The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection (Luke 20:27). Their story was built to make it look absurd. They began from the law of Moses, which told a man to marry his dead brother's childless widow (Luke 20:28), and then stretched the case to seven brothers. Barnes explains their thinking: they "supposed that, substantially, the same state of things must take place in the other world as here." Gill says they thought the case "sufficient to set aside the notion of a resurrection." The question was not asked to learn but to corner Jesus with a puzzle.

Jesus answered that "The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage," but those "accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels" (Luke 20:34-36). Then He showed from Moses that the dead are raised: at the bush God is called "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," and "he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him" (Luke 20:37-38). Certain scribes said, "Master, thou hast well said," and "after that they durst not ask him any question at all" (Luke 20:39-40).

The Sadducees were a party who "say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts 23:8). Barnes says they denied not only the raising of the body but also any future state.

Their case rests on Deuteronomy 25:5-6. If a man died without a child, his brother was to marry the widow, and the firstborn son would carry on the dead brother's name, "that his name be not put out of Israel." Jesus answered them from the book of Moses too, citing God's words at the burning bush (Exodus 3:6). Only Luke records the words "for all live unto him" (compare Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:27).

This question reveals the size of God. The Sadducees pictured the life to come as a copy of this one, and so they thought the resurrection would create impossible tangles. Jesus showed that the problem was not with the resurrection but with their small picture of it. In that world people "neither marry, nor are given in marriage," and they cannot "die any more" (Luke 20:35-36).

His deeper answer is about God's character. God called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob long after they died (Exodus 3:6). He does not remain the God of people who have ceased to exist. "He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him" (Luke 20:38). Barnes warns that the enemies of the truth often try to make a doctrine of the Bible look ridiculous "by adding to it, and then calling it absurd."