Alive in Christ

The Living And Dead Are All One In Christ

Mark 12:18-27

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, 'Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.'

Jesus said to them, 'Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.'(NRSV)

Commentators expositing on these verses rightly see what Christ is saying here, i.e., that the dead must be raised because God claims that he is their God (present tense), not was their God (past tense). But the implications of this passage are even more important than they would appear to be on the surface. It means that all God's people, whether living or dead in this world, are alive in Him for eternity. Our patriarchs, saints and loved ones are still alive in Christ. They are still part of the Church. We may still pray for them, and ask them to pray for us, just as we might when they were in this world with us. They are not gone, but only their state of being has changed. This is not necromancy. We are not performing divination or attempting to conjure those who have departed. But rather, we are recognizing that the barrier between life and death has been broken by Christ, through his resurrection.