Luke 20:34-38

The answer of the Lord: V. 34. And Jesus, answering, said unto them, The children of this world marry and are given in marriage; V. 35. but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; V. 36. neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels; are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. V. 37. Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. V. 38. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.

First of all, Jesus corrects an entirely false idea which the question of the Sadducees showed them to be holding or to be inferring from the belief of others. So long as people are in this present physical world, they are subject to the laws of the propagation of the human race, they are under the blessing which God gave to our first parents, Gen. I, 27. 28. And the necessity of marriage is emphasized by the sinfulness of human nature, 1 Cor. 7, 2. For that reason they marry and are given in marriage.

But those that in the judgment of God will be accounted worthy of the life to come, those that will be taken up into the bliss of heaven, those that will obtain the real resurrection, that unto life, they will no longer be subject to such conditions. For in that life they will be immortal, and will no longer be dependent upon propagation and increase. There will be no marriage in heaven, because all persons will there, like the angels, be sexless.

Since they are children of the resurrection, since they have become partakers of the resurrection, they are children of God. All old things that pertained to the life of the flesh will then have passed away, and all things will be new. The believers will indeed have their true bodies, but transfused with the spiritual, heavenly existence. That is one argument.

And the second concerns the actual Scriptural proof for the resurrection. Jesus here very wisely refers only to the Pentateuch, to the five books of Moses, choosing His proof-text from one of these books, in order to conform to the idea of the Sadducees. That the dead actually do rise again, Moses indicates very plainly in the story of the burning bush, Ex. 3, 6. For the text there calls God the Lord of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.

In popular belief the patriarchs may have been adjudged dead, but they could not have been, since God is called their Lord. And He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him. Before Him they are living, and so He accounts them. The souls of the righteous men of all times are alive and in the presence of God in eternal happiness.

This is true of all believers of all times. And this view and exposition of God is infallible. Therefore we have the confidence that God will raise all those that are His, also according to the body, out of the grave, to a new, blessed, eternal life.