To illustrate this, we would remark, that Jehovah could not be Creator till something were created by him. He could not be Father till he had an offspring. He could not be Lord till he possessed property;-- neither could he be God till there were a worshipper. _Jehovah_ is the only abstract name he could possess, were he solitary and without a universe. All the other names ascribed to him are relative. The name God as much pre-supposes the actual existence of a _worshipper_ as that of father does the actual existence of a _child_. Remove the _child_, and the once doating parent is no longer to him a father. God is not, therefore, the God of the dead, for as such, they could not worship him. He is, however, Lord of both the dead and the living claiming them as his property. Abraham, Issac and Jacob were therefore alive, and worshipping him when those words were spoken to Moses, for in no other sense could he have been their God any more than he was before they were born. The phrase "_for all live unto him_," may, in this instance, embrace only the three patriarchs, as no others are involved in the quotation. The Sadducees believed in the writings of Moses only, and it is not at all probable, that Jesus referred to any persons, not mentioned by Moses, as it would have been no proof to the Sadducees. His argument is, to prove that the three patriarchs, _are raised_ according to their own writings, not _shall be raised_. Now that the _dead are raised_ Moses showed at the bush when he called God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here we perceive that "_the dead_" refers to the three persons whom Moses showed were raised. He then adds--for he is not the God of the _dead_ but of the _living_, for all live unto him--that is, the three patriarchs _all_ live to him. If the phrase embrace any others, it must be the living in eternity, not the living in the flesh nor the dead as such. It would make Jesus contradict himself in the same breath. "He is not the God of the _dead_, but of the _living_; for _all_ live unto him." To whom does this "_all_" refer? To the "_living_"; not the "_dead_," for in that case he would be the God of the dead.