Grace is Not Limited by Law

The big theological debate of Jesus’ day was about the resurrection.  The Pharisees, along with Jesus, believed in it.  The Sadducees did not.  The answer has to do with the law and its limitations. 

The Sadducees looked to Torah and found nothing there about the resurrection.  Indeed, the law does not speak to the resurrection explicitly.  In fact, Deuteronomy, particularly surrounding the death of Moses, strongly suggests that there is no resurrection. 

The Pharisees believed differently.  Their argument is not directly from Scripture but on the implication of Scripture—from the kind of God Scripture describes, well, there must be a resurrection. 

Jesus makes something of an argument by implication himself in this week’s gospel reading (Lk. 20:27-38).  Based on the description in Genesis that God is the God of the patriarchs, Jesus concludes that God is only the God of the living and not of the dead and it really wouldn’t make much sense if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were just dead and not raised to new life.  Well, it is something of a logical sleight of hand since the plain sense of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is that God is the God of Abraham in his life and of Isaac in his life and of Jacob in his life, not necessarily then and forever. 

But I don’t think Jesus is pulling a logical trick here.  Jesus is asserting that grace cannot be limited by law.  On the merits of it, I think you have to give the Sadducees that purely on the basis of Scripture, meaning in this case the Torah, you certainly couldn’t require a belief in the resurrection if indeed you can derive one at all.  On the other hand, if grace is not restricted by the letter of the law, there is plenty of reason to hope.  That, I think, is Jesus’ point. 

At least that is the way it is for God, that God’s extravagant grace cannot be limited or controlled by law (which, by the way, is an expression of God’s grace, not its antithesis).  The question is whether we share enough of God’s generosity for it to be that way for us.

Peace,
+Stacy