He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: you therefore do greatly err.
All Commentaries on Mark 12:27 Go To Mark 12
Theophylact of Ochrid
AD 1107
As if He had said, Yeunderstand not what sort of a resurrection the Scriptures announce; for yebelieve that there will be a restoration of our bodies, such as they are now, but it shall not be so. Thus then ye know not the Scriptures; neither again doye know the power of God; for ye consider it as a difficult thing, saying, How can the limbs, which have been scattered, be united together and joined to the soul? But this in respect to the Divine power is as nothing.
In another way also they are deceived, not understanding the Scriptures; for if they had understood them, they should also have understood how by the Scriptures the resurrection of the dead may be proved. Wherefore He adds, “And as touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?”.
But I say, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. "As if He had said, “The God of the living, "wherefore He adds, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living;” for Hedid not say, I have been, but “I am,” as if they had been present. But some one perhaps will say, that God spake this only of the soul of Abraham, not of his body; to which I answer, that Abraham implies both, that is, soul and body, so that He also is the God of the body, and the body lives with God, that is, in God's ordinance.
