SR 11
September 11
Luke 20:27-38. Christ replies to the Sadducees respecting the resurrection.
Here is another instance of precious truth being uttered in answer to frivolous questions. What light is thrown upon the eternal state by these two sentences! "They are equal to the angels! All live to him."
The Sadducees did not believe that there would be any resurrection of the dead, because they did not understand how it could be. When they applied to Jesus they described a case which might have occurred under the Jewish law. The land of Canaan was divided into small inheritances. If a man died without a child to succeed him, God enjoined that his brother should marry the widow, and that if a child were born, he should succeed to the property of the deceased brother, and be considered as his heir. The Sadducees imagined that they had proposed a difficulty that the Lord could not solve; but by a word he exposed their folly.
He declared that departed saints are "equal to the angels of God." Angels are not divided into families as men are; and glorified saints will not be connected in heaven with the relations they had upon earth. They will have connections, but not of an earthly kind. The pastor will rejoice to find again the flock he fed below. As Paul says to his converts, (1 Thess. 2:19,) "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" The godly parent will find himself united in spiritual bonds to the children who were born the second time, in answer to his fervent supplications. The friends who bore each other's spiritual burdens up the hill of Zion, will walk together by the waters of life that gladden the city of their God. Spiritual bonds can never be dissolved. Now is the time to multiply these bonds. Some who knew upon earth few of the sweet ties of kindred will be bound by numerous sacred everlasting ties in heaven.
But Christ knew that the Sadducees denied not only the resurrection of the body, but the immortality of the spirit. Therefore he brought forward a proof of the eternal life of the pious dead; and he brought it out of those five books of Moses, in which alone the Sadducees professed to believe. God would not have said to Moses, when he spoke from the burning bush, "I am the God of Abraham," if Abraham had ceased to exist.
How glorious is the idea that all the saints are actually in existence! All those holy men whom we have read of in the Scriptures, all whom we have heard of, all whom we have known and loved,—they LIVE. They not only live; but are equal to the angels. We delight to think of our absent living friends, to imagine how they are now engaged, to hope they sometimes think of us, and will some day return to us; but while we are indulging these tender thoughts, they may be in pain and trouble; they may be entangled in sin, and wandering far from God.
But with what confidence may we think of the pious dead! When we hear the sweetest strains of music, we may think, "Those sounds give but faint ideas of their feelings, as they pass from bliss to bliss." But though we know not the degree of their happiness, Jesus did. He had but lately left the blessed company above, and now he was going to die that they might live on forever, and that their number might continually increase. Once Abel was the only redeemed saint in heaven, but at length there shall be a multitude that no man can number, who will join in Abel's song, and say, "Salvation to our God, which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." (Rev. 7:10.)
Ten thousand times ten thousand sung
Loud anthems round the throne,
When lo! one solitary tongue
Began a song unknown;
A song unknown to angel ears,
A song that told of banished fears,
Of pardoned sins, and dried up tears.
Not one of all the heavenly host
Could those high notes attain,
But spirits from a distant coast
United in the strain;
Until he who first began the song
(To sing alone not suffered long)
Was mingled with a countless throng.
And still as hours are fleeting by
The angels ever bear
Some newly-ransomed soul on high
To join the chorus there;
And so the song will louder grow,
Until all whom Christ redeemed below
To that fair world of rapture go.
O give me, Lord, my golden harp,
And tune my broken voice,
That I may sing of troubles sharp,
Exchanged for endless joys;
The song that never was heard before
A sinner reached the heavenly shore,
But now shall sound for evermore.