The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaveThe Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
Prior to this opening statement of the chapter, we are informed that the crowds had been sent away.
In Magadan, perhaps fresh crowds have already started to build, but the impression of the verse is that the Pharisees and Sadducees actively sought him after he had sent away the crowds.
In doing some research on Magadan, one reference infers thats its striking that the Pharisees and Sadducees came to this ‘nowhere place’, highlighting the very good historical and geographical knowledge of the land of Israel, yet Magadan is only mentioned here in Matthews gospel.
With their centres of power being in Jerusalem. The author also points out how both had been corrected in Ch 15, again highlighting the event of seeking Him out in Magadan, as striking.
Also of note is that the Sadducees are only mentioned by name 9 times in the gospels, and never in Johns gospel. Their first reference is with the Pharisees at John Baptists ministry and then again here in Ch 16, and again with the Pharisees.
Thus the first two references have them paired with the Pharisees and from then onwards they are distinct as apart from the Pharisees.
It is stated that the Sadducees have a lineage with Zadok the priest, and that they came to influence during the second temple era. It is said that they were focused on the temple and the performance of the ritual sacrifices according to the written law of Moses.
Surprisingly, they were not against ‘hellenisation’, and were considered the elite and wealthy of Jewish society. They only accepted the Torah, which given that their prominence was rooted to the temple and the prophetic fulfilment concerning it being built, is somewhat curious to say the least.
The Sadducees controlled the feasts days and sacrifices in and around the temple.
The Sadducees were reported to be from amongst the elite & the combination of having a controlling power over other people with the ability to embrace hellenism left them open to criticisms regarding corruption. The willingness to preserve the position of power, and influence during foreign rule, appears to have exposed their focus on the temporary arena of this age and utter lack concerning the spiritual and eternal realm. Again a huge irony as it was Daniel a heavenly minded man, to whom the fulfilment of the second temple was affirmed. Thus, the Sadducees were the blind leading the blind, the foundation of all their motives and adherence to the law were utterly and totally flawed! Beware of the Leven, as it is one that can not give you the bread of life, it can not raise you up and give you confidence of spending eternity with the Lord of Glory, Mercy and Peace.
Post the destruction of the temple in AD 70, their influence appears to have evaporated perhaps being traced only to Karaite Judaism. However, the Pharisee’s beliefs in the oral traditions etc have become the backbone of the Rabbinical Judaism that dominates modern Judaism.
Through the setting up of prayer houses/synagogues the Rabbi/teacher had already set up a sphere of influence within Israel that created some decentralisation from Jerusalem.
According to Josephus, the Sadducees believed that:
There is no fate. (Luke Ch22 v37!)
God does not commit evil.
Man has free will; “man has the free choice of good or evil”.
The soul is not immortal; there is no afterlife.
There are no rewards or penalties after death.
Therefore, it is a paradox that the Sadducees oversaw the temple side of things more, while the Pharisees accepted all scripture. In relation to the Jewish Diaspora and the meaning of the word ‘Pharisee’, we sense that Judaism did not get absorbed into the subsequent hellenism/Romanism etc entirely. The contention between the Sadducees and Pharisees also sheds some light on Mathew Ch22 v17 & v23 (Patriarchal). Both groups also had their partisan motives behind their questions, and this is the reason why Jesus is the centre and reconciliation, his motives are pure and are never due to partiality. It is also why a Christian ought not to have their spirituality too aligned with the right or left, the Cross of` Christ had outstretched arms to both. We also find here principles relevant to every age, men of impurity want to polarise even their Messiah! But he came to save men from the root and foundations of their sin – know wonder they are both listed were the axe needed to be applied.
Other than on these first two times that the Sadducees are paired with the Pharisees, scripture proceeds to talk of the destruction of the temple after the Sadducees, of the abomination of desolation and of the return of the son of man.
Personally, I believe prophesy is circular and thus relevant to every generation, and in particular in respect to end times and Jesus’s return. I am not of the opinion that 70 AD is an end to the context of these passages for today, and concerning a third temple…Perhaps a ‘Sad thing to see’, as it misses the narrative of the Messiah, who died and is risen.
Johns gospel focusses on the Pharisees, and I am not sufficiently knowledgable to know if the scribes mentioned are Sadducees. But John certainly, believed in the prophets and penned the final part of the written scripture, and those things yet to be.
Magadan, may well have been where Mary Magdalene was from, so it is of interest that Jesus commends the faith of the Caanaanite women, who correctly cried out for Mercy from the Son of David: the weightier issues of the law, prior to its mention!
Other than these two pairings with the Pharisees, the Sadducees are only refereed to in the gospels in connection to their question concerning a women whose husband dies and remarries her husbands brothers.
This is worth noting, as it places the role and function of women very centrally to their questions to Jesus. One issue of contention the Sadducees had with the Pharisees was over patriarchal descent:
“According to Jewish law, daughters inherit when there are no sons; otherwise, the sons inherit. The Pharisees posited that if a deceased son left only one daughter, then she shares the inheritance with the sons of her grandfather. The Sadducees suggested that it is impossible for the granddaughter to have a more favourable relationship to her grandfather than his own daughter does, and thus rejected this ruling.[13] This ruling was a testament to the Sadducaic emphasis on patriarchal descent”.
And another was over false witnesses:
The Pharisees posited that false witnesses should be executed if the verdict is pronounced on the basis of their testimony—even if not yet actually carried out. The Sadducees argued that false witnesses should be executed only if the death penalty has already been carried out on the falsely accused.[14]
Concerning the giving of the law and oral tradition, both are ascribed to the mount and God speaking with Moses. It is not by chance that both Moses and a Prophet, are there during the transfiguration. Resurrection from the dead and testimony to a true witness that Jesus cares for the widow – her mite praised.
Paul was a Pharisee, ‘Set Apart’, but having his eyes opened to the paradox of Him who died having been the most true witness ever, without any evidence at all against him – saw that he is the lamb of sacrifice who takes away the sins of the world (Once!! And thus the Sadducees consigned to history). The veil being torn in two.
Paul took the message of the gospel outwards to the hellenic world, to the synagogues of those who had been called to be ‘set apart’ yet ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation: No Jew/Arab, Male or Female – but one through Jesus Christ Gods only begotten Son.
The ark was never in the second temple, only Jesus wrote upon the ground within its grounds. And, when the stone was rolled away, and the seraphim (Angels that Sadducees could not see) appeared to look into those things which they desire to see: Jesus encountering his bride.
Rabboni! Oral tradition becoming the text of the written scripture through a true testimony to Him who has been raised from the dead.
Magadan, is in the land of Naphtali, and is therefore ’within’ the last piece of the assigned territory of the promised land. It is north of the western side, and is associated with Spring and Summer, post ‘Promised Land’.
The last shall be first and the first last, when she was cast at his feet within the temple made with hands, none but he knew that in the garden she would be the first to see that he had always been the true witness to the weightier matters of the law and covenant of God.
God had clothed them in the Garden, and love covers a multitude of sins, the sure mercies of David, his soul not left in shoal. A tabernacle more sure and more secure than those before, the eternal City that John saw descending out from God.
The Sadducees and Pharisees had arguments about water purification, what was pure and unpure. And it should be noted that both came to see Johns ministry.
Joshua Ch3, has the 12 tribes to cross the Jordan, the ark having to go first. And that the second temple did not have an ark of testimony is testimony to God having already spoken concerning the Immanuel.
A sign from heaven they sought.
Jesus referred to Johan being the only sign needed for an evil and adulterous generation. That Gods heart is to be merciful, the word that speaks from dwelling place of God.
The people of Ninevah repented and so did the women cast at his feet, no doubts that some who partook in the brutal destruction of the second temple, were touched by the message of forgiveness of sins through living epistles of this covenant of grace, as a Pharisee swam to the shore line, holding onto a piece of the cross of Jesus Christ: Unless a man takes up his cross he cannot follow me and my message. Living epistles known and read of men. The air of gratitude enabling him to swim.
Beware of the teaching of the Sadducees and Pharisees! Adding to mercy and forgiveness, that which Ninevah received from heaven above.
The sign is forgiveness and no bitterness. The sign is a doctrine that has be liberated from religion.
Jesus asks his disciples ‘who do you say that I am’?
Simon Bar-Jonah replies “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”.
Jesus had asked ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is’?
In this dialogue and opening of understanding concerning the identity of the messiah, Jesus manifests himself as fully man and fully God.
The messiah, he who had mercy upon Ninevah! The messiah who lifted up himself on behalf of the women cast at his feet, and for every man who left head turned low if they had but stayed to catch the words of life: I am the light of the World.
The messiah, to whom three times Peter who deny that he knew.
New birth is not a flesh and blood thing, but a Father and Son song. And not restricted to gender. My Father & Your Father, My God & Your God.
Peter was in many ways the last to deny him, but the first to herald him boldly in the marketplace.
Upon this rock, the first place that the word was proclaimed, the sign from Heaven: ‘God shall provide himself a sacrifice’.
Jerusalem is not so far from Jericho, and both are within range of the place John baptised, and where Joshua crossed the Jordan. Zacheaus desired, like the angels, to see Jesus and how he encountered with people: I must abide in your home, the Promised Land of Immanuel.
The waters cut at Adam, but before that, higher ground of transformation, through the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The Father spoke, before ever a man was born! Light transformed the darkness, Magadan (Shady place), before the cool of the day walked with men. And upon the highest ground in the land the Father also spake from heaven:
This is my beloved Son hear Him. Oral tradition? Written on Stone? No a sign from heaven, the very breath of the Father.
Rahab, understood the air breathed by the whale, and that parted the Red Sea, and when the trumpets blew, she was incorporated into Gods family. Sons and daughters coming out of the upper room.
The Cross is a flood gate of Gods mercy that the gates of hell shall not prevail against.
That which is forgiven on earth ‘Father forgive them’ is loosed in heaven: Zion the mother of us all.
Therefore, a man ought to love their neighbour as himself, the essence of walking in forgiveness of sins: the flesh and blood part of the new birth within the sons of men.
When we come to the alter, we are excluding no nation or family or individual from entering the embrace of eternity.
Ref: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Dalmanutha.html#.Wvf3iS-ZNmA:
The evangelist Matthew mentions Magadan/Magdala as the destination of Jesus as He travels from where He had fed the 4,000 with seven loaves of bread and some fish (Matthew 15:39). Magdala is a known city on the shores of Galilee; the same as Migdal-El mentioned in the Old Testament. In New Testament times it was formally known as Magdala-nunayya, meaning Magdala of the Fish, like the related name Nun, which was the name of the father of Joshua, who in turn was the namesake of Jesus. But the name Magadan is mentioned by no other writer in antiquity.
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The Mount of Transfiguration Matthew Ch17, the ascent to this mount starts from the axe being laid to the root of the partisanship of both the Sadducees and Pharisees in Ch16 v1. Upon this mount is Moses (Sadducees- and a resurrected one too) & Elijah (One of the Prophets to whom the Pharisees pledged adherence) – and that the true witness to Gods Leaven is a restoration of the organic garden of life: the true building, the axe laid to the root that can not see the grace that Noah saw in Gods eyes, ‘if you believe in the leaven of Grace you will be able to set other people free from the chains of captivity to foreign powers, the darkness that man subjected himself to when he disobeyed the King and Prince of Light, liberty and love’. Faith, as a mustard seed, which knowing within itself that it is founded upon the principle of death and resurrection is able to rise and become a great tree, rooted upon the reality of Gods Word.
Man was made first in the garden, and to man was given the commandment (the first oral tradition breathed by God) not to eat of the tree of independence. The women is first to speak of the fruits of repentance, of Johns Baptism, of the seed to crush the serpent of darknesses head! Eve, knew that God had given her another offspring, that the Spring is always sourced in the God of the resurrection from the dead – that the blood of the lamb, speaks better things concerning eternity – a realm where their will be no more sin, darkness, disease or death.
Eve knew that Abel had offered the lamb, and that it had been received. She knew the garments with which she had been clothed. God has appointed me another seed, first to speak of life and the death of her son – at the hand of a murderer and false witness (am I my brothers keeper – Yes, you are not to be partisan and cause division founded upon the wrong motives).
The first man received the commandment, the word of the Lord. But in the resurrection they neither marry or are given in marriage as all both male and female are married to the lamb – touch me not as I am not yet ascended to my Father. It is a Women who first brings the words of life from the empty tomb of death.
The first shall be last and the last first.
The Church of Jesus Christ to live in the power of the God, must heed the words of a Pharisee who had his eyes opened: 1 Corinthians Ch12 v22. The politics of heaven.
The apostle John, has no account of the Sadducees. But he is the apostle who documented the women brought to him in the temple, as he taught, and he is the apostle who attended the garden tomb with Peter and Mary. He is also the apostle who is given the final text of scripture, the last oral tradition to be written down for all future generations. In which he saw the true temple of God, made up of people, and founded upon the true lamb of God. John’s written ministry starts with the Logos and then John the Baptist and it ends with the Lamb and the Spirit and the Bride. John revealed that the dwelling place of God is with men (male and female), and that the temple and city to come next are Spiritual and one tainted by the corruption of the priesthood.
John doesn’t mention the Sadducees because it was given to him to reveal the true leaven. That which does not return to God void, ‘Let there be light’.
eternalrays 