‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
Matthew 22:32
My spiritual director gave me this passage as a beginning, centering exercise in our last session. I was to spend several minutes meditating on it. The hope is that the Holy Spirit might use the passage to focus my mind for the session. I want to reflect on what this exercise brought up for me, but also on the realization that my thoughts were different than the meaning of this verse in its context.
The context for this verse is Jesus talking with the Sadducees who we are told in Mt 22:23 “say that there is no resurrection.” They ask Jesus the question about the woman who marries seven brothers, presumably to assert that the idea of a resurrection is false. Jesus answers that there is no marriage in heaven and then adds, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not heard what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” The meaning is pretty straight forward. Jesus is telling the Sadducees that there is a resurrection and that is revealed by God identifying Himself with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who live again in the resurrection.
How did that verse speak to me in the few minutes of preparing for my spiritual direction session? I focused on “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living”. My thought was that it is easier for me to believe that God is a God of the dead, if I think about the dead as people who have passed from this life into eternity. They are the ones who are face to face with God and are experiencing His glory. I do believe in a resurrection and look forward to being with God in and for eternity. But in the meantime, we who are still among the living struggle to connect with God and His reality. So the message of my meditation was that God is the God of the living and wants to be known and experienced in this life. He is not just waiting for us in Heaven and that is where we are able to truly know Him.
This is an appropriate message to prepare for spiritual direction because spiritual direction is all about pursuing a connection with God in your life. It acknowledges that this requires purposeful effort, but it trusts that the effort will yield a deeper experience of knowing God, “Seek and you will find”. But in this appropriate message, this verse of Scripture is speaking differently than it did when Jesus said it. He said it to establish the truth of the resurrection. I understood it as emphasizing that relationship with God is available on this side of eternity.
Is it a problem if a meaning that is from Biblical meditation is different than a meaning that is from Inductive Bible study? Does the Holy Spirit speak through both of these “voices” of Scripture reading? I am going to explore those questions next time.
I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.