The Final Word: Job 19: 23-27; Luke 20: 27-38
A friend used to tell me about her parents’ often epic arguments. She said they were never hateful, never demeaning or mean, but they could debate like lawyers paid by the hour on and on. It was almost as if both of them wanted to be the one to have the final word. She then giggled and told me how things would finish up. She said her dad always, ALWAYS had the final word in the argument. That word was, “Yes, dear.” That seems to be a common practice in most arguments and debates. Each party wants to be the one to get the final word.
We read today in Luke 20 how Jesus, once again, showed the religious leaders and teachers who challenged him that Jesus himself has the final word, even when they ask the trickiest questions they can think of. Now, for a bit of context, the Sadducees were a religious sect in Jesus day similar to the Pharisees.They often were the ones who maintained the temple and fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles in and around the temple. Very often they came from the upper ends of society.
The Sadducees could be very different form the Pharisees we most often hear about. Sadducees believed in more of a civil religion: no afterlife, no rewards or punishments after death, and they did not believe in spirits or angels or any non-human beings outside of God. This discussion comes in a series of arguments between the religious leaders of that day and Jesus. Over and over Jesus has criticized, humiliated, and spoken against them. They are looking for any way to challenge Jesus’s authority that they can.
Enter the Sadducees with a complex question. They set the stage: “If you follow the law of Moses, then if a man dies, his brother should marry the widow.” Then they go on through seven different brothers and ask Jesus whose husband she would be in heaven. The only point of this question is to trip Jesus up. It is not designed to teach, to help, or to encourage. But Jesus has the final word. He tells them, “Marriage is for people on earth,” and not those in the afterlife.
But Jesus goes further. He doesn’t stop at confounding them; he also demolishes their attempt to discredit him. He tells them that marriage is not a thing in Heaven, that they will never die (like the angels the Sadducees don’t believe in), and that they are children of God in the resurrection. But Jesus goes even further! He tells the tricky Sadducees that even though they don’t believe resurrection, Moses himself proved it to be true at the burning bush when he refers to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the God of the living and not of the dead, for they are all alive in God.
We see here that Jesus had the final word. Not only did he not fall for the trap of the Sadducees, he completely shut down any response they might have had to his reply. So why is this important to us, you might ask? Sometimes we still challenge God in the same way the religious leaders did. We say to God, “Well, God, if you will do X, then I will do Y.” And we say it, not as a promise, but as a challenge. Instead of humility, listening, and following, we instead test God every step of the way whether we can, whether we should.
I hear this problem most often in relationships. One of the people in it will set little tests and traps to see how the potential date or spouse will do. I had a friend who used to bait his potential girlfriends with certain questions to see how they answered. The problem with that is he did it to everyone else as well, whether he realized it or not. It made him annoying and a relationship or friendship too difficult to maintain. Every single encounter felt like some kind of trial instead of something warm, welcoming, and friendly.
The bigger problem is this: God is supposed to have the final word. It may be encouraging, powerful, and important in our lives when God meets or responds to our preset tests in order to believe, but that is not how faith is supposed to work. God does not follow our tests, fit into our checklist, or wait for us to be convinced. We are supposed to follow God because God has the final word. We follow because we have a relationship with God built on trust in God’s guidance and through Christ’s love dwelling in our lives.
We would do well to remember that there was one specific instance where someone attempted to test God and give Jesus a checklist of things to do to prove himself. It comes in Matthew 4. Jesus is asked to prove himself as the Son of God by turning stones into bread. Jesus is tested to prove himself by leaping off a high place. And Jesus is tested where his loyalties lie. His response to all of this is found in Matthew 4:7—“The scriptures…say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’” The one who tests Jesus who places checklists in front of him for Christ, the Holy One to have to prove himself is Satan. Do not fall for the scheme that puts proof before faith, tests before trust, and indifference before love.
For when we talk about love, we see that there, too, God has the final word. Job makes, in our Old Testament, one of the most powerful speeches testifying to God’s power that one can read: “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. After my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God. I am overwhelmed at the thought.” It is one of the most resolute and empowering things Job says during his time of suffering and struggle.
The words come just after his former friend Bildad insists and humiliates Job accusing him of sinfulness and wickedness due to the suffering state he was in. It is almost as if you can watch Job for yourself stop the questions, the doubts, and the uncertainty and proclaim God as redeemer with power and authority. Job starts out by saying, “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.” Job adds with fire and conviction, “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.”
Yes, indeed, even as Job says, our Redeemer lives and our Redeemer has the final word in our lives over sin, and death, and punishment. That is why we can have a relationship built on trust and love in God. It is easy to doubt, to test, to worry, and to beg for signs. But We must remember that God has the final word, and there is no reason to live without faith in our lives. So let us have our faith, our hope, and our trust in God be the final word in our Christian walk.