He Is Not the God of the Dead but of the Living
Jesus was proving the resurrection — that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will
live again. He was not teaching that they are currently conscious. God is
their God because he will resurrect them.
Read the text carefully. Jesus says 'He is NOT the God of the dead but of the living' — present tense. He does not say 'He will be their God again at the resurrection.' His argument against the Sadducees requires that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are CURRENTLY alive in some sense — otherwise God IS currently the God of dead men, which is exactly what Jesus denies. adds: 'He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for to him all are alive' ( — 'for all live to him'). 'All live to him' — present tense. The patriarchs are alive to God right now.
Jesus' argument only works if the patriarchs are currently alive. If they are non-existent, God IS the God of the dead — the very thing Jesus denies.
Jesus was proving the resurrection, not an intermediate state.
Jesus was proving the resurrection BY establishing that the patriarchs are still alive. His logic: (1) God is Abraham's God, (2) God is God of the living, not the dead, (3) therefore Abraham is alive, (4) therefore resurrection is real. Step 3 is the bridge — Abraham must be currently alive for the argument to reach step 4. Skip step 3 and the argument collapses. Jesus proves the future resurrection from the present aliveness of the patriarchs.
They are alive in God's memory — he remembers them and will resurrect them.
Jesus doesn't say 'God remembers Abraham.' He says God IS Abraham's God — present tense, active relationship. And says 'all live to him' — not 'all are remembered by him.' Living and being remembered are fundamentally different things. A photo album preserves memories; it doesn't make the people in it alive.
Don't let this become a debate about the nature of resurrection. The point is narrower: Jesus says the patriarchs are currently alive, which rules out soul sleep.
Read the three accounts in Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 side by side until you can retell the Sadducees' question and Jesus' answer from memory. Note the phrase Luke records in 20:38, "all live to him", and check how the NWT renders it on jw.org. Write Jesus' argument out as four short steps — God is Abraham's God; he is the God of the living; so Abraham lives; so the resurrection is real — and practise them until you need no notes. Practise the doorstep question aloud, slowly. Prepare for "They are alive in God's memory": rehearse the difference between being remembered and being alive, and that Jesus spoke of a present, active relationship.