Repentance and the Good News (2)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’.” (1:15)

Repentance is a religious attitude and decision, moving the axis of attention from this world to the heaven. Today we don’t regard some specific area in space as the heavenly kingdom mentioned in the Gospels. We already mentioned the heaven is the “kingdom of God”. What the kingdom of God is near means the heaven comes near to us. And then that heaven is not a heaven in astronomical physics, and then it is evident that the direction we should turn toward could not be the astronomical heaven either.

It seems for us to have gotten an answer already. Repentance means that we turn around and pay attention only to the kingdom of God, where comes near, that is, to God. “Repent” means that someone could pay attention to God’s sovereignity, not to his own achievement or human civilization or competion. It is the essence of Christian faith as well as Christian spirituality.

It seems so simple and easy to pay attention to God, but it is not. We cannot believe in God automatically. Even we try to believe without any condition it is impossible to do that. Of course it is possible to have faith like moving the mountains superficially. Look. I heard some church in Seoul has a special early morning service both in spring and in fall just like some event. It is amazing that more than five or seven thousand people gather to pray in the early morning. People who attend at the prayer meeting seem to have a simple breakfast at the church. I could say it is such a passion. I feel envious. But it is regretable to have a parking disaster in that town every morning. What kind of relationship does exist between this kind of religious phenomena and attention only to God? Of course this is not an issue the third person could analyze, but if one tenth of energy out of such passion could be exploded as a power for social change in Korean history, I feel a little disappointed.

We are a little bit drifting away now. Let’s get back to the point. The reason why it is so hard to get back to God is that we cannot pay attention to His sovereignity with our hearts, which are always full of something else. Therefore it is a focal point to empty your heart. Of course we used to say to empty our heart. But without understanding what it really means to empty our heart, we just easily use this kind of expression. People could imagine that it means living without any greed. But it is impossible for us not to have greed. Maybe we could pretend, but realistically it is impossible. Of course this is not for all, but generally speaking it is true.

So in order to empty our heart, we should come back to God. Without His spirit, we cannot empty our hearts. Only in case when the spirit of life controls our hearts, we could also control our desire. It is evident even without sophisticated thinking. The person who knows best does not pay attention to the least. The person who had tasted 100 % fruit juice does not want to drink 10 % jucie. It means that only the person who knows an Absolute life of God could empty his heart.
Today I feel like drifting away a little bit from the topic.

Repentance could start when we can recognize God’s sovereignity as His existence. We should learn about Him in order to recognize Him. For this point of view, it is necessary for all the laypeople to study theology not as a theory but as true realization of spriritual substance.

Lord, we like to pay a whole attention only to you. Amen!

The God of the living

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"(12:27)

Through yesterday’s mediation, I told you the quotation of Exodus 3:6 could be revealed its meaning much more profoundly by interpretation of the New Testament’s light though it still has a difficulty to define its accuracy. It is revealed in today’s content. Let’s briefly see the reason at the external meaning of the sentence.

At the Mark’s point of view, the word said in Exodus 3:6, “the God of Abraham and son and so” means Abraham is still living. God is the Creator and the owner of life now and here. There is no possibility of life without him. It may say God is life itself. The word that God said “I am the God of Abraham” means the proof of Abraham’s living. It wouldn’t be said like this if Abraham was not living.

Such logic might be sounded awkwardly. Now we are not going to follow the exact nuance of the letter of the Bible. Occasionally there are ambiguous passages in a sentence structure in the Bible. Rather than the author of the Bible concentrated on unknown such part, they were concentrated on the other fact as if it would be better to ignore. There are two main points in today’s content. First, the Sadducees deny the resurrection and the other, they tried to entrap Jesus.

Though the author uses the Old Testament in order to reveal the Sadducees’ misunderstanding and conspiracy it doesn’t mean that there is no theological meaning in it. Knowing the meaning of the word, ‘living’ is a part of theology. Abraham and Isaac had died long time ago and now don’t exist like other living people today. Despite this, we cannot say they are dead for living means he is with God.

We are living by too much minimizing the meaning of living. We narrowed it at the biological level only. Of course, we have life means our brain and heart are alive. Metabolism should be taken place in our body through cell’s reproduction and stomach’s moving. Through these life phenomena we can confirm the fact that we are living.

However, should it be like that? Though we keep aside other things, we cannot ignore the fact that our life phenomena ends in a moment. In the midway of life if we get sick and meet accident or get old then our life phenomena will be stopped. The word, we are living, is in such limitation only. We may not say it as the ultimate one.

I don’t mean to say a momentary life in today is meaningless. It could be more precious because of its vanity ends. Of course we have to live by preciously accepting our life. However, we now are talking about the life not in relative but absolute manner. Our tentative and uncertain life phenomena only can have meaning in the absolute life.

Many problems can be occurred when we accept a minimized style of life that we confirm the life in the earth as the absolute one. Quantity based life interpretation is one of them. It calculates life with its numeric value and blindly pursues high valued life. Under this circumstance, the handicapped people are treated as the inferiors while the prominent in intellectual ability are received warmly.

The life created by God that cannot be measured by man. We cannot treat life at our pleasure or ensnare it for we are not the creator but a creature.

We have to think the meaning of living not in our position but God’s. Some may feel such expression is too schematized. Doubt arise how can people distinguish the position of man and God. It is difficult to inquire such matter in detail in this short writing. So I would like to deal with important point only by keeping such regretting point aside.

Our discussing point now is the relationship between God and life. We cannot understand the life after death for we used to think about life in too small category. We should take down such preconception first. Though death is clearly declared by the incident ceasing our biological life phenomena but no one can determine the complete end of life itself by death.

If some may ask to prove it then no one can does it directly. It is not the matter of proof but trust. We only trust the resurrection life that the Bible explained and promised. We cannot prove it demonstratively. It is unfair to say that the truth can be granted by its proof only. How can a man who is living in this world momentarily prove the ultimate life incident that could be proved through the entire history of universe?

The Bible says God created the world from nothing. The nothing is not a simple empty status but something that doesn’t have any specific form. The very creator God raised Jesus from the dead. At this point, resurrection is a creation incident. If the first creation had been carried out from nothing then resurrection has been carried from something. It is created from the world of something that should die to the eternal life where will be no death.

The meaning of this verse, God is not God of the dead, but of living, is that true life, eternal life and resurrection life is possible in God only. We should not miss a point that resurrection the center of Christian faith doesn’t saying something independently but it revives its own meaning only in the relationship with God.

In God, tree, river, mountain and even rock get its life. There is saying the life of earth began from DNA and even God had made it possible. Then it may say that everything that exist in any method get its life in God.

Now the matter belongs to whether we are living in God or not. If we see the world in a whole there is nothing beyond God’s hand. Even evil and meaningless things also are ultimately in God’s hand. God even embraces evil in him that against God’s nature. It is because everything happens in God’s creation.

In order to save that evil, ‘save’ means to get life’, God chose Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus is the victory of evil, the event the reality of evil was revealed. From there God was revealed as a helpless being. Jesus’ resurrection is God’s victory. God’s creative power revealed. God was revealed as the person of great captivity of life. God overcame evil not by evil but resurrection life.

Now none of us lose our life. We all can dwell in the life of God. The only thing we need is to believe the fact.

Repentance and the Good News (1)

Repentance and the Good News (1)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’.” (1:15)

According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said that the kingdom of God was near and so to repent and believe the good news. Metanoia meaning repentance is also the essence of Baptist John’s message. Then does it mean Jesus had learned this idea from Baptist John? We cannot make it sure about that. On the other hand, Jesus seemed to get influence from Baptist John who had been away from home earlier and been preaching the words of God in the desert, but Jesus is fundamentally different from Baptist John and also because the Gospels are writing about Jesus one-sidedly it is impossible to find out any information out of it about how related thoughts Jesus and Baptist John had shared with each other. With this kind of limit we could reach indirectly to this problem through the boundary of the New Testament.

Baptist John mentioned baptism and Jesus did too, but there are similarities and differences. The similarity is that each of them emphasized on change of the mankind. Baptist John asked the people in those days to change and Jesus did such change too. Repentance means a change for direction. Changing direction could mean a change. Even though both of them were talking about change, direction for change was so much different from each other.

Baptist John’s repentance means change for a new life. He is saying that every body should live morally perfect life. That kind request brought up such turmoil in people’s heart, so that they went out to the desert in crowds. On the other hand, repentance Jesus is talking about means a much more fundamental change. As we could see today’s scripture, Jesus asked to change the direction into the kingdom of God. Metanoia means a change from the worldly attention to the lives in the kingdom of God.

According to their opinions, Baptist John’s repentance looked to be more realistic and concrete, and also desirable. For if teachers, officers, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, pastors, and workers would live honestly and conscientiously, this world could become more beautiful. On the other hand, the change into the kingdom of God sounds too abstract, because we could not grab the true self. In here there must be some difficulties for the Christian faith. It means that the idea of changing direction toward the kingdom of God could be misunderstood by Christians as well as by others. The people outside of the church could consider Christians as people who just look up a far away sky, and also Christians could not care living in this world, and instead keep waiting for Rapture in the end times.

But a true Christian faith is like a way of attitude for life, which resists against such extremes but keep on walking through a narrow spiritual passage. We are not people who only long for ethical change of life, but also who look up only a far away sky. But we are not two sided people who are living a virtual life as well as a mysterious life in heaven. We are not people like a bat, which is living between the first choice and the second one. Basically we consider earth and heaven are one. But more than that! We regard earth surrounded by heaven as basis for our lives. Is there any reality in such a life?

Lord. We like to live a life of repentance enough to change our attention to the kingdom of God. Amen.

The God of Abraham

Now about the dead rising--have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?(12:26)

Jesus quoted Exodus 3:6. Moses who experienced God through the phenomena of bush was heard, “'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'” It is uncertain whether the verse of Exodus can be given as the ground of resurrection.

Firstly this verse should be understood not point out or intimate resurrection itself but the identity of God that Moses experienced. If we consider the fact that Moses’ calling was lane on the salvation of his nation, it becomes clearer. The author of Exodus tried to deliver the fact that the history of Hebrew who was persecuted by Egypt as the minor was connected to the history of patriarchs, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, Mark’s gospel uses it as the biblical resource of resurrection.

Though he did like this, we cannot say such quotation from the Old Testament was unqualifiedly wrong. It is difficult to say that the quote of the New Testament from the Old Testament is many or rare. The New Testament quoted and interpreted it in the proper places if necessary. Hebrews can entirely be an interpretation for the Old Testament and besides this, the gospels, the interpretation of Jesus’ public life, also frequently quotes the Old Testament. Some part of them have interpreted at the point of the New Testament’s view and they cannot but crash against Jews Scholars due to this matter.

There are many cases to reveal the meaning of the Old Testament much more profoundly though it wasn’t its original meaning. I think the above verse also one of them. The verse which was limited to the authenticity of nation now is sublated at the level of universal resurrection life.

Like the angels in heaven

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.(12:25)

Jesus’ answer was continued. There will be neither marry nor be given in marriage at the day of resurrection. It is right. The marriage now is a necessary custom to proliferate our descendant biologically. As resurrection is totally different world of life from such level, so marriage is totally unnecessary thing. I think I explained marriage too much in functional way. We also have to think the love between man and woman and meaning of family. These are another theme and it is better to keep it aside from here. The coherent of today’s content is talking about the destiny of the brothers at the moment of resurrection, died without descendant.

Resurrection is not reincarnation of the present life but the incident of total change into new life as if a larva changes into a butterfly, an egg into a bird and a fetus comes out from the womb. The new life begins, totally different from the life we experience now and here. We cannot find out the analogy of being (Analogia entis) of the life here. The resurrection of the Bible can be understood only through such qualitative differentiation.

The content of today compares it to the angels in heaven. It says we become the angels when we will be resurrected. The Bible doesn’t say much about the angels. If we see it on the whole, the angels used to be described as the messengers to deliver God’s will to man. It was the angel Gabriel who delivered the message to Mary and Joseph to have a son. In Greek myth, Hermes had taken such role.

Does angel exist? Such question doesn’t have much meaning. The answer will be varied according to the meaning of existence. For us to be the angels at the time of resurrection means our qualitative change. The difference of change transcends our imagination. It might be the difference between we who are absolutely ruled by space and the angels for whom moment space movement is possible.

The relationship between knowledge and belief

Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? (12:24)

Jesus begins with his answer by pointing out the fundamental limitation of the Sadducees who questioned Jesus with intention of finding fault. Jesus’ word ‘you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God’ pointed out their fundamental error in their understanding. The error of understanding naturally results the error of judgment and it resulted to make an awkward question.

Today’s content exactly fit to Korean Christianity. We are regarded ‘knowledge’ insignificantly. Rather, belief has priority over everything. Of course faith is important and more to say it is the absolute one. The doctrine of righteousness by faith, the righteousness is recognized by faith, is the core of Christian belief. Problem is superfluous of such phenomena. Such surplus breaks the balance of Christianity. That is, we regard the matter of ‘knowledge’, the matter of understanding, as confronting to faith.

This is a great misunderstanding. The existence of faith without knowledge, that is, understanding, is impossible from the beginning. We cannot believe if we do not understand. Here knowledge and understanding point out not only a demonstratively certain thing but also a complete hope and waiting for a certain object which cannot but reliable.

Anselm, if I’m not wrong, said, “We believe to know.” It is natural to ask faith in the tension of acknowledgement and dialectical relationship. The faith monism that is revealed to us today has danger to run up to fanatic belief at the point of fundamental breakdown of such tension.

This is the time to restore the rightly known faith. The ‘knowledge’, that is, the understanding is the activity of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth as already told in John’s gospel. The humanities Bible reading of the Daegu Bible Academy pursues the very point. Let us believe with proper understanding.

Seven men and a woman

At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"(12:23)

The Sadducees’ story is continued. It was their question, “If seven brothers married the widow and died, whose wife would the woman is?” It was so wicked question. They wanted to confirm the fact that there would be no resurrection through this difficult question to answer. More basically, they intended to put Jesus into trouble through this question. Whatever their motivation is it also can be a curious question for us.

At the resurrection what will be our family relationship especially the relationship of husband and wife? We console the bereaved family in funeral ceremony by saying, “The deceased is waiting for you nesting in God. You also soon can meet the deceased in the kingdom of heaven so till that time you can endure a temporal sorrow of separation by expecting the day of joyous moment.” Mostly console the bereaved family in this way. Here is an expectation to remember the things of this world even in Heaven. If there is no such memory meeting again in Heaven has no meaning.

Husband and wife relationship is very unique among many relationships in this world. Commonly this relationship is called oneness of body and mind. Occasionally I can see the meeting of the dispersed family in a TV program. One year after their marriage in North Korea they had to be separated due to the Korean War. A husband came to South but a wife remained in North. The husband remarried within a year but a wife didn’t marry. They have lived in that way and meet again after 50 years. Twenty’s young couple meets again at the age of seventy. Despite getting old age still they have kept charity of youth in their mind.

We don’t know the future of marriage system but till it is very important system to make our life affluent. A couple is living as the closest friend in this world. If they accord with their philosophy and belief then it is wonderful but it still good though it doesn’t accord with each other.

Levirate marriage

Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. (12:20-22)

The Law written in Deuteronomy 25:5f describes very unique content. It is related to the levirate marriage that deals with what to do of a wife after her husband’s death. The content is following.

A widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. If a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me." Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, "I do not want to marry her," his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line." (Deut. 25:6-9)

According to this tradition, the activity to bear a descendant had taken the highest value in Israel. It can be confirmed through the action of the widow by spitting on a brother-in-law who refused to marry his brother’s wife. I don’t know how such levirate marriage widely practiced in Israel in those days.

As much as I know there is no such custom in Korea. It seems the polyandry still remain in China and a remote place of Tibet. It is the custom that brothers become the husbands of a woman. How does a marriage system of a species named human can be changed in the future?

If there is another way to multiply a descendant except general marriage, the marriage system eventually may disappear. It is said such phenomena become serious even to be a social problem. Then what will be family relationship in the world of resurrection?

The Kingdom of God (10)

The Kingdom of God (10)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’” (1:15)

Meditation about the topic of “the kingdom of God” should be finished today. The kingdom of God is the foundation of Christian faith as well as its goal, so furthermore we should discuss. And more discussions should be added to the before-mentioned topic like the resurrection and the kingdom of God, and relationship between the kingdom of God and other religion, and also we should deal with the problem between peace, one of the characteristics of the kingdom of God, and violence in today’s world. There must be lots to talk about the kingdom of God and ethical problems, too. Would it be necessary for sex in the kingdom of God? What about relationship between the kingdom of God and the aliens? Judgment and the kingdom of God as well as salvation and the kingdom of God, all of these could be topics for the kingdom of God. But for more study of Mark’s Gospel, let us put them off, and as a final discussion, think about the kingdom of God and building up a welfare country.

If it might be possible to keep on living just like here, what kind of living could it be in the kingdom of God? Life in the kingdom of God should be the most desirable in a completed well-being condition. To use a common word, it is a state of eating well and living well. In the kingdom of God, no one is sick, lonely, and sad. That state could be described a perfect well-being condition. But think about it. Does it mean a perfect life if you could live in the perfect welfare? Nobody agrees to this idea. Already in this world we have experienced that it is not true. Welfare could improve our quality of life, but not change fundamentally. It is like using a washing machine, being replaced hand wash. Of course by using a washing machine, our quality of life could be changed, but it could not guarantee a perfect life. On the opposite, it must be a mystery of life that foundation of life could be collapsed, when we focus just on the welfare of life. Only when we could taste a mystery of life not to be solved by the problem of well-being condtion, we could taste just a little bit of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God oriented churches should focus only on mystery of life, that is through Jesus Christ they should pursue mystery of life.

But today’s churches are moving on the opposite way. Mega churches and medium size churches are doing competitively lots of social activities for well-being condition. Long time ago they had been competing to build up education center and cemetery for the church, but now for the welfare center. Of course in the early churches they used to have tradition to help widows and orphans, so we cannot regard welfare activities as only in a negative way. Furthermore, it is impossible for the government to help all of the handicapped people, alien workers, not fed children or old people, so that the church must do something more actively.

But also the church should have a theological insight for these activities. Without consideration why the church should do this kind of things, it could be a big problem if they do because of other churches’ social activities. Theologically speaking, the social activities for well-being state could not be fundamental purpose for the church, but instead they are symbolic movements for change into the horizon for the eschatological kingdom of God. The welfare should remain a symbol. If it comes into the center of the church, it could lose the foundation of the church.

The church is not pursuing salvation through welfare. For welfare has only relative value. The church should do their best to hold an absolute life. Absolute life means the kingdom of God. It means God’s reigning. The most precious job the church should carry out is to proclaim that the kingdom of God is coming to us. Everything except that is just appendix. Which shall we rely on for the future of the church?

Lord, how could we send a message about life in the kingdom of God in this world, just pursuing the well-being state first? Give us wisdom. Amen.

Kingdom of God (9)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’” (1:15)


Yesterday I said that it is the foundation of Christian faith to wait for the kingdom of God described as a new heaven and earth, because life experienced in this world is imperfect. Now we should ask questions what the characteristics for the heavenly kingdom could be in details. Jesus said the kingdom of God does not belong to what to eat or what to drink, so we could think that it must be mental values like justice, peace, joy, liberty. But if precisely speaking, those characteristics could be experienced already in this world. Even though it is imperfect, but we could experience justice and peace in the world, and we try hard to reach to achieve those.
What could it be in a different level from these experiences? In a word we could say it is “an everlasting life”. Everlasting life could not be attained, and even in a sense it is impossible for us to experience while living in this world. We are living in here by a limited way of living. Of course the word itself means a life without limit. But in here it is so hard to understand a life “without end”. Even if we could live for 1 billion years, it does not mean an everlasting life. Even 10 billion years does not mean either. And then does an eternal life mean an endless life?
Think about it. “Without end” means an endless repetition. Mostly we have three meals a day, excrete, meet people, and enjoy our hobbies. Of course we should make money for a living. Is it possible for us to be happy with this kind of everlasting life? Perhaps some people might think that our daily lives are not alike at all everyday. We are growing up, more mature, and having more possessions and social status, and also getting old too. But basically we could not avoid this kind of repetitive lives.
If a life in the kingdom of God means something like this, it must be very puzzling, I think. Like description in the Revelation, even though life without pain or sorrow could be so satisfactory, it could not be an appropriate characteristic for the kingdom of God. For even though it is very pleasing event, if it repeats everlastingly it could not be a blessing, but a disaster.
The kingdom of God does not mean a place where an everlasting life would be guaranteed in a way we experience in this world everlastingly. Everlasting life in the kingdom of God does mean that totally a different new way of life will begin. It might be a big misunderstanding if we regard it as a simple meaning of time. Basically if we could not get out of time we experience in this world, the everlasting life does not mean anything at all. In this sense, Christians are not the people simply waiting for an everlasting life, but for a changed life. To be more concrete, they are the people with hope that they could be changed by Jesus’ resurrection. For the everlasting life could be meaningless if not like caterpillars being changed into butterflies. For the word “everlasting” means change, not simple extended time.
And then we could experience an everlasting life of the kingdom of God in this world. It is the life being in accordance with Jesus’ resurrection. And then what is Jesus’ resurrection? How could we experience the accordance with Jesus’ resurrection?

Lord, please help us to understand everlasting life deeply and in a new way. Amen.

The Pentateuch

Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother.(12:19)

The Sadducees’ question began in earnest. They quoted the Mosaic Law, Deuteronomy 25:5 and following verses. It is a little difficult to follow it with contemporary’s view but interesting. We can meditate the detail content tomorrow and think a little today about the Mosaic Law, that is, the Pentateuch itself.

Normally Genesis, Exodus, Levites, Numbers and Deuteronomy are called as the Pentateuch or Torah. Historically these five books were accepted as the word of God first and foremost. For your reference, the Prophets (Neviim) has the next authority and Writings (Ketuvim) was accepted as the Bible much later. The Pentateuch is the most deceive Bible to proscribe the faith of Israel.

Moses was known as the author of the Pentateuch. However, nobody think Moses is the author of these books after complication of scientific research about the Bible. It is confirmed by that there are the record of Moses’ death and some incident and custom that happened much later of Moses’ times. However, who is the author of the Pentateuch is not much important. The reason is following.

First, the ancient document cannot find out historical background of the author because these documents have passed through a long time oral tradition. Second, like other ancient documents the Old Testament also has a strong contemporary interpretation rather than a practical report for the past history. Third, the Pentateuch doesn’t consider Moses’ authority but says Gods’ choice and his revelation. Fourth, despite above reasons the Pentateuch is enough to be a God’s revelation that has said through history.

Those who deny the resurrection

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. (12:18)

Yesterday I told you the fact that one of the Sadducees’’ religious character was to follow the orthodox law. Their assertion that there will be no resurrection also was rooted in such attitude. It signifies their assertion that soul and body will be vanished together is not wrong.

The Old Testament generally doesn’t say about the life after death. Mainly the scripts written in the late period of Israel’s history only hint resurrection idea. Isaiah 26:19 is one of the representatives of this idea. “But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.” We can summarize it in this way that the resurrection idea of the Jews blossomed from the later period of Israel’s history; speak to in detail, revelation literature. The Sadducees couldn’t recognize resurrection for they were devoted to the classical and orthodoxy law.

Even today there are many Sadducees who don’t accept resurrection. They don’t accept resurrection based on the knowledge of natural science. They regard a demonstrative fact as the truth. Even Christians also do not believe it though they say outwardly to believe resurrection. Or on the contrary there are some people who regard resurrection as mere incarnation level. As we can see it from the following story, the Sadducees argued with Jesus understating resurrection in this way. They thought marriage life would be extended even in the kingdom of heaven.

Knowing the point what resurrection is the more important point than the argument whether there is resurrection or not. If we think resurrection merely as the reborn of the dead, that is, thinking it as a simple extension of life then there will be no such resurrection as the insistence of Sadducees. The right recognition and hope is possible only to know the creation from nothing and the mystery of life by Jesus’ resurrection.