V. 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? V. 27. He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living; ye therefore do greatly err.
Jesus gives the Sadducees a lesson also concerning the resurrection of the dead. Since they rejected all the Old Testament writings but the five books of Moses, He takes His proof from one of these, from Ex. 3, 6. 15.
In speaking to Moses at the burning bush, God expressly called Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. All of these patriarchs, at this time, had died, and they were presumably dead, so far as men could see and judge. But, Jesus explains to the Sadducees, the fact that God so designates Himself, shows that these men, though dead in body, were yet alive, that their soul, the most essential part of them, was alive. The living God is the God of the living only, His work concerns the living only.
This is true of all believers. All, to whom the Lord is God, live unto God, even when they have closed their eyes in temporal death. Death, to them, is only a temporary sleep, in the midst of which God considers them as living. And therefore God will truly awaken all the dead that have fallen asleep in Him to a new and blessed life in all eternity.