The God of the living.
According to his wonderful custom, Jesus turns the conversation from a frivolous, unworthy course to a subject of loftiest import. The unseemly Sadducean jest (Matthew 22:23-28) is rebuked, and a great thought is suggested in its stead. Our Lord utterly repudiates the notion that the resurrection will be a return to such a life as we now see on earth. But that there is a future life he distinctly teaches, and here he gives us a reason for expecting it. Let us examine this.
I. THE NAME OF GOD IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PATRIARCHS. Thus we have a familiar Divine title, for God is known by his revelation to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. We worship the same God whom our fathers worshipped. All that they discovered of God remains to us as an inherited possession of knowledge. Thus we have not to feel after an unknown God if haply we may find him. History has revealed God. Not the patriarchs alone, but our own Christian ancestors have handed down to us an experience of God. They knew and loved him, and he is presented to us for love and faith as the God of our fathers. Still, it may be said, while this helps us in relation to God, it does not reveal anything concerning the present existence of the blessed dead. We think of God as he was in relation to those departed men; thus we come to a certain knowledge of God; but this rests entirely in the past. What does it tell us concerning the men whose histories are the mirrors in which it is reflected to us? We must proceed to a further inquiry.
II. GOD IS ESSENTIALLY IMMUTABLE. What he was to the patriarchs that he is to us now. This was partially confirmed—confirmed as far as the time would allow, in the days of the patriarchs. What Abraham learnt of God, Isaac found to be true, and the same was confirmed in the experience of Jacob. The three generations of the patriarchs knew one and the same God, and they all found him to be changeless.
III. THE ETERNITY OF GOD'S LOVE LEADS US TO RELIEVE IN THE CONTINUED LIFE OF HIS CHILDREN. If God is immutable, his love must be eternal. Loving once, he loves forever. It is not enough for him to transfer his affection to successive generations. It is of the nature of love to dwell without cessation on the objects beloved. But if God loves his children on earth, he will not cease to love them when they die; and if he loves them still, he will desire to see them, and will therefore desire their continued being. Thus the love of God is a great reason for believing that he will not suffer his children to perish.
IV. THE ETERNAL LIFE OF GOD IS AN ASSURANCE OF THE ETERNAL LIFE OF HIS CHILDREN. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is more than a name, and more than a passive Object of worship, for he is the Author and Sustainer of the lives of the patriarchs. He is a living God; his presence brings life; to be in him is to be in the very centre of the best life. Such a God does not content himself with moving among the tombs of the dead past. His own outflowing vitality touches and quickens all with whom he comes into contact. If he in any way associates himself with the men of a far-distant antiquity, he will be their Preserver. Their contact with the ever-living God gives them the life eternal.—W.F.A.