THE TEMPLE WAR: Resurrection

Sep 13, 2026 • Rory Mosley

071 THE TEMPLE WAR: Resurrection

Mark 12:18-27

September 13, 2026

Well tonight we return again to THE TEMPLE WAR.

Jesus is walking through the temple like He owns the place

And the former religious elite can’t stand it.

· They are flanking Him on every side.

· They are calculating their attacks.

· They are systematically approaching Him with various attack strategies.

And they are all losing to Him mightily!

THE FIRST BATTLE saw the chief priests, scribes, and elders

Question His authority and Jesus revealed that their problem was a refusal to recognize God’s authority.

Jesus wasn’t the rebel, they were.

· They were the tenants who sought to steal the vineyard

· They were the ones soon to suffer the wrath of God.

THE SECOND BATTLE saw the Pharisees and Herodians

Attack with an attempt to flatter Him and get Him to incriminate Himself regarding the issue of paying taxes.

But Jesus was again not a rebel.

· They were the ones with an unpaid debt.

· They had failed to give God what God deserved and would soon suffer the punishment of their delinquent account before Him.

So far two groups had approached and two groups had failed.

WELL TONIGHT IT’S BATTLE #3

And yet a new special forces unit has been deployed.

This time Jesus will face “Some Sadducees”

And the initial topic presented is regarding marriage.

Of course the subject really wasn’t marriage, it was resurrection,

And Jesus will clearly articulate its truth.

But, as we commonly see, that’s not the only issue in play.

The problem of the Sadducees is NOT JUST a denial of the resurrection,

It is that they are terribly SELF-DECEIVED and Jesus will expose that too.

We’ll break our text tonight down into 2 points as well.

#1 THE RIDDLE

Mark 12:18-23

So here is group number 3

“Some Sadducees”

Mark is going to identify them by one main descriptor.

“(who say that there is no resurrection)”

Often when we read the gospels we tend to lump groups like Pharisees and Sadducees together when in reality they had nothing in common.

Pharisees were notorious for their legalistic lifestyles.

· They had books and books of explanatory laws written in reference to the

Scriptures which they treated as authoritative.

The Sadducees rejected all of those.

· In fact, they held that only the first 5 books of the Old Testament were

authoritative.

· The rest of the Old Testament only served as a commentary on the first 5.

In regard to the resurrection they denied it

Because they noted that it was never mentioned there.

Acts 23:8 “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.”

Because they denied the resurrection,

They were also the ultimate worldly opportunists.

If there is no resurrection then there is no eternal judgment.

The only thing a man should concern himself with is this life.

So they literally sought only to live their best life now.

· They were fine with Roman rule so long as it benefitted them.

· They were almost totally callous toward the poor since there was no

immediate benefit in helping them.

· They were the ones who ran and operated the temple circus Jesus just

cleansed yesterday.

But that doesn’t mean they had no desire for Scripture at all.

As mentioned earlier, they did believe the first 5 books

And they sought to be absolute sticklers for adherence to it.

If Moses said it, they agreed.

If not, they rejected it.

AND YET, IT IS CLEAR THEY UNDERSTOOD NOTHING.

And here, they come to Jesus with their “ace in the hole” argument.

· It’s the one debate that must have stumped Pharisee after Pharisee.

· It’s the one debate that must have silenced all the scribes.

You have to wonder if the Pharisees didn’t approach them and say,

“Hey, go confront Him with that hypothetical riddle you always give us.”

SO HERE THEY COME.

They “came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying…”

(19-23) “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother. “There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. “The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. “In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her.”

The basis for this debate comes from the command of Moses

Regarding the law of the levirate marriage.

Deuteronomy 25:5-10 “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. “It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. “But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ “Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’ then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ “In Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal is removed.’”

The point here was to preserve a man’s lineage and even his inheritance in the land.

· It was a provision of God in the Law to not allow any of the tribes of Israel to accidentally fall into extinction due to infertility or accident, or even war.

· If a man died, it was his brother’s duty to marry his brother’s widow and raise up children on his brother’s behalf.

· Incidentally the book of Ruth follows closely along this story line of the kinsmen redeemer.

But it is this command that the Sadducees used

As a fool proof example of why the resurrection was not true.

If the resurrection was true they perceived a scenario

In which the afterlife would become a train wreck.

This is all hypothetical, but what if…

If that story panned out,

You’d have a woman in the afterlife with 7 husbands

None of them would know which one she belonged to.

While it was common in the O.T. for a man to have multiple wives,

It was unheard of for a woman to have multiple husbands.

This scenario was a disaster waiting to happen.

Because such a disaster could not be explained

The Sadducees reasoned that the resurrection could not be true.

You can imagine how this argument

Had been used to stump the Pharisees time and time again.

And now they have brought it to Jesus.

THE GOAL IS AGAIN OBVIOUS.

They are going to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the crowd.

It has been no secret, especially in Jerusalem,

That a trademark of Jesus’ preaching has been ETERNAL LIFE.

John 3:14-16 “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

John 6:47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.”

It’s kind of been His thing!

Even consider where we are currently in the Jesus saga.

TURN TO: JOHN 12

· You notice that in John 12:12 we have John’s account of the triumphal entry.

· He talks about Jesus entering Jerusalem.

But look a little further down.

(READ 12:17-18)

John indicates that part of the reason for the giant crowd is because of what Jesus had recently done in Bethany.

· He had literally raised a man from the dead.

· He was trading on the promise of eternal life.

And then, when He started preaching to the crowds in Jerusalem,

Notice what He talks.

(READ 12:23-25)

Certainly there is a revelation of self-denial and even death,

But there is still a promise of eternal life.

Look further down as the chapter is completed and see what Jesus is saying:

(READ 12:44-50)

· And there it is again, “I know His commandment is eternal life…”

Jesus entire platform has been to offer “eternal life” to men.

If the Sadducees can stump Him

And get Him to acknowledge that the resurrection is impossible

Then it’s going to wreck His ministry.

So they bring their silver bullet

They approach Jesus with the old “7 Husband Scenario”

And then sit back to watch Him stumble and squirm.

The Riddle

#2 THE REASON

Mark 12:24-27

Jesus will certainly answer their question,

But the answer is NOT the first thing He reveals.

Before He ever reveals the answer to their question,

He first reveals THE REASON they can’t make sense of it.

(24) “Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”

I love how Jesus responds.

He doesn’t just tell them that they are mistaken,

He tells them the reason why they are mistaken.

As He commonly does with all sinners,

He not only addresses the actual sin, but the reason we commit it.

Here Jesus points out that they are “mistaken”

(pla-NAH-o)

It means “to be led into error; deceived”

It is a word used of a sheep that has been allowed to wander away from safety.

Matthew 18:12 “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?”

· There it is “gone astray”

1 Peter 2:25 “For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

This is what Jesus tells the Sadducees.

You have gone astray, you are straying,

You have wandered away from the truth.

YOU ARE SELF-DECEIVED.

(pla-NAH-o) is also the Greek word

From where our word “planet” is derived.

Jude 13 “wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”

· Jude speaks of “wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been

reserved forever.”

Picture a planet just floating out in the darkness,

Wandering away out of sight.

That is the word Jesus uses here.

These men have wandered away from the truth.

It reminds of the warning:

Hebrews 2:1 “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.”

YOU GET THE IDEA.

Jesus tells them that they have wandered away from the truth.

· They have followed their own logic right into heresy.

· They are straying sheep.

· They are wandering stars.

· They are “mistaken”.

But Jesus doesn’t just tell them that they are “mistaken”,

He tells them why.

“Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”

They have two major problems.

1. Biblical Illiteracy

2. Theological Ignorance

And obviously the two work together.

In fact, there is a quite a dilemma to be found in their problem.

You can’t know God if you don’t understand the Bible.

And you can’t understand the Bible if you don’t know God.

THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM.

Let’s talk a little more about what they don’t know.

THE SCRIPTURES

Jesus said, “you don’t understand the Scriptures”

Clearly the O.T. Scriptures reveal the truth of the resurrection.

Job 19:25-27 “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”

Psalms 16:9-11 “Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

Psalms 49:15 “But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me. Selah.”

Psalms 73:24 “With Your counsel You will guide me, And afterward receive me to glory.”

Psalms 139:8 “If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.”

Daniel 12:2 “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.”

Even the Old Testament references a coming resurrection.

There is life after death.

But, as Jesus said, the Sadducees had wandered away from such truths.

They did not “understand the Scriptures”

They had rejected everything but the Torah

Incidentally, that’s the same reason the men on the road to Emmaus were so distraught after Jesus died.

Luke 24:25-27 “And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

They didn’t understand the Scriptures

So they didn’t believe in the resurrection.

YOU CAN’T KNOW GOD IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES.

But see that’s a problem.

· You can’t know God if you don’t understand the Scriptures.

· BUT…You can’t understand the Scriptures if you don’t know God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

These men need to understand the Scriptures in order to know God.

But they also needed to know God in order to understand the Scriptures.

THAT WAS THEIR OTHER PROBLEM.

It was the second thing they didn’t know.

THE POWER OF GOD

“you do not understand…the power of God”

Now it is true that there are many revelations of who God is

That can be found in natural revelation.

Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Even natural revelation clearly teaches the principles of resurrection.

For example:

Psalms 104:27-30 “They all wait for You To give them their food in due season. You give to them, they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good. You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away their spirit, they expire And return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the ground.”

The Psalmist saw the cycles of the seasons as a picture of resurrection.

· He saw animals die and animals born.

· He saw grass wither and grass grow again.

· He saw God’s renewal in the seasons.

We read another a moment ago:

John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

· Basic farming is predicated on resurrection.

This was also Paul’s point when the Corinthians didn’t understand resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:35-41 “But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.”

Paul used farming to illustrate the resurrection

He noted two truths that the Corinthians had failed to learn from natural revelation.

· God is creator and God is creative.

· He can give a body and He can give a new body however He wants.

So it is true that natural revelation teaches us a great deal about God.

And yet, if you truly want to know who God is,

We go to the more sure word.

We go to the greater and more perfect revelation.

To truly know God, we go to His word.

FOR MANY men, following their own natural observation,

have still fallen into great heresy.

· We’ve read of native American mystic religions gleaned solely from seeking to make sense of creation.

· Paul went to Athens and saw them worshipping “an unknown god”, or we consider all the “deities” of Greek mythology which are all derived from the heart of man as he misunderstands natural revelation.

So really the only way to truly know God is through the Scriptures.

And the only way to truly know the Scriptures is by knowing God.

AND YOU SAY, “Well that’s an impossible scenario.”

How are we to know God if can’t know the Scriptures,

And how we are to know the Scriptures if we can’t know God?

And there is ONLY ONE ANSWER to the dilemma.

You need a RESURRECTION

· You need for God to awaken your dead soul.

· You need for God to give sight to your blind eyes.

· You need for God to allow you to understand what you did not understand.

Is that not what Jesus did for those men on the road to Emmaus?

Luke 24:27 “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

Later we read:

Luke 24:31 “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.”

Or how about what Christ did with the apostles?

Luke 24:45 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,”

It’s not surprising they didn’t know the Scriptures or God

They denied the very tool that would allow them to know either.

Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”

YOU GET THE POINT.

Before Jesus even addresses their dilemma,

HE FIRST REVEALS that their real problem is a dead soul.

They can’t see.

They can’t perceive.

That’s what the word “understand” actually means.

(I-doug) in the Greek.

It means “to see” or “to perceive”

They can’t

That’s why they can’t figure out how the resurrection is possible.

BUT…

JESUS WILL EXPLAIN IT

(25) “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

Now, this is truth they would not have gleaned regardless of how much they read the Scriptures.

· This truth is not previously given.

· Jesus goes above and beyond, not just quoting Scripture,

· But actually giving new revelation right in front of our eyes.

He tells us a truth about the resurrection and that is this:

“when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor or given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

WHAT DOES HE MEAN?

Well primarily this:

Marriage is not needed in the resurrection.

Think of the purpose of marriage, as revealed to us in Scripture.

PROCREATION

Genesis 1:27-28 “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

· But in the resurrection life is eternal and there is no need to replenish what is lost, because death is abolished.

PROTECTION

1 Corinthians 7:1-5 “Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

· In a fallen world filled with temptation and lusts,

· God has ordained the marriage to be the protector and a place to satisfy human desire.

· But in the resurrection sin is gone and there is no need for such a protection.

PRESENTATION

(That is presentation of the gospel)

Ephesians 5:31-32 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

· Marriage is meant to be a presentation of the gospel to the world around us.

· Wives submit demonstrating the church’s submission to Christ.

· Husbands love demonstrating Christ’s love for the church.

· But in the resurrection there will be no unredeemed and no need for such an illustration.

There is no need for marriage in the resurrection like there is here.

Now, don’t get all mopey.

There is no reason to assume that any relationship in heaven

Is going to be worse than what we have here.

EVERYTHING IS BETTER THERE,

Including the relationship that you now enjoy with your spouse.

It will be even better there regardless of whether marriage continues.

Jesus here just revealed that their hypothetical dilemma

Is no dilemma at all for marriage won’t even exist.

AND YET…

JESUS KNOWS THAT WAS NOT THEIR PROBLEM.

· They could care less about marriage in the afterlife.

· They didn’t even believe in the afterlife.

JESUS KNOWS WHAT THE REAL ISSUE IS.

· They don’t believe in the resurrection.

· They can’t find anything about it in the first 5 books of the Bible.

So Jesus will perform a Biblical exposition for them.

And if you are not amazed by the expositional preaching power of Jesus,

You’re about to be.

Jesus is about to prove the resurrection from the Scripture,

BY EXPOSITING ONE WORD!

(26-27) “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

Did you catch the one word He just exposited?

· It is the word “am”

“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”

“am” not “was”

· Those men aren’t gone.

· Those men haven’t been annihilated.

· Those men haven’t be snuffed out of existence.

· Those men are.

· They live today even though they have died.

One passage the Sadducees had not understood.

One word they had not perceived.

As a result they did not understand the truth about the resurrection.

WE MIGHT ACTUALLY GO EVEN FURTHER

And point out that their present state of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

IS NOT the only resurrection miracle in that text Jesus chose.

The only miracle is NOT that they are currently alive,

There is another miracle.

It is the miracle that God refers to Himself as their God.

· Why did Abraham believe God?

· Why did Isaac believe God?

· Why did Jacob believe God?

It was because God first resurrected their souls

Before He ever resurrected their bodies.

God gave them a knowledge of Him that they might know

What these Sadducees did not.

The Sadducees didn’t understand resurrection,

But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did.

Hebrews 11:17-21 “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.”

These men knew that death was not the end.

Because God has first resurrected their souls

Before He ever resurrected their bodies.

This is what Jesus meant when He spoke to Martha.

John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The miracle of the resurrection is that

God first resurrects a dead soul

And allows that soul to know Him and thus to know His word.

And when those same people die physically

God will one day resurrect their bodies as well.

THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH.

· Abraham knew it.

· Isaac knew it.

· Jacob knew it.

· And now they live it.

“He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

And so do you see what Jesus just did to these Sadducees?

They came challenging Him on the resurrection

Jesus has now answered in a definitive way.

THE REASON YOU DON’T KNOW THIS ANSWER

Is because God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

The reason you don’t know is because you don’t know God.

“you are greatly mistaken”

· You have wandered WAY off the mark.

· You are so far out in left field you’re not even playing baseball any more.

What you need is to know God that you might know His word.

What you need is to know God’s word that you might know Him.

What you need is to be resurrected so that you can know either.

AND ISN’T IT INTERESTING THAT this resurrection

Is the very thing Jesus is currently offering to all who will listen.

John 12:44-50 “And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”

The Son of God is in His temple offering eternal life.

When the religious elite try to challenge Him

All they manage to do is give Him an illustration.

Don’t be like the chief priests, the scribes, or the elders.

They reject God’s authority and will soon be judged because of it.

GOD WILL DESTROY ALL REBELS

Don’t be like the Pharisees.

They refuse to give God what He deserves and will soon be judged because of it.

THEY HAVE AN UPAID DEBT BEFORE GOD

Don’t be like the Sadducees.

They have strayed way away from the truth, they are dead while they live.

GOD IS NOT THE GOD OF THE DEAD, BUT OF THE LIVING