Any responsible reading of Jesus’ reply in Matthew 22:30 must begin with the question that provoked it. When that question is examined carefully, it becomes clear that the Sadducees were not asking about heaven, personal fulfillment, or the nature of eternal relationships. They were posing a legal challenge grounded in covenant law, specifically the law of inheritance preservation.
1. The Sadducees’ theological posture
Matthew introduces the encounter this way:
“The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him…” (Matthew 22:23)
This detail is crucial. The Sadducees are not neutral askers. They deny resurrection altogether and are attempting to expose what they believe is its logical absurdity. Their strategy is not philosophical but purely legalistic: they appeal to Mosaic law to show that resurrection cannot coherently coexist with the Law’s ongoing authority (They are right to identify the tension, but only because resurrection in Christ fulfills the Law, a point that will later become central to Paul’s theology, where death alone lawfully releases one from the Law’s jurisdiction (Romans 7:1–4))
2. The law they cite: levirate marriage
The scenario they present is explicitly rooted in Deuteronomy 25:5–6:
If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her… And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
Levirate marriage exists for one reason: to preserve the dead man’s name and inheritance within Israel. It is a legal mechanism designed to address a problem created by death, namely, the loss of lineage, land rights, and covenant continuity.
When the Sadducees rehearse their hypothetical case:
“There were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother…” (Matthew 22:25)
they are not telling a story about romance or intimacy. They are pushing a legal stress test against resurrection doctrine.
3. The real problem: inheritance under resurrection
Their concluding question makes their intent clear:
“Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.” (Matthew 22:28)
This is not a question about emotional bonds. It is a question about lawful status. Under Mosaic law, marriage determines lawful succession (“That his name be not put out of Israel.”)
The Sadducees’ objection is straightforward: if resurrection occurs while Mosaic marriage law is still in force, then succession law collapses into kind of a legal regression that has not logical end.
In short, their objection assumes that the Mosaic Law must remain operative beyond resurrection, a position that effectively denies resurrection as Scripture defines it, since resurrection entails the Law’s fulfillment and termination.
4. Why Jesus does not correct their use of the Law
Significantly, Jesus does not dispute their citation of levirate marriage. He does not deny the legitimacy of the law, nor does He accuse them of misusing it. Instead, He challenges a deeper assumption:
“Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
Their error is not ignorance of the law’s text, but ignorance of what resurrection means for the covenant order the law belongs to.
This sets the stage for Jesus’ decisive statement in verse 30. His answer will not resolve the inheritance puzzle by choosing one husband over another, as the legalistic logic expects. It resolves the problem by bringing to an end the legal framework that made the puzzle possible in the first place. (CHRIST AS FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
5. The consequence of the interpretation
Once the Sadducees’ question is properly framed, a limit is established:
- If Jesus’ reply is read as a comment about lifestyle in heaven, it is disconnected from the legal problem proposed by the them.
- If it is read as a declaration about the termination of death-governed covenant mechanisms, it directly answers the challenge.
This is why Matthew 22 must be read covenantally before it can be read eschatologically. Jesus is not speculating about life after death; He is announcing the end of the covenantal conditions that required marriage to preserve inheritance in the first place.
Jesus’ Answer: Ending the Legal Framework, Not Human Relationship (Matthew 22:29–30)
With the Sadducees’ legal challenge now clearly in view, Jesus’ response can be read with precision rather than speculation. His answer does not evade the problem; it dismantles the assumption on which the problem depends.
1. Jesus identifies the error as covenantal, not logical
Jesus begins by locating the Sadducees’ mistake:
“Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)
The error has two aspects:
- They misunderstand Scripture, which already defined resurrection in covenantal terms (Ezekiel 37).
- They misunderstand the power of God, which does not merely restore life within an unchanged legal order, but transforms the order itself.
Resurrection, for Jesus, is not the raising of bodies back into a death-governed covenant. It is the inauguration of a new covenant reality.
2. “They neither marry nor are given in marriage” legal verbs, legal logic
Jesus’ statement reads:
“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30)
The phrasing is precise. Jesus does not speak in the language of affection or sexuality. He uses two legal/covenantal verbs:
- to marry, the act of entering a lawful union
- to be given in marriage, the transfer of custody and covenantal status
These verbs belong to Mosaic household law, not to abstract discussions of human intimacy. They presuppose:
- inheritance concerns
- lineage continuity
- death as a governing reality (when we are now made alive in Christ)
By declaring that these legal acts no longer occur in the resurrection, Jesus is not denying relationship. He is declaring that the legal mechanism designed to manage inheritance under death no longer applies.
3. Why resurrection makes Mosaic marriage law unnecessary
Marriage under the Mosaic covenant exists because death threatens inheritance. This is precisely why levirate marriage was established:
“That his name be not put out of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 25:6)
Once resurrection life is inaugurated, that threat is removed. Inheritance is no longer fragile, dependent on genealogy or in threat of extinction.
As Paul states:
“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29)
Inheritance is now secured in Christ, not preserved through death-managed marriage law.
4. “Like the angels”, functional comparison, not metaphysical change
Jesus’ comparison to angels is grounded in function. He does not say humans turn into angels. He draws a functional parallel:
Angels:
- do not die
- do not reproduce
- do not transmit inheritance through flesh
They persist because life is not threatened. Jesus’ point is that resurrection life shares this characteristic: it is not sustained by biological succession, because it is not threatened by death.
5. Why Jesus’ answer collapses the Sadducees’ objection
The Sadducees’ dilemma only works if:
- death continues to govern covenant life
- marriage law remains necessary
- inheritance must still be preserved through legal succession
Jesus denies that entire framework.
By declaring the end of marrying and being given in marriage in the resurrection, He announces that the death-based covenant order has reached its expiry (the source of Paul’s theology about death, sin and the law). The inheritance puzzle dissolves, not because it is ignored, but because the legal conditions that produced it dissolve.
6. The theological implication
Jesus’ statement in Matthew 22:30 is therefore not an isolated remark about the afterlife. It is a covenantal declaration:
- Resurrection ends death’s jurisdiction
- The Law’s inheritance mechanisms cease
- Covenant life no longer depends on marriage law
This prepares the ground for Paul’s later argument that believers have died to the Law in order to belong lawfully to Christ (Romans 7). What Jesus states briefly, Paul explains systematically.
Jesus’ reply to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:30 is neither an isolated side piece about the afterlife nor a negation of human relationship. It is a precise covenantal judgment on a legal system designed to manage inheritance in a world ruled by death. By declaring that marrying and being given in marriage in the Mosaic law sense no longer operate in the resurrection, Jesus announces that the conditions which made those legal mechanisms necessary have come to an end.
Resurrection, in His teaching, is not life resumed under the same covenantal pressure, but life secured beyond them. Read this way, the passage does not confuse theology, it clarifies it. It explains why the Sadducees’ objection fails, why inheritance issue dissolves, and why the Law’s death-governed structures cannot survive resurrection life. What initially appears to be a difficult saying about marriage turns out to be a consistent declaration that the covenantal order sustained by death has reached its fulfillment.
