the expression constantly used of the present condition of life in

contrast with the state of death.

(i) "Then come unto Him the Sadducees, which say there is

no RESURRECTION" (Matt. 22:23. Mark 12:18. Luke 20:27).

Psalms 27:13

"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the

(ii) The one issue raised by the Sadducees was the question,

Lord in the land of the living."

"Whose wife shall she be in the RESURRECTION?" (Matt.

22:28. Mark 12:23. Luke 20:33).

Psalms 56:13

"For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou

(iii) The answer of our Lord deals solely with this one issue,

deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the

which was RESURRECTION. Hence He says:

light of the living?"

Matt. 22, "as touching the RESURRECTION of the dead"(v.

Psalms 116:9

Mark 12, "as touching the dead that they RISE" (v. 26).

"I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living."

Luke 20, "now that the dead are RAISED, even Moses

showed at the bush, when he called the Lord, the God of

Psalms 142:5

Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, for he is

"I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my

not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto him" (v.

portion in the land of the living."

Jeremiah 11:19

These words were spoken by the Lord Jesus in order to prove

"But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter;

"that the dead are RAISED". Traditionalists use them to prove

and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying,

that the dead are "living" without being RAISED!

Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him

The Sadducees may have denied many other things, but the

off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more

one and the only thing in question here is RESURRECTION.

Christ's argument was:

Ezekiel 26:20

1. God's words at the bush prove a life for the dead patriarchs.

"When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the

2. But there is no life for the dead without a resurrection.

pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low

3. Therefore they must be RAISED FROM THE DEAD; or

parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go

"live again" by Him.

down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory

in the land of the living;"

This argument held good, for it silenced the Sadducees. For if

they are "living" now, and not dead, how does that prove a

In this last passage the contrast is very pointed; where God

resurrection? And, moreover, what is the difference between

speaks of bringing down to death and the grave and setting His

them and those who are in "the land of the living"? For this is

glory "in the land of the living".