Objection 77: In Matthew 22:32 Christ declares that He is not the God of the dead but of the living. Yet He said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'. This proves that the souls of these patriarchs, who died long ago, are really alive in heaven.
Let us look at this passage of Scripture in its context:
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now, [suppose] there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘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.” When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. Mat. 22:23-33
What is the issue here? The issue is whether or not there is a resurrection of the dead. “The Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection,” were arguing, by presenting Jesus with this preposterous hypothetical, that there cannot really be a resurrection of the dead.
Mark introduces the incident with the same explanatory theological note on the Sadducees: “Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.” Mark 12:18. As does Luke: “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question.” Luke 20:27. Obviously, the only issue in this passage is whether or not there will be a resurrection of the dead.
By asking, “whose wife will she be in the resurrection,” the Sadducees thought that they had asked an unanswerable question and had thereby proved the doctrine of the resurrection to be unworthy of belief. Christ exploded the hypothetical by declaring, "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage."
Jesus then proceeded to the real issue, the resurrection of the dead: "But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Matt. 22:31-32.
Again, the only issue in this passage is whether there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a resurrection of the dead is necessary only if the dead are sleeping in the grave. Jesus is defending the doctrine of the resurrection from skeptical Sadducees, who, Scripture tells us in several places, did not believe what Scripture teaches regarding the resurrection. Would Jesus, in His defense of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, fatally undermine it by implying that the righteous dead are all in heaven, so there does not need to be a resurrection of the dead? What absurd nonsense!
Here, as in several instances we mentioned in answer to objection 76, Jesus is speaking of the named patriarchs as being alive spiritually, meaning that their eternal destiny is secured in that they will be resurrected in the First Resurrection of those over whom the second death has no power. Rev. 20:6. These patriarchs have, "passed from death unto life”; God does not regard their sleep in the grave as eternal, but only as a little interval between the earthly life and the heavenly.
This is a case described by Paul, when he says, “God, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were.” Rom. 4:17. Jesus is commenting not on the current condition of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but on their ultimate spiritual status. Paul further states, “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." Rom. 14:7-9. And why are we still "the Lord's," even though we die? Because we "sleep in Jesus," and the "dead in Christ shall rise" in the resurrection of life. (1 Thess. 4:16; John 5:29)