Articles
Hypothetically Speaking
Reading: Luke 20:27-47
To challenge Jesus and his teaching, the Sadducees came to him with a hypothetical situation involving seven brothers who all, after each died in succession, married the same woman. They asked Jesus whose wife will she would be in the resurrection, thinking this would undermine the teaching of resurrection as well as Jesus’s ministry in one fell swoop (vv. 27-33). Can you imagine their faces as Jesus stated plainly the matter of facts? Using direct statements of authority along with forced conclusions of Scripture, He revealed important truths of resurrection life (34-40) and even his own position as both Son of God and son of David (41-44).
Both the resurrection and messianic prophecies were challenging matters for God’s people in the first century—and they can still be challenging for His people today. There are certain subjects that we desire to understand better or know more fully. But we get ourselves into trouble when we, like these teachers and scribes, come up with our own explanations based on partial information (focusing on some teachings of the Bible to the exclusion of others) or invent corner cases and extreme outliers to try and undermine a truth we don’t want to hear, much less live by. Spinning God’s revelation this way tempts us to give license to worldly pursuits while casting them in a “holy” light (see vv. 45-47).
Even as we grow in our grace and knowledge of the Lord, some matters will always reside beyond our scope of understanding (see Deuteronomy 29:29). Spiritual maturity doesn’t come from speculation or attempting to outsmart the truth that God has revealed. Instead, we must focus on the things that are revealed, and do them, so that we may have confidence that we are walking with God in this life and into eternity.
