Matthew 22:32

32. I am the God That is, the eternal God. Not a temporal nor a mortal God, but an eternal and an immortal. Of Abraham An eternal God, standing in the relation of God to Abraham. And if Abraham’s be an eternal God, Abraham must be henceforth eternal. For if one party to the relation be eternal, and the relation itself be eternal, the other party must be eternal.

This meaning would naturally if not necessarily arise from the mere words, but it was surely the true meaning to the inspired mind of Moses, as it is the true meaning of God himself in speaking these words to Moses. Hence our Lord, with divine emphasis, raised, for a few moments, even the gross minds of these Sadducees to the elevated standpoint of Moses himself. For Moses did not conceive that God was the God of Abraham, as he might be the God of a perishing animal, or a bubble. The being who is elevated enough to have a true immortal God to be his God, must himself be neither the creature of time nor annihilation. The God of the dead Of those now dead, or whoever will be dead. Our Lord here uses the word dead in the sense of these Sadducees with whom he is conversing, to signify extinct. God is not the God of the extinct or even of the extinguishable or transitory, but of the living. And Luke adds, “For they all live unto him:” they live by their relation to him who is their God.