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The Spirit of the Sadducees

By Steve Klein

I went out for football as a High School freshman. Two-a-day practices in the hot late summer were not enjoyable. The oxygen thin Colorado air made them even less so. At first the coaches showed me constant attention. This too was less than enjoyable.  A player who had the attention of a coach was usually being yelled at, chewed out or otherwise corrected. But one day the yelling stopped. At first I thought that was a good sign. But when the season started and I was riding the bench, I realized it meant that the coaches had concluded that I was a lost cause (at least in football).

During His public life on earth, Jesus paid a lot of attention to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a sect of the Jews who taught the truth about many things, but the truth they possessed was swallowed up by their traditionalism and hypocrisy (Matthew 23). It seems the Pharisees were constantly being chewed out or otherwise corrected by the Lord.

The other leading sect of the Jews was the Sadducees. The high priest and the leaders of the temple in apostolic times were Sadducees (cf. Acts 5:17; 4:1). Despite their prominence in first century Judea, the Sadducees are scarcely mentioned in the New Testament. Scholars have suggested various explanations for this. Perhaps the frequent references to the "chief priests" are meant to make us think mainly of the Sadducees. Or perhaps the Sadducees themselves were not interested in confronting Jesus, especially early in His ministry, because they did not consider Him to be a threat to their political power. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Gospels just do not give us a record of Jesus paying much attention to the Sadducees.

But notice what Jesus said to the Sadducees when He was paying them attention. The major confrontation between them and our Lord occurred over the question of the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-32; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38). On this occasion, the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, asked Jesus a trying question. They wanted to know about the case of a woman who had married and been widowed seven times. They asked, “In the resurrection, whose wife shall she be?" "Jesus answered and said to them, 'You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God'" (Matthew 22:28a, 29). Here were men, posing as leaders of God's people, who did not know the scriptures nor have any real appreciation for the power of the Almighty! Frankly, it seems that Jesus did not have much time for men with such a spirit.

While the hypocrisy and traditionalism of the Pharisees is ever a threat to those who would be disciples of Christ, the spirit of the Sadducees is at least as great a problem in our generation. The continual efforts among us to "fight the Pharisees" have had the backlash effect of encouraging this Sadducee spirit. It is the spirit which says, "I do not know and do not care what the Bible says, I just believe ________." (Fill in the blank with any popular unscriptural belief). As Jesus instructed, let us "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees AND OF THE SADDUCEES" (Matthew 16:6).