What is the meaning of Luke 20:30? Then Luke 20:30 simply states, “Then the second.” Even this brief phrase carries weight because it signals the continuation of a carefully ordered story that Jesus is letting the Sadducees tell. • The word “Then” keeps the spotlight on the sequence that began in Luke 20:29, where the first brother married and died childless. The Sadducees are stacking one event upon another to make their hypothetical problem feel airtight. • By allowing their storyline to unfold step by step, Jesus lets them expose how far human logic can go without divine revelation. A similar narrative buildup appears in Mark 12:20 and Matthew 22:25, reminding us that each Gospel consistently records the same escalating scenario. • “Then” also calls us back to the Old Testament law they are referencing. Deuteronomy 25:5–6 told brothers to marry a childless widow so the deceased brother’s name would survive. Genesis 38:8 and Ruth 4:10 give real-life examples of that obligation. The Sadducees, who deny any resurrection at all (Luke 20:27), use the law’s sequence to argue that resurrection would make marital relationships impossibly tangled. Jesus is letting them set up their own puzzle so He can later reveal the eternal perspective (Luke 20:34–36). the second With the first brother gone, “the second” steps forward: • His action is normal under levirate duty: he marries his brother’s widow, aiming to raise offspring. • Yet, like the first, he dies without children. Luke 20:31 adds that the third—and eventually all seven—share the same fate. This barrage of identical outcomes highlights the limits of earthly solutions. • Each repetition underlines the Sadducees’ point: if every brother is her husband on earth, whose will she be in the resurrection? Without believing Scripture’s promise of new creation (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2), they assume heaven must mirror earth’s institutions exactly. Jesus soon corrects them, explaining that resurrected life is not governed by current marital arrangements (Luke 20:35–36). “The second,” therefore, is not just a numerical detail; he represents the futile human attempt to resolve eternity with finite reasoning. summary Luke 20:30’s brief words—“Then the second”—serve an important purpose. They keep the Sadducees’ carefully staged scenario moving, exposing how earthly logic collapses when stretched toward eternal questions. Each brother, starting with the second, reinforces the inevitability of death and the insufficiency of human solutions. Jesus will soon unveil the truth: resurrection life is real, and it transforms all relationships, proving that God “is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38). |
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