This rebuke by Jesus to the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy was the harshest treatment that He ever gave to any group. He did this publicly before the multitude, the people the hypocrites most wanted to impress.

Jesus had faced many prior battles with the scribes and Pharisees. On this particular day, the encounter started with the chief priests and elders challenging Jesus’ authority. Jesus stunned them by replying with a question that challenged their authority. He then used three parables to illustrate that the leaders of the Jews had rejected the rule of God in their lives, despite their pious religious acts. They “perceived that he spake of them.”

The Pharisees countered by tempting Jesus with a question about paying taxes to the Roman government. Then the Sadducees tried to stop Jesus with a question about the resurrection, and finally, a lawyer tried to snare Him with a question about the greatest commandment. Jesus did so well in each test that “no man after that durst ask him any question.” Jesus then asked the leaders who were supposed to know it all, a question that none of them could answer. These Jews, who prided themselves on having superior knowledge, were totally humiliated by a man who had never been through their religious “seminary.” This resulted in them being afraid to ever try to trap Jesus again, by questioning Him.

These were the events of the day that led up to Jesus’ stinging public rebuke of these hypocrites. Jesus gave this rebuke knowing full well that they were planning to kill Him. Jesus was totally fearless in the face of their threats. All of these questions were intended to snare Jesus, but in His infinite superior wisdom, He evaded their traps. Ask God for His wisdom, He will also help you evade traps.

Jesus took an apparent contradiction in scripture and through combining these paradoxical statements (concerning the humanity and deity of Christ) brought forth the truth that Christ is God in human flesh. Both assertions (the fact that Jesus was David’s son and yet David’s Lord) were right at the same time.

It was correct that Christ was David’s son and it was also correct that Christ was David’s Lord. This meant that Christ also was God. However, Christ was not exclusively David’s son nor was He exclusively David’s Lord. These two truths had to be combined to arrive at the whole truth. No truth of God’s Word stands independent of the other truths in God’s Word.

A lack of balancing truth with truth is usually the cause of much contention among men when interpreting scriptures. Some argue that everything is by grace, while others emphatically state that without faith it is impossible to please God. The Bible teaches us that we need both grace and faith to be born again – not one without the other. The same is true of faith versus works, and many other truths in God’s Word. Error can simply be truth taken to an extreme at the expense of other truths.

One of the concerns of many Christians is, “How can I know I’m thinking and acting properly?” If we seek the Lord with a pure heart and singleness of purpose, then the Lord will show us anything we need to change. In other words, all we have to do is focus on the Lord with a pure heart, and He promises to show us any error. The only people who need to fear that they might be deceived are those who are not seeking the Lord with a pure and single-minded heart.

Jesus repeatedly made reference to His deity for which the Jews had sought to kill Him, and yet He quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4, that “The Lord our God is one Lord.” There are not two or three Gods and yet Jesus claimed to be God just like God the Father. This union is a great mystery that defies human understanding but can be accepted and believed.

Jesus in His pre-existent state was in the form of God. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). However, Jesus did not demand or cling to His rights as God. He laid aside His Divine rights and privileges in order to take the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of man. He further humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the Father, even to the point of death. This was the supreme sacrifice that identified Jesus totally with humanity and enabled God to redeem mankind. By dying a criminal’s death upon the cross, Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy of Deuteronomy 21:23, and bore our curse in His own body. This redeemed us from the curse, opened wide God’s blessing of justification through faith in Christ, and gave us the promise of His Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:13-14).

The Creator became the creation; the Lord became the servant; the Highest became the lowest. All of this was done because of God’s great love for us.

Jesus revealed that all of the Old Testament laws were designed to instruct us how to love God and love others. Therefore, the two commands that dealt directly with loving God and others (Lev. 19:18 and Dt. 6:5) were the most important.

The religious leaders had become so obsessed with keeping every minor detail of the law that they had lost sight of its ultimate purpose. They neither loved God nor their fellow man, yet they thought they were keeping the law.

The same thing is happening today. Some of the cruelest acts of men towards their fellow men have been done in the name of the Lord by people who thought they were defending God’s holy commandments. However, if we violate one of the two greatest commandments in an effort to enforce some other commandment, then we are misapplying God’s Word just as these religious Jews did.

The Old Testament law and the New Testament concept of grace compels men to the same end, that is to love God and their fellowmen. However, the motivations to this end are different. The Old Testament law motivated men to love God and their fellowman through fear of punishment if they failed to comply. The New Testament concept of grace freely gives men a God-kind of love that is unconditional and tells them to love others as they are loved.

It is possible to display actions of holiness, but not love God. It is impossible for God’s kind of love not to produce holiness. Holiness is a fruit and not a root of loving God.

It is very doubtful that the situation that the Sadducees were relating ever took place. It is more probable that they were stating a hypothetical case to complicate the understanding of the resurrection and thereby discredit it.

If you accept their basic supposition (marriage continues in heaven), then their reasoning was correct. It would not be possible to administer marriage in heaven with multiple mates as their story described. Their reasoning wasn’t flawed, but rather the “facts” that their reasoning was based on were not scriptural.

The scriptures speak of two becoming “one flesh” in marriage, and angels are not flesh. Paul said, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). Therefore, marriage is an earthly institution limited to flesh and blood mortals and will not exist in heaven. Marriage, as is death, is temporary for mortals while they are on earth. This is why a person whose mate has died, is free to remarry. Marriage pertains only to this life.

That is not to say that a couple who have loved each other deeply here on earth will love each other less in heaven. God forbid. They will love each other infinitely more, but it will be God’s “agape” love (not romantic love) and it will not be limited to just one person. We can be sure that heaven will surpass any expectations that we may have so that no one will be disappointed.

Today, many people use logical reasoning to try to discredit God’s Word. But Jesus said, “They err because they do not know the scriptures.” Therefore, their arguments have no merit; only reasoning based on scripture has any merit.

The word heaven comes from the Greek word meaning “the sky; heaven as the abode of God”; by implication, “happiness; power; an eternity.”

Paul mentioned being caught up into “the third heaven” in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Since “the third heaven” exists, there must also be a first and second heaven. The first is probably the atmospheric heaven, the second, the abode of supernatural angelic beings, and the third, the place where God dwells.

God now dwells in the hearts of His people, but He also sits on His throne in heaven. The Lord’s commitment to dwell in us and never leave us or forsake us, must be taken as an indication of His great love for us. Heaven has a real temple which is patterned after the Old Testament tabernacle. Saints who die go immediately into heaven and into the presence of God.

Paul had a vision of heaven that made him long to go there. Most people cling to this physical life for selfish reasons. Only when we lose our life (die to self and live for Christ and others) do we truly find out what life is all about. If we seriously thought about what the scriptures teach us about our life with Christ after this physical life, we would all think like Paul. The things prepared for us are so wonderful that we can’t totally comprehend them with our finite mind. We need to value our eternal life more and our temporal life less. This would solve many problems and remove a lot of grief.

The image on the denarius, the only small silver coin acceptable for imperial tax payments, was probably that of Tiberius Caesar (reigned A.D. 14-37). The inscription upon the coin read “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son of the Divine Augustus” with the reverse side reading “Chief Priest.” This inscription was a claim to divinity and as emperor, the right to be worshiped.

The Jews had tried many times to accuse Jesus on the basis of religious issues and had always failed. Now they approached Him about paying taxes in hopes that His answer might give them the opportunity to deliver Him to Pilate for prosecution.

These Pharisees and Herodians reasoned that any answer that Jesus gave would be wrong. If He approved of the Roman taxes, then He would lose popularity with the masses. If He spoke against the Roman taxes, then the Jews would hand Him over to the Roman government and Pilate would dispose of Him. It looked like they had Jesus trapped. Jesus, however, answered with such simple wisdom that these Pharisees and Herodians were caught in their own trap and made to look like fools.

Jesus declared, “Render (give back) to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mk. 12:17). People are made in God’s image, so we must render to God the things belonging to God (our lives) and to Caesar the things belonging to Caesar (his money and other benefits of his rule).

In this time, it was customary for the host to provide their guests with wedding garments to wear to the wedding. It was an insult of the highest degree to refuse to wear the clothing provided since the guests were brought in directly from the highways and streets. The wedding garment speaks of the righteousness of Christ that God so graciously provides for all who accept His invitation into the kingdom. It must be put on by both good and bad (Mt. 22:10).

Right standing before a holy God is not to be achieved in keeping the law but in humble trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ. No one, who is trusting in his own righteousness, can have the benefit of Christ’s righteousness. The righteousness that gives men relationship with God is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, and it comes freely through faith in Jesus Christ.

The way we obtain this righteousness is by putting faith in what Christ has done for us. When we place our faith in Christ, then the righteousness that Jesus obtained by His faith becomes ours.

Through faith in Jesus, we can receive the very righteousness of God as a gift. God’s righteousness is infinitely more in quality and quantity than man’s puny righteousness. No one can ever be justified in the sight of God based on his own righteousness which comes through acts of holiness. One must have God’s righteousness which only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Paul said in Philippians 3:9, “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” This is “the righteousness of God.”

This parable was given in response to the religious leaders rejecting Jesus’ authority. Through this parable, Jesus reveals God’s rejection of the Jews in response to their rejection of His Son. Jesus is showing that those who do the will of God are actually the ones invested with God’s authority.

These leaders had a form of godliness like this second son, but they were not doing the will of God. The publicans and harlots had no form of godliness, but when confronted with the preaching of John, many of them repented and began to do the will of God like the first son in the story.

These religious Jews, who sat in the seat of Moses, disqualified themselves from being God’s representatives here on earth, because of their hypocrisy and hard hearts. Even the publicans and harlots, who repented at John’s preaching, were ahead of them. There is no sin more frequent among religious people than that of self-righteousness; that is to honor the Lord with the mouth when the heart is far from Him.

These sinners were entering the kingdom of God ahead of the very religious Jews because they knew they were sinners and they put their faith in a Savior. One of the deadliest things about religious self-righteousness is the deception that we will be saved because of our good deeds. We cannot save ourselves regardless of how good we act. Who wants to be the best sinner that ever was sent to Hell?