what does Luke 20:27-38 mean???

Answer 1

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but there seem to be two messages there.

The first and most obvious is that marriage is for the earth, not heaven; that when we get to heaven, we will not marry, nor have need for marriage.

The second message is a bit more obscure; that we should look forward to the afterlife (remember, the men who asked the question did not believe in resurrection) and that we will be "alive" when we are in heaven with our Father. He was basically telling them that they were wrong in their beliefs.

Answer 2

God Is Not God of the Dead
Gospel Commentary for the 32rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, NOV. 9, 2007 (Zenit.org).- In reply to the question that the Sadducees had posed to trap him about the woman who had had seven husbands on earth, Jesus above all reaffirms the fact of the resurrection, correcting at the same time the Sadducees' materialistic caricature of it.

Eternal beatitude is not just an increase and prolongation of terrestrial joys, the maximization of the pleasures of the flesh and the table. The other life is truly another life, a life of a different quality. It is true that it is the fulfillment of all man's longings on earth, yet it is infinitely more, on a different level. "Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels."

At the end of the Gospel passage, Jesus explains the reason why there must be life after death. "That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out 'Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,' and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." Where in that is the proof that the dead rise? If God is defined as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and is a God of the living, not of the dead, then this means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive somewhere, even if they have been dead for centuries at the time that God talks to Moses.

Interpreting Jesus' answer to the Sadducees in an erroneous way, some have claimed that marriage has no follow-up in heaven. But with his reply Jesus rejects the caricature that the Sadducees present of heaven, a caricature that suggests that it is a simple continuation of the earthly relationships of the spouses. He does not deny that they might rediscover in God the bond that united them on earth.

Is it possible that a husband and wife, after a life that brought them into relation with God through the miracle of creation, will not in eternal life have anything more in common, as if all were forgotten, lost? Would this not be contrary to Jesus' word according to which that which God has united must not be divided? If God united them on earth, how could he divide them in heaven? Could an entire life spent together end in nothing without betraying the meaning of this present life, which is a preparation for the kingdom, the new heaven and the new earth?

It is Scripture itself, and not only the natural desire of the husband and wife, that supports this hope. Marriage, Scripture says, is "a great sacrament" because it symbolizes the union between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). Is it possible that it be eliminated in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there will be celebrated the eternal wedding feast of Christ and the Church of which the marriage of man and woman is an image?

According to this vision, matrimony does not entirely end with death but is transfigured, spiritualized -- it loses those limits that mark life on earth -- in the same way that the bonds between parents and children or between friends will not be forgotten. In the preface of the Mass for the dead, the liturgy says that with death "life is changed, not taken away"; the same must be said of marriage, which is an integral part of life.

But what about those who have had a negative experience of earthly marriage, an experience of misunderstanding and suffering? Should not this idea that the marital bond will not break at death be for them, rather than a consolation, a reason for fear? No, for in the passage from time to eternity the good remains and evil falls away. The love that united them, perhaps for only a brief time, remains; defects, misunderstandings, suffering that they inflicted on each other, will fall away. Many spouses will experience true love for each other only when they will be reunited "in God," and with this love there will be the joy and fullness of the union that they did not know on earth. This is also what happens to the love between Faust and Margaret in Goethe's story: "Only in heaven the unreachable -- that is, the total and pacific union between two creatures who love each other -- will become reality." In God all will be understood, all will be excused, all will be forgiven.

And what can be said about those who have been legitimately married to different people, widowers and widows who have remarried. (This was the case presented to Jesus of the seven brothers who successively had the same woman as their wife.) Even for them we must repeat the same thing: That which was truly love and self-surrender between each of the husbands or wives, being objectively a good coming from God, will not be dissolved. In heaven there will not be rivalry in love or jealousy. These things do not belong to true love but to the intrinsic limits of the creature.

[Translation by ZENIT]

* * *

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:15-3:5; Luke 20:27-38.

Answer 3

Jesus is being Questioned by those who do not believe in the Resurrection (like those who believe in going to heaven now a days) Using an old law to trick him up.
Jesus Gives an answer that out smarts them and talks about life on earth once raised from death.
Remember marriage is until death do us part ,once resurrected the marriage is no longer valid

Answer 4

In the days when Jesus walked this earth as a man there were various religious sects in Judea and one of them was called the Sadducees. Unlike other Jews they did not believe in life after death and they were attempting to discredit Jesus whose teaching went against their beliefs.

Jesus used the book of Exodus where God spoke to Moses from the burning bush to counter their argument pointing out that when He was talking to Moses He said that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who had died some centuries beforehand to demonstrate that the saints go to be with God when they die and live forever.

Luke 20:27 Then some of the Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, coming to Him and asked Him, 28 saying: "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and this man dies childless, that his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. And the first, having taken a wife, died childless. 30 And the second took her as wife, and this man died childless. 31 Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and they died. 32 Last of all the woman died also. 33 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife."

34 And Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who have been counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 Now even Moses revealed that the dead are raised, in the passage about the burning bush, when he called the Lord 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 38 "For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all are alive to Him."

If you are asking about what Jesus meant in regards to marriage, when we are resurrected we will have eternal "spiritual" bodies and there will no longer be what we have now on earth where when a people get married the two become "one flesh".

1 Corinthians 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Matthew 19:4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

Answer 5

It means the Book of Luke in the Bible versus 27 through 38


You arent really going to make us look it up are you? Cuz I probably wont.

Answer 6

In this physical world we are male and female, and our interaction is governed by this distinction so long as we are here. In spirit we are the same with no such distinction. There is much more to life after death than many even imagine. Our sights should be set upon spirit. Overcome the tendency to expect paradise to be as dull as our current state.

Answer 7

It means that in the Kingdom, saved "believers" will be spirit and not be male or female so there will not be a need for marriage.