Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with indignation. Acts 5:17
Some people are good at hiding their strong emotions, but we all have those things that make us angry. Of course, there are some things that make all right-thinking people angry, such as the abuse of children and the elderly, wilful neglect of animals, drunk and texting drivers, and loudmouthed boors. But sometimes we get angry when there is something that we believe very deeply and that belief is strongly challenged by somebody. We can’t understand how anybody can deny or reject something that is so obvious to us. We are like the Sadducees in today’s text, indignant that anyone would dare to challenge or reject our dearly held doctrine.
To their credit, the Sadducees did not accept all of the additional rules and regulations that the Pharisees heaped on top of Scripture. In fact, they would even exclude at times the writings of the Old Testament prophets and focus on the first five books, the Pentateuch. But the Sadducees did have one false doctrine that would have made them popular today, and that is their denial of any resurrection from the dead. Is it any wonder they were indignant at the teachings of the Christians, which were based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To them, this could not be true and the propagation of such teachings must be stopped. They launched every means at their disposal to stop this new doctrine from spreading. They obviously failed; the doctrine of the resurrection is still with us and the Sadducees are not. But their successors have done a powerful job of convincing those in our day not to pay attention to the truth of Scripture.
If we were to ask most people today what relevance the resurrection of Christ is to them, we would get some vague and wishy-washy answers. Most would say the resurrection is something their church believes and leave it at that, with a shrug. Some will outright deny the resurrection as a myth perpetuated by the early Christian teachers. But only the true Christians will laud the resurrection as a doctrine critical to man’s salvation. The rest will be like the Sadducees and seek to squelch this doctrine with apathy or denial. We know that this doctrine will someday be vindicated as the resurrected Christ will rule in righteousness. Until then, we must be as the early Christians and live to draw others around us to the truth that Christ rose again for our justification.
For us Christians, the truth of the resurrection is wildly exciting and glorious. Let us not allow those who deny it to rob us of that joy. -Jim MacIntosh