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| Archibald Alexander (Otis, Bass, 1784-1861. (artist), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) |
The error of faing to get to know the Bible
The first area where the Sadducees were in error was in their failure to read their Bibles properly. They made at least two particular errors in regard to the Bible.
First, they only accepted the Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, as being God's Word. They rejected the prophets and the writings that form the rest of the Old Testament.
Then, even the parts of the Bible that they accepted, they did not read anywhere near carefully enough. Jesus highlights the phrase I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, a phrase that comes up many times and that the Sadducees would have known well. However, they had never really thought about it. As Jesus points out, if God is the God not only of Jacob but also of Isaac and Abraham who were dead before Jacob then he is the God of … the living … not the dead. They were badly mistaken!
So first of all, we must accept the whole of the Bible – not just the Books of Moses but the rest of the Old Testament too; not just the Old Testament but also the New. Not just the Gospels but the rest of the New Testament too.
The Bible is really a whole library of books and it is all important. Everywhere you look you will find something about Jesus in it and so, bit by bit, we need to get to know this library and understand what these books say about Jesus. It will not come overnight. It needs to be worked at.
And then do not make the mistake of failing to read it with great care.
To give examples. In the same chapter (Mark 12:36, 37) Jesus quotes Psalm 110 and says David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' He then says David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son? … He wants people to think about how Messiah can be David's son and his Lord.
In his first letter Peter, speaking to wives, notes that (1 Peter 3:6) Sarah … obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. He then says to wives You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. You would have to read Genesis fairly carefully to spot that Sarah called Abraham Lord and then to consider the implications.
In Hebrews 8:13 the writer refers to Jeremiah 31:31 where it speaks of God making a new covenant. He says By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
In Galatians 3:16 Paul says The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. So Paul is drawing attention to just one letter difference to make a point.
C H Spurgeon once said of John Bunyan “Prick him anywhere, his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God.”1 We all need to get the Bible into our heads so that it shapes our thinking and our words and actions too.
The error of failing to reckon with the power of God
The other thing Jesus says about the Sadducees is that they are in error not only because they did not know the Scriptures but also because they failed to reckon with the power of God.
Avoiding error is not simply a matter of getting a Bible and reading it. You see that, for example, with cults such as the so called Jehovah's Witnesses or Christadelphians. They love their Bible studies, as they call them, but have no idea of God's power. Similarly, there are academics with a very good working knowledge of the Bible but no idea of God's power in their lives.2
Yet it is something absolutely vital to know. For example, it is important to know God's power to convert a person. Many deny it but it is true that God has power to transform a person's life, to turn it around so that it can fairly be said they are born again; they are new people in Christ.
The most famous conversion is that of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. He is suddenly confronted by Jesus himself and powerfully converted. Similar things have gone on ever since. In recent years conversions have included those of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a former terrorist whose father co-founded Hamas in Palestine; Bilquis Sheikh, a Pakistani Muslim; Helen Shapiro the singer, brought up in London's east end in a Jewish family; Guillaume Bignon, who grew up as an atheist in France;3 American Becket Cook who had been a practising homosexual. He wrote
It wasn’t about simply changing my mind, but about changing my mind and heart. I can’t explain all the mechanics of this radical transformation. I just know that no one can be in the very presence of the living God and remain the same.4
God's power is not something only experienced in conversion. It goes on sanctifying the believer and making them more and more holy. Prayer, perhaps, is an obvious example of where God's power is known in a person's life. In many cases, people have prayed and quite remarkable answers have been known. People have been healed, situations have been transformed. Other example would be in the areas of conviction, joy in suffering and assurance. In all sorts of ways real Christians are those who daily experience God's power in their lives.
This is the thing to keep in mind – keep reading the Bible and never forget God's power. Pray for it in your life. Have a head full of the Bible and its great doctrines and a heart full of love to God as you trust in his power. That is the sort of Experiential Calvinism the Bible encourages.5
1 See C H Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 45, Luke 23:46, June 25, UK, 1882
2 The late Eta Linneman describes how, as a theologian, she was taught to study the Bible “as if there were no God”. She says “Although it can happen that when you study the Bible like that, you might experience something of him, in general, you have not the slightest chance of finding God this wa. … If you decide to study as if there were no God, you will not meet him.” https://gracevalley.org/teaching/eta-linnemann-testimony/ Accessed November 2025.
3 Mosab Hassan Yousef, R Brackin, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, USA, 2011; Bilquis Sheikh, R H Schneider, I Dared to Call Him Father: The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman's Encounter with God, USA, 2003; Helen Shapiro, Wendy Green, Walking back to happiness, an autobiography, UK, 1994; Guillaume Bignon, Confessions of a French Atheist: How God Hijacked My Quest to Disprove the Christian Faith, USA, 2022,
4 Becket Cook, A Change of Affection: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption, USA, 2019
5 Helpful books on Christian experience include Archibald Alexander's masterful Thoughts on Religious experience, Banner of Truth reprint 1968 and two little books by the late Erroll Hulse, The Believer's Experience: maintaining the balance been experience and truth, UK, 1977 and Crisis experiences, UK, 1984.
