← Back to sermon

For a PDF, choose “Save as PDF” in your browser’s print dialog. The full Bible study remains on the sermon page.

Sharon Reformed Presbyterian Church · Sermon study sheet

The Resurrection

Bryan Schneider · September 30, 2023

Mark 12:18-27

sharonrpc.org/sermons/the-resurrection

Summary

  • The Sadducees use a question about levirate marriage to ridicule resurrection, but Jesus exposes their ignorance of both Scripture and God's power.
  • Levirate marriage protected widows and preserved a family inheritance in Israel; the questioners show little concern for the woman they use in their trap.
  • God's declaration that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shows that his covenant relationship with them continues beyond death.
  • Resurrection life is not a simple continuation of present arrangements: people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in that respect.
  • Believers do not become angels; they receive genuinely bodily resurrection life marked by both continuity and glorious transformation.
  • Marriage is a temporary picture of Christ and his church, while relationships in the resurrection will possess a perfected love surpassing present joys.
  • Jesus himself is the resurrection and the life, and every hearer must decide whether to trust him before he returns to judge the living and the dead.

Reflection and discussion

  • Do I limit God's power to what I can presently see or imagine?
  • How does God's covenant name in Exodus show that death does not end his relationship with his people?
  • What does it mean that resurrection life has continuity with this life but is also gloriously transformed?
  • Am I treating marriage as an ultimate possession or as a temporary sign pointing to Christ and his church?
  • How does the promise of perfected love address fears about relationships in the resurrection?
  • Do I believe Jesus' claim that he is the resurrection and the life?
  • How should the certainty of resurrection and judgment change the way I live today?

Key terms

Sadducees
An influential Jewish group associated with the temple aristocracy that denied resurrection and angels.
Levirate marriage
The Old Testament duty by which a near brother married a childless widow to protect her and preserve the deceased man's family line.
Resurrection
God's future raising and transformation of the dead into embodied life for judgment and everlasting destiny.
Intermediate state
The condition between death and bodily resurrection, when the souls of believers are with God while their bodies rest in the grave.
Continuity and change
The biblical teaching that the resurrection body is truly one's own body yet raised imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual.
Wedding supper of the Lamb
The final celebration of Christ the Bridegroom with his redeemed people, to which earthly marriage points.

Notes and prayer