What is the context?
The Sadducees approach Jesus that same day. Matthew identifies them as people who deny resurrection. They draw on the marriage provision in Deuteronomy 25:5–10, which preserved a dead brother's family line, and present a case in which seven brothers successively marry the same childless widow. Their question assumes those marriages must compete in the resurrection.
Jesus challenges their understanding of Scripture and God's power. Resurrected life does not repeat marriage as they know it: people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven. Being like angels here describes the comparison Jesus makes; He does not say that people become angels.
Resurrection is ἀνάστασις, anastasis (ah-NAH-stah-siss), a rising from the dead. Thayer's entry includes this passage among its uses. The issue is God's power to raise the dead, rather than a way to resolve the proposed marriages.
Jesus then turns to Exodus 3:6. God identifies Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, although their earthly lives had ended. Jesus grounds His answer in God's continuing relationship with them: He is God of the living. Luke 20:34–38 gives the related answer and explains that those raised to that life can no longer die.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Catholic and Protestant readings commonly understand Jesus to affirm resurrection while correcting the assumption that marriage continues as in this life. Wesley on 22:29–32 emphasizes God's power and the patriarchs' continuing life before Him; the US Catholic bishops' notes on 22:23–33 likewise explain a life transformed by God's power.
A different reading appears in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' student manual on Matthew 22:23–30. It distinguishes marriages performed after resurrection from marriages already joined by the church's sealing ceremony. It teaches that a marriage sealed by the required authority can endure beyond death, drawing on Doctrine and Covenants 132 as well as its reading of Jesus' answer.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
God's promises reach beyond the limits of a human lifetime. Genesis 17:7–8 joins His covenant with Abraham's descendants, their promised inheritance, and His commitment to be their God. Hebrews 11:8–19 describes Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob living by faith before receiving all they hoped for, looking toward God's prepared city. It also describes Abraham trusting God's power to raise the dead. These passages help place Jesus' answer within God's faithfulness to His people, without supplying a detailed timetable for the resurrection.
The New Testament places that hope firmly in Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:12–26 connects His resurrection with the future raising of those who belong to Him and the final defeat of death. The power the Sadducees failed to recognize is central to God's purpose through His Son.
What is our position?
Our existing study, Who is The Angel of the Lord?, identifies the One who appears and speaks from the burning bush in Exodus 3 as the Son before His human birth. It notes that Jesus quotes this very scene when answering the Sadducees. That is the study's conclusion about the Exodus passage; Jesus' immediate point here is God's relationship with the living and the reality of resurrection.