Following Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees over paying tax to Caesar, Jesus is now confronted by the Sadducees who think they can do better. The Sadducees, among whom were numbered some of the most powerful Jewish leaders, including high priests, restricted their beliefs to the first five books of the Bible, containing the essence of the Jewish Law. They did not accept beliefs which appear in later books of the Old Testament. They thought they could stump Jesus with an unanswerable problem about a wife who was childless after seven marriages. An insoluble problem for those who believed in an after life, they thought, but for them, with no after life there was no problem.

Jesus answers their challenge in two ways. First, there is no marriage in the next life. Secondly, he shrewdly attacks their stand by quoting from parts of the Bible which they accept and which clearly point to God as "a God of the living" They were left speechless and from then on no one dared ask Jesus anything.

We, of course, look forward to a life with God after death not so much because of Jesus' arguments here but because of His own resurrection and His promise to share His life with us forever.