In Matthew:22:23The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,
See All... — 33, we read of a group of Jewish religious leaders, the Sadducees, whose theology informed their understanding of Scripture rather than allowing Scripture to shed real light on their faulty theology. John D. Barry comments, “This Jewish group apparently based its doctrine on the Pentateuch [the first five books of the Bible] alone”1
So, when appealing to what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy:25:5-10 [5] If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.
[6] And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
[7] And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
[8] Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
[9] Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.
[10] And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
See All..., they attempted to trip Jesus up, formulating a hypothetical case of a woman that had married seven brothers, one at a time, from the eldest to the youngest as each one died. The Sadducees, though a prominent religious sect of Judaism, were skeptics who didn’t believe in the bodily resurrection, along with denial of the immortality of the soul, afterlife, and therefore, no rewards or penalties after death. They sought to discredit Jesus, Who, of course, taught the resurrection, so they used this question to make belief in the resurrection seem ridiculous. So, they asked Jesus, “At the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” Jesus turned their ploy back on them in Matthew:22:28Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
See All... when He replied from the Pentateuch, Exodus:3:6Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
See All..., to do so:
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (Matthew:22:29-32 [29] Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
[30] For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
[31] But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
[32] I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
See All... KJV)
“Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Ignorance of the scriptures doesn’t seem to prevent people from appealing to them out of context, resulting in misusing them, which is very widespread today in many groups. Some do so intentionally (cults, for example), and others unknowingly. Many miss, as did the Sadducees, the importance of the main character and theme in the story, God and His power. Like the Sadducees, people often reject the true teachings in the Bible because of their natural bias against the supernatural. In their thinking, God cannot do things that they deem impossible or that conflict with a belief they want to hold. For example, progressive Christian deconstructor “Kissing Fish Book”2 this week posted:
Fundamentalist Christians believe in supernatural theism and progressive Christians often embrace panentheism (acknowledging that God is fully immanent within our creation as well as being fully transcendent from it).
Fundamentalist Christians tend to subscribe to the substitutionary or penal theory of the atonement while progressive Christians tend to embrace the moral example theory of the atonement.
Similar to the Sadducees of old, progressive Christians pick through the Scriptures and redefine, reinterpret, or outright reject what doesn’t fit their “normalcy bias.” To this, Jesus would say, as he did the progressive Christians’ forebears, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”
In 1923, J. Gresham Machen’s book Christianity and Liberalism was published. Liberals of Machen’s day were very much like the progressives of today. His criticism wasn’t that the Liberals of his era did not claim to be Christian or that they had overtly abandoned the Scriptures. They claimed to be Christian and used the skeptical methodology of the Sadducees to deny what seemed impossible in their human eyes or to explain away whatever was not to their liking. They held a cynical view of Scripture and created a “theology” that placed their unbelief and their feelings squarely on top of Scripture, vehemently denying what their biased minds could not and, therefore, did not believe.
Many of the things Machen said in 1923 can be applied with equal validity to Progressives today. Like the Liberals in Machen’s day, Progressives do use “traditional phraseology” and may quote Scripture, but context is missing, and new definitions are applied.
The result of imposing their personal feelings upon scripture is their embrace of a different Jesus and a different gospel. (2 Corinthians:11:4For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
See All...) They love the Jesus Who said to the woman accused of adultery in John 8, “Neither do I condemn you,” but their thinking excludes His next words to her, “go, and from now on sin no more.” Jesus says and does many compassionate things, and so should we, but Jesus also says things that are a bit harder to hear. Or maybe a LOT harder to hear. Jesus did not hold to a view that God had dropped His prohibitions on sexual immorality and never cheers those on who take pride in and celebrate sexual immorality. Jesus IS God, and as God, He both hates immorality and LOVES and wants to forgive and redeem those who have committed immoral acts.