As the Angels - Ισαγγελοι: Luke 20:34-38 (Matthew 22:29-32; Mark 12:24-27)

The Sadducees thought they could trap Jesus with what they perceived to be an inconsistency in His teaching of the resurrection of believers. Of course, Jesus answered their supposed quandary of the seven wives by mooting the whole concept of marriage in the afterlife. And this is what the commentators bring up, and rightly so. But Christ’s answer to their contrived resurrection scenario was more far-reaching and instructive than the problem they posed. And this is what most commentators seem to either miss or discount altogether. Christ was not just describing activity in the afterlife (or non-activity in this case – no marrying) but the actual essence of those “counted worthy to attain … the resurrection from the dead”.

34Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”

This passage, along with the parallel ones in Matthew and Mark, reveal important truth about the nature of our future resurrection bodies. And I believe an important detail is missed by the great majority of commentators, a detail that is more evident in Luke’s account.

“For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” The “all” is emphatic. And Christ is not speaking of the future potentiality of living but an ongoing reality. At the time He spoke this verse Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were certainly alive, though they were, from a mere earthly standpoint, dead. Paul speaks similarly in Romans 14:8 and in Acts 17:28.

Jesus, illustrating what is meant by Ισαγγελοι asserts the example of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is important to note that these men at that time were not in physical form. Yet they were at that time “liv[ing] to Him”, vs. 38. Misunderstanding the nature of the resurrection body is not a trivial thing. Christ told the Sadducees in Mark’s account, “You do greatly err”. I don’t believe this error has only to do with there being no more marriage. The context argues against this, especially the mention of the patriarchs as examples.
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Interesting quotes (the second one is caveat lector as to the site itself):
"For there are some to whom it is not given to attain virginity; and there are others whom He no longer wills to be excited by procreations to lust, and to be defiled, but henceforth to meditate and to keep the mind upon the transformation of the body to the likeness of angels, when they "neither marry nor are given in marriage,"
- Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection

“Edwards takes the view that this passage from Mark’s Gospel shows that ‘[t]he resurrected life is not a prolonged earthly life but life in an entirely new dimension’, as 1 Corinthians 15.40–44 suggests.
He also seems to accept that the phrase ‘like angels in heaven’ refers to the resurrected existence itself and not merely to a state of the absence of marriage there:

‘The idea that resurrected existence would be angelic in nature was not unknown in the first century (1 Enoch 15:4; 2 Apoc. Bar. 51:10)’.:
https://gnosis.study/library//ENG/RankinTheEarlyChurchtheAfterlife

 

Thanks for responding. I disagree, of course, but wanted to acknowledge this. More later. Maybe. If wifi is good in the next hotel...