Is this not the reason you are mistaken...?

Mark 12:18-34 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

¹⁸ Some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying, ¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother. ²⁰ There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. ²¹ The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; ²² and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. ²³ In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her.” ²⁴ Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? ²⁵ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

²⁸ One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; ³⁰ and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³² The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; ³³ and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.

In today’s text we see a group of Sadducees trying to discredit or confuse the truth of God’s word and the spiritual realities of heaven. They create a hypothetical situation which they think supports their beliefs. Jesus answer to them is: “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”    Today many people are mistaken about God and the realities of the heavenly kingdom because they do not understand or refuse to believe the Scriptures or the power of God. God is all powerful. He has complete authority and power over everything in this physical, earthly realm. We are, like the Sadducees, mistaken though if we try to understand, explain or represent God and His omnipotence in terms of merely natural, physical things. God’s power is released in heaven and on earth through the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth:   the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:2) When God spoke and created light, when He separated the waters and the dry land, when He created every living and breathing creature, including man, He did through the power of the Holy Spirit. Science cannot understand creation because it deals in the physical realm. Spiritual things cannot be understood or explained in strictly physical terms.

Jesus says: "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."     In order to truly know, understand and even to worship God we need to do it in the Spirit. Anything we do apart from the Holy Spirit, whether good works, acts of kindness, studying and declaring the word of God, it is all temporal, not eternal if it is done only through the flesh and our own human strength and abilities. We see again in today’s text Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment. The exchange goes like this:   “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; ³⁰ and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³² The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; ³³ and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Even love, our love for God and our love for others is spiritual not natural. We can revere, respect, even obey God in our own natural, physical ability, but to love Him with all our heart, soul and mind we must love Him in the Spirit, because God is Spirit. Without the Spirit we cannot understand the infinite depth of the love of God. It is beyond human comprehension. If we cannot receive God’s love or we cannot ourselves love God without the Holy Spirit, then surely we need the Holy Spirit to love others. Through the cross of Christ we are given the spiritual gift of eternal life, a life beyond the limits of this physical realm. 1 Corinthians 15: 50-57 talks about our eternal victory in Christ saying:      Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵ O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; ⁵⁷ but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.       What is physical can neither fully comprehend nor can it fully receive or inherit what is spiritual.

Through the cross and through the Spirit we are given the gift of eternal life. Jesus though says that He came to give us more than that future eternal spiritual life. Jesus says: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)       God gives us the free gift of salvation, eternal life through Jesus Christ. He also calls us to live now, in the natural, physical realm in the abundant life Christ offers. Our lives are meant to be lived in response to God’s love, our lives should be lived as worship to God.  “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."       All that we do, even the love we are to have and give to others is to be spiritual not natural.  Even the love that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13, the love that:  is patient,  is kind and is not jealous; the love does not brag and is not arrogant,  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The love that;  never fails,    That love is a spiritual love not a natural, human love. Galatians 5:22-25 encourages us to live in the Spirit.

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. ²⁴ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.  

Lord Jesus as you said to the one: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”  So You have also said that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Thank You for giving me the gift of the Spirit, the indwelling presence of Yourself and the Father, to guide me, to enable me to comprehend the love and the goodness of God. I choose in all that I do to yield to and walk in the Spirit, that even as I share the love of God with others it would be the incomparable, in comprehensible, limitless love of God, not merely my own love they would see. May others not be mistaken, may they see and understand the Scriptures and the power of God.          Amen.