Jesus
answered them, “Isn’t this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God?”
Mark 12:24
Mark 12 [18.] There came to him Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection. They asked him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us, ‘If a man’s brother dies, and leaves a wife behind him, and leaves no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up offspring for his brother.’ There were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and dying left no offspring. The second took her, and died, leaving no children behind him. The third likewise; and the seven took her and left no children. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be of them? For the seven had her as a wife.”
Mark 12 [24.] Jesus answered them, “Isn’t this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they will rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But about the dead, that they are raised; haven’t you read in the book of Moses, about the Bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are therefore badly mistaken.”
Mark 12 [28.] One of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together. Knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”
Meaning:
The Sadducees, who denied that there is any resurrection, had told Jesus a story about seven brothers who each married the same woman, and asked, “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be of them?” (Mark 12:18-23). Before he answered the details, Jesus named the root of their problem. This one sentence is a diagnosis that applies far beyond the Sadducees.
- “Isn’t this because you are mistaken”
The word translated “mistaken” means to wander off the road or to be led astray. The Sadducees thought they had found a clever argument, but Jesus told them they had lost their way. That was bold language for the leading priests of Jerusalem. Jesus framed his whole answer with this charge, and he ended it with the same verdict: “You are therefore badly mistaken” (Mark 12:26-27).
Their error had two causes, and every error about the life to come can be traced to one or both of them.
- “Not knowing the Scriptures”
The Sadducees knew the words of Moses well, but they had missed their message. Jesus would show them, from the very books they valued most, that God is “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, the God of the living and not of the dead (Exodus 3:6).
The rest of the Scriptures pointed the same way. Daniel spoke of those who “sleep in the dust of the earth” and “shall awake” (Daniel 12:2). After he rose, Jesus “opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
- “Nor the power of God”
The second mistake was to limit God. Because the Sadducees could not picture how the resurrection would work, they decided it could not happen. But the Creator can make new life of a kind we have never seen. Jeremiah prayed, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). Jesus had said to his disciples, “With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).
Within days God would display this power by raising Jesus. Paul prayed that believers would know “the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19-20).
The Significance of Mark 12:24
- Know the Scriptures
Reading the Bible carefully and asking what God means by it protects us from error.
- Do not limit God
Our imagination is not the measure of what God can do. Faith trusts the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
- Word and power belong together
Scripture tells us what God has promised; his power makes it certain.
Cross-References:
Luke 24:45: "Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures." The risen Jesus explains the Scriptures.
Jeremiah 32:17: "Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you" Nothing is too hard for God.
2 Timothy 3:15: "From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus." Scripture rightly understood.
Conclusion: Before answering the Sadducees’ puzzle about the resurrection, Jesus told them that they were mistaken because they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. They had read Moses without grasping his message, and they had measured God’s future by the limits of their own imagination. True understanding of the life to come grows from knowing what God has said and trusting what God is able to do.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible