Luke 20:38

For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) For all live unto him.—St. Luke alone adds the words. They are of value as developing the meaning of those that precede them. All life, in the truest, highest sense of that term, depends upon our relation to God. We live to Him, and in Him. And so when He reveals Himself as the God of those who have passed from earth, He witnesses that that relation continues still. They are not dead, but are still living unto Him. We may, perhaps, connect the thought thus expressed with St. Paul’s words, “in Him we live, and move, and have our being,” in his speech at Athens. (See Note on Acts 17:28.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:27-38 It is common for those who design to undermine any truth of God, to load it with difficulties. But we wrong ourselves, and wrong the truth of Christ, when we form our notions of the world of spirits by this world of sense. There are more worlds than one; a present visible world, and a future unseen world; and let every one compare this world and that world, and give the preference in his thoughts and cares to that which deserves them. Believers shall obtain the resurrection from the dead, that is the blessed resurrection. What shall be the happy state of the inhabitants of that world, we cannot express or conceive,

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this explained in the Matthew 22:15-33 notes, and Mark 12:13-27 notes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

38. not … of the dead, … for all, &c.—To God, no human being is dead, or ever will be; but all sustain an abiding conscious relation to Him. But the "all" here meant "those who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world." These sustain a gracious covenant relation to God, which cannot be dissolved. In this sense our Lord affirms that for Moses to call the Lord the "God" of His patriarchal servants if at that moment they had no existence, would be unworthy of Him. He "would be ashamed to be called their God, if He had not prepared for them a city" (Heb 11:16). How precious are these glimpses of the resurrection state!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 20:27"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living,.... See Gill on Matthew 22:32.

for all live unto him. The Persic version, reads, "all these live unto him"; namely, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for though they are dead to men, they are not to God; their souls live with him, and their bodies will be raised by him: he reckons of them, as if they were now alive, for he quickens the dead, and calls things that are not, as though they were; and this is the case of all the saints that are dead, as well as of those patriarchs. The Ethiopic reads, "all live with him"; as the souls of all departed saints do; the Arabic version reads, all live in him; so all do now, Acts 17:28.

Geneva Study Bible

For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all {i} live unto him.

(i) That is, before him: a saying to take note of, for the godly do not die, though they die here on earth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 20:38. θεὸς is predicate = Jehovah is not God of dead men.—δὲ has the force of the argumentative nonne.—πάντες γὰρ αὐτῷ ζῶσιν. “for all live unto Him” (A.V[167], R.V[168]), is probably an editorial explanatory gloss to make the deep thought of Jesus clearer (not in parallels). The gloss itself needs explanation. Is “all” to be taken without qualification?—αὐτῷ may be variously rendered “by Him,” i.e., by His power: quoad Dei potentiam (Grotius), “in Him” (Ewald), “for Him,” i.e., for His honour (Schanz), or for “His thought or judgment” = He accounts them as living (Hahn). The sentiment in some measure echoes Romans 14:7-8.

[167] Authorised Version.

[168] Revised Version.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

38. he is not a God of the dead, but of the living] Rather, of dead beings, but of living beings. The Pharisees had endeavoured to draw proofs of immortality from the Law, i.e. from Numbers 15:31. In later times they borrowed this proof from Christ,—lighting their torches at the sun though they hated its beams. But they had, up to this time, offered no proof so deep and true as this. The argument is that God would never have called Himself “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” if these Patriarchs, after brief and sad lives, had become mere heaps of crumbling dust. Would He have given confidence by calling Himself the God of dust and ashes? So Josephus (?) says, 4Ma 16:24, “they who die for God’s sake, live unto God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Patriarchs.” Acts 17:28.

for all live unto him] Romans 14:8-9. Our Lord added, “Ye therefore do greatly err.” But how incomparably less severe is the condemnation of religious and intellectual error, than the burning rebuke against Pharisaic lovelessness !

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 20:38. Πάντες, all) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all of whom God is the God, but who are dead to men. To men they are dead; whereas to Him, αὐτῷ, viz. God, they live.—γὰρ, for) This is the very kind of conclusion in which the particle therefore (inferential) might have been expected. But instead of it, for is put down, as in Romans 3:28.[220] The for is used in this sense: Argumentation has been employed [proof has been adduced]: ‘for’ this was the point of the truth which needed to be demonstrated.—αὐτῷ, to Him) To God, not to mortals. Moreover, they so live to God, as to enjoy God. [1 Peter 4:6].—ζῶσιν) all live, viz. with the soul: and so they shall live with soul and body. The whole time of the soul being separated from the body is, as it were, a moment in relation to the union which was originally intended, and which is destined to last for ever: also in relation to God, to whom things future are not in the least remote, nay, are most present and immediate: Romans 4:17 [“God—calleth those things which be not as though they were”].

[220] This seems to me a misprint, though it is found both in the Quarto Edition of 1759, and the modern Ed. of Steudel. For in Romans 3:28, the inferential particle οὖν is employed, not γὰρ, which Bengel’s argument requires. Probably it should be Romans 2:28, οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ φανερῷ Ἰουδᾶιός ἐστιν, etc., “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly,” etc.; where οὖν, therefore, might have been expected.—E. and T.

Luke 20:38