God of the Living

Luke reports that the Sadducees of Jesus' day ridiculed people who believed in the resurrection of the body. In Luke 20:27-38, they try to trap Jesus with a scenario of seven brothers for one bride, each brother marrying after another's untimely death. Jesus argues that there will be no marriage in the resurrection because the human race will continue without procreation. (Jesus assumes the primary purpose of marriage is procreation; elsewhere in scripture marriage also is for love, companionship, and mutual service, for example, the joy of the Wedding at Cana in John 2 or the Song of Songs).

Jesus' point is more about God than marriage. God is God of the living, not the dead. There are some today who scoff at the idea of the resurrection, either because they can't imagine a person dead who lives again, they can't conceive scientifically how its possible, or they argue if we look for justice in the resurrection we won't for justice in the here and now.

God is of the living and not the dead. God is not limited by human imagination. "My ways are not your ways, says the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). The testimony of the first disciples is that they touched Jesus and saw him eat. The heart of the Christian message is "He is not dead. He is alive!"

God is of the living and not the dead. Scientifically speaking, we are dying all the time--and being recreated. Our cells are dying daily and being renewed (Christians claim by God's continuing creative power, but God as the agent of renewal can't be proved scientifically but is taken by faith). John Polkinghorne, physicist and Christian, writes

"After a few years of nutrition and wear and tear the atoms that make us up have nearly all been replaced by equivalent successors. It is the pattern that they form which constitutes the physical expression of our continuing personality. There seems no difficulty in conceiving of that pattern, dissolved at death, being recreated in another environment in an act of resurrection." (One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology, Princeton, 1986, p. 77.)

There is a way to scientifically conceive of the resurrection of the body! We have a small taste of that renewal every day.

God is of the living and not the dead. Knowing that our bodies will be raised from the dead does not need to drain us from the energy to work for justice and peace now or denigrate the value of this life. In fact, it has given Christians an ideal to strive after. At our best, Christians have worked to protect and heal bodies, establish hospitals, provide social services, struggle for human rights and work for justice and peace. We do this with confidence it is God's will because we know God is God of the living and not the dead!