presenting the truth rather than the scriptures pointing to the truth. The Sadducees appear to have been positioned high up into the religious leadership (kjv@Acts:5:17)

Key Messages:

What does this say about our present condition?

There are a great many among us still today whose religion is little more than law and morality. One cannot really argue with them on scriptural points because so much scripture is left out of their acceptable verbiage.
We all may be in a similar limited position when it comes to what we believe about the life to come. The principal here however is not to seal off the realm of possibility nor attempt ridicule others that presume to know something more by it, but to put it in it's proper perspective of first things first, here and now with a curious and open mind about then and forever; not to be so dogmatic about what cannot yet be fully known nor proven. It might be a good place to be more like the little ones of whom Jesus spoke so fondly a few passages ago.

Further Resources:

Comment Board:Mark:12:18-27
index:FAITHOFJESUSDEVOTION - Devotional Index
strkjv@Mark:12:18-27 rwp@Mark:12:18-27 mhcc@Mark:12:18-27
FaithOfJesus2 - Devotion Index

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