To work through the series in order to see the principles for Bible study as they have been introduced, start with the Introduction that covers the method in general, and then proceed through the lessons in sequence. The lessons do not cover every section of Matthew, but rather focus on the key sections and the different kinds of passages for learning the method.
This series of Bible studies is designed for people who want to learn how to study the Bible in a meaningful way, or for people who might need resources for teaching people how to study the Bible. This first series will focus on the study of narrative literature in the New Testament.
There are a lot of folks in the church who have never really studied the Bible in any depth, but who would like to learn how to do it. Frequently the church will simply tell people to read the Bible, or to begin a personal Bible study. But without some guidance this soon becomes confusing and overwhelming. There are a lot of different types of books in the Bible--so where should people start reading? People might start reading in Genesis, but they soon find themselves in passages that are difficult to comprehend (with strange cultural settings) or that seem totally unrelated to their own needs and interests and rather boring (like genealogies of names that are too difficult even to pronounce). Even if they begin reading in the Psalms, or Prophets, they all too often get lost and discouraged with it. It would certainly make things easier for them if they were guided in their reading.
A lot of churches arrange Bible studies for people either in Sunday School or in home groups, but these may or may not be useful in showing people how to study the Bible. A specialist may come in and give a talk; and even though it might be excellent, the listener may be left with the (false) impression that he or she could never find all that in the passage. Or, sometimes Bible studies simply become times of sharing in which the participants offer their opinions about the passage that was read. This is usually not helpful at all unless some of the participants have actually studied the passage.
If the Bible does indeed record God’s message to us as we claim, then it becomes rather important for us to learn how to read and use it. As with any important document, there are parts that we want to read first to know the essence of the communication; and then there are many other parts that are related to the main teachings that should also be studied. This is what this Basic Bible Study will do.
Let me say at the outset that studying the Bible is not that difficult to do, provided there is initial direction on how to proceed and what helps are available, and then guidance along the way until people feel more comfortable with the text. It is my hope that as people work from lesson to lesson they will become more confident in the process and need less and less guidance.
This series of lessons will focus on narrative literature in the New Testament. It will be followed by a few other series of studies in different kinds of books of the Bible, so that one can see how the basic procedure applies in each type of literature.
The lessons should be followed in their order because each study will build on what has been done before. The lessons can be done at the individual’s own pace, but should be given enough time to allow for careful analysis and reflection.
The material will begin with a very general survey of what Bible Study in narrative literature involves, then it will provide individual studies on a number of passages from the Gospel of Matthew. Each lesson will provide the basic interpretation of the passage being used, but in doing so it will walk the reader through the process. Each passage will require slightly different procedures because even in narrative literature there are different genres included. But gradually, lesson by lesson, the whole array of procedures will become clearer and clearer, and therefore easily adapted to other passages in the Bible.
I have chosen the Gospel of Matthew for this first series of lessons because it focuses our attention on the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is the proper place to begin studying the Bible as a Christian. Studies in other books of the Bible are certainly important, but understanding Christ is central. Besides a thorough study of the Gospel of Matthew will necessarily involve making connections with passages from other books of the Bible as well. A good Bible study begins in a passage but soon is connecting all kinds of related passages from other books of the Bible.
For this Basic Bible Study I have also selected the specific passages in the Book of Matthew that are to be studied, 42 of them. This does not mean that the passages I have skipped are not important. Rather, I wanted to cover the basic events in the Gospel’s narrative fairly quickly, and in the process include a variety of the types of passages that are in the book. This will greatly expedite the plan of this Bible study, but will still include all the major teachings by Jesus and about Jesus in the Bible. At the end of the study the participants should be familiar with the Basic Bible Study method, know what the Gospel of Matthew is all about, and have a thorough understanding of Christology (the name given for the study of Jesus Christ).
There are a few “tools” that will be most helpful in developing a Basic Bible Study. Not all of these resources are necessary at the outset, but as the studies progress you will gradually expand your study resources to make your work easier and more productive. I will not now list all the things that will be helpful, but will gradually introduce them as we proceed.
You definitely need a modern translation of the Bible. You can use older translations, but they will require some additional steps in the process to get at the clear meaning. There are a number of good translations available, and perhaps even owning a couple of different ones might be helpful. The wording will be very similar in most of them, but a slightly different translation can be helpful in understanding the text because it may make you look at the sentence differently. I will use the New International Version of the Bible for the lessons, but in the comments I may note how other translations differ. We can work with various translations of the text, but our quest will still be to try to understand exactly what was said in the original Greek version of the Gospel of Matthew and which English rendering best expresses the intent of the author.
Some folks may have a good study Bible to use, and this can be helpful as well. A study Bible is simply a copy of the Bible with some study notes and references added at the bottom of the page. Obviously, such notes are limited, but in basic things they may provide a good, quick explanation of difficulties or meanings.
Fairly soon you will want to get some kind of a modern Bible dictionary. There are a number of these available, ranging from one-volume dictionaries to multi-volume dictionaries. Again, it should be obvious that a one-volume dictionary will not have as much in it as a multi-volume dictionary. But a one-volume dictionary may be the simplest place to start. If it proves adequate for your studies for now, that is fine. If you soon “outgrow” it, then you may wish to look into a more comprehensive set.
The dictionary will give you brief discussions of persons, places, events, and concepts that are mentioned in the Bible. They may not give you word studies on words that are used, unless those are also major topics (like “faith”), but they will give you a lot of useful information as you work through passages. There will be times you will not need to look at the dictionary, but other times you will.
I will recommend more of these as the studies proceed. But some that people have found helpful are The New Bible Dictionary, or The Wycliffe Bible Dictionary. For a good multi-volume set, you may wish to get The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. These can be ordered from local Christian book stores, or directly from the publishers, or from Christian Book Distributers (CBD), or from Amazon.com.
It is also helpful to have a commentary to read along with the Bible study. There are so many commentaries available that one hardly knows where to begin. While you could buy a good commentary on Matthew alone to supplement the study, it would be far more useful at this beginning stage to have a commentary on the whole Bible. This will give you a basic discussion of the passage you are studying--which will get you thinking in the proper direction--but you will also have commentary on other portions of the Bible to which the study may take you. There is no hurry to buy on of these, but soon you will see that it could come in handy. I would recommend a two-volume set called The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, edited by Gaebelein, and published by Zondervan. It was first published in 12 volumes (which you can buy if you like), but has now been abridged and is available in two volumes. This is clearly easier to afford and less cumbersome to use. It is just good to have some helpful interpretations on each passage of the Bible available when you are looking up different sections.
So with a few helpful resources your work should be made a bit less baffling. We will proceed with the study, and as the needs arise I will mention things that are also available for further studies (customs and manners, historical settings, and the like). I will include an annotated bibliography at the end of this set of lessons.
This discussion will now survey the steps in the basic approach in a logical order. But as you will soon see, in any given passage the order of these different steps may vary considerably, and some of them may not even be necessary in some passages. You will find as you get used to the method that some of these steps will even be done simultaneously, and, after a bit of practice, even instinctively.
There are two general considerations that must be mentioned at the outset for Basic Bible Study, “context” and “usage.” Any interpretation of a passage or a verse in a passage must be made in context. One cannot simply take lines and phrases out of context, or ascribe totally new meanings to the words and phrases that were used, and call that “Bible Study.” Our quest is to determine what the text meant in its original context (interpretation), and then determine what it means to us today (application). And secondly, usage will be used to determine the meaning of words or expressions. These are just basic safeguards for interpretation. Any text has an original intended meaning, and that meaning must be understood within the currency of the way that words and expressions were used at the time of writing. This is why we are always trying to improve on our English translations with new revisions; we want to have the clearest, modern English translation that is the closest to the meanings of the original Greek and Hebrew texts. And you will learn how we can determine this as we study passage by passage.
This is the traditional approach to understanding the biblical text. Some modern approaches place very little emphasis on the original meaning and instead re-interpret the text from modern critical interests. Such approaches are too subjective; they allow the “readers” to make the text say whatever they think it should say. They usually criticize the traditional approach for taking the Bible too literally--that is often an effective argument, but is totally beside the point. The choice is between discovering what the Bible means, and what some modern critical scholars try to make it mean.
This beginning step may seem unnecessary to stress, but it is amazing how many people will embark on a Bible study without actually reading the text very carefully. You want to read it in a good, clear modern translation (along with your favorite if you like--in fact, it may be interesting to read it in the King James Version, then something like the New International Version, and then perhaps the New Living Translation). Read the passage several times, observing the details of the passage. The more familiar you are with the material, the easier the steps in the study will come.
Here you want to understand what the passage is “about.” This sounds simple enough, but in more complicated passages it may not be that easy. The “subject matter” might emerge instantly the first time you read it, or it may require some thought and some analysis of the material.
Matthew is written mostly in narrative form which includes a lot of didactic (teaching) material. One thing to do that can be very helpful is to separate (in your mind, if not on paper) the story line from the explanatory material. When you are reading a narrative, isolate the sentences or clauses that advance the story. This simply means that if the passage has a lot of quotations, or if it has a lot of descriptive or explanatory verses, for the moment put those aside and trace the action of the passage. It may be simply that Jesus went here, did this, said this, and then left. But knowing the story line will help you keep the focus on the event being discussed and on the major actors in the events.
The explanatory verses and the quotations are not to be ignored--in point of fact, they are the most important elements in the passage for they interpret the story line for you. But if as you read the text you can get used to seeing the skeletal story line to know the event or the subject, and then see how the explanatory verses and direct quotations explain the subject matter, you will be able to see the “point” of the whole passage rather easily.
This should not be a long, drawn out process. In time you will be able to see these things easily as you read the passage. It may sound elementary, but it is simply learning to read so that you can see how the speakers in the story and the story-teller himself interprets what is happening.
Most of the words used in the text will be clear enough to understand--if the English Bible you use has done a good job of trying to get the English equivalent. But frequently there will be words that call for further study, and here a good dictionary or word study book may become necessary. In simple narrative accounts this will not be a major concern. But in some of the sayings and teachings of Jesus, or in some of the Old Testament quotations, you may have to study words more carefully. And so on occasion you will want to know precisely what Jesus meant when he used words like “faith” or “righteousness” or “hypocrite.” In this study on Matthew I will provide the basic meanings of these kinds of words, and still make suggestions on how or where you could study them further.
Also important will be the understanding of figurative language. The Bible uses a lot of language that is poetic, but because it uses it so frequently we are able to learn what it means from its usage in Scripture. The more you see it in your studies, the more accustomed you will be to using it. And so along the way I will point these out, offer my interpretation for them, and recommend what to study further on such subjects. Here a little knowledge of the culture will become important (to understand sowing seed, winnowing at the threshing floor, putting wine into wineskins, and the like). These kinds of things we will study as they come up passage by passage rather than make a list of them at this point.
These books of the Bible were written at certain times in history and therefore reflect the history and the culture of those times. Consequently, you will often need to learn a bit about such things in order to clarify the full meaning of the passage. This does not mean that you cannot understand the point of the passage if you miss the cultural setting; but it does mean that the passage and its details may make more sense if you do know something of that world.
You will soon discover that the Gospel is filled with references to the Old Testament, because Jesus is the fulfillment of those Old Testament pictures and prophecies. Sometimes the references are direct (“this happened that might be fulfilled the word of the prophet . . . .”), and sometimes they are indirect (“a wicked and adulterous generation seeks a sign” as a reference to Hosea’s audience). But in each case we have to go back into the Old Testament and take a look at the passage referred to, learn what the prophet meant, and then determine how it applies to Jesus or to the times of Jesus. There are books on this procedure, but we will study some of the cases inductively before listing the resources that are available.
This step will be new to most people who study the Bible because it is not often done, or if it is done it is not done very well since most people are afraid to get into some of the Old Testament--they just do not know how to work with it. But Matthew will give us many opportunities to use it and see how the testaments fit together. This will certainly remind us of the unity and the progression of the Scripture.
The epistles in the New Testament take the events of the gospels and put them into doctrinal and practical forms. We formulate our doctrinal and practical teachings from these epistles. And so any study of the gospel narratives must find the connections with the teachings of the apostles. This is where a good topical resource like a Bible dictionary could come in handy, or a good study Bible. But even there all the connections are not easily found. The more familiar you become with the New Testament, the easier it will be to find these connections. Some are obvious just from attending church (an Easter service may read the account of the resurrection of Jesus as well as 1 Corinthians 15 which is Paul’s explanation of the significance of this event).
A good concordance will be useful as well, and so as the need arises I will introduce you to some concordances and how they are to be used. A concordance is not a dictionary. It will list each word in the Bible and give the passages in the Bible where the same word is also found. If you were looking at Jesus’ teaching on “righteousness,” you might look in a concordance to see where the epistles use this word. Upon checking those references you would find a couple of passages that deal with the subject in depth. But we will look at this step later.
This final step is a little more of a challenge than one might initially think, especially for passages that are essentially stories. And, as will be seen later, it will be even more involved when working with an Old Testament passage. This is why the correlation to the epistles is so important, for these apostolic teachings provide the clear statements of doctrine and practice for us today.
But in making the application of a passage we are trying to determine what the text is requiring us to believe (that is the easier part) and as a result to do (that is the more difficult part because the text may not actually say what to do in so many words). In many places Jesus will say what his disciples should do, and that is usually pretty straightforward (but even there we may need to correlate the application with passages in the epistles to make sure the application harmonizes with the rest of Scripture). But in other passages we have to draw the implications from the text and then harmonize these with other passages.
And of course we have to make the connection to our cultures in the modern world, and this may involve finding equivalent issues and procedures.
Once again it will be easier to do a number of these inductively rather than offer samples at this point. After a number of passages are studied we should be able to put together some guidelines for making appropriate applications from passages in the Bible.
The Book of Matthew begins with a genealogy tracing the line from Abraham (to whom the promises were made), through David (who became the first king in the line of the covenant promises), to Jesus Christ. This genealogy shows that the family of Joseph was in the line of the kings--that Jesus was the “son” of David. Accordingly, Matthew will present Jesus as the promised King--the Messiah. But we will begin our study with the first narrative paragraph.
Note of clarification: The word christos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word mashiah (pronounced mah-she-ack), which means “anointed one.” It is a description of a king. ”Christ,” then, is a title indicating that Jesus is the anointed king, the promised Messiah.
18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23”The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”-- which means, “God with us.”
24When Joseph awoke, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
It is helpful to read through the passage several times and make a number of observations about the text. Most of the observations will raise questions that you will try to answer (Bible study involves learning what kind of things to look for, what kind of questions to ask). But spend as much time as you can observing what the text is saying, how it says it, what it is not saying, what it is emphasizing, and the like.
For example, the passage says nothing about the difficulty of the situation for Mary and Joseph and their family, which must have been considerable. But that difficulty may be the reason that an angelic revelation was required. Whenever something like this occurs, something so removed from human experience, there is usually some revelation from God that will set their hearts at ease and encourage their faith response. And besides this, Mary herself had received an angelic visit (Luke 1:26-38) with the same message, and that revelation was confirmed for her by the response of her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45). When you gather together the accounts of the announcement of this supernatural birth, it is easier to understand the straightforward compliance of Joseph and Mary.
Now then, we need to look at how the narrative is constructed. The passage has a little introduction telling us that this is how the birth came about. If you read through the passage again and make a note (mental, if not literal) of the story line, you will see how our study will proceed. The main clauses tell that Mary was pledged to be married, she was found to be pregnant, and Joseph was planning to divorce her, albeit in a kind way. But a revelation from God explained her condition, and so he completed the marriage agreement, but did not have sex with her until after the birth of Jesus. This is a short passage, and so the story line is easy to identify.
Two things in the narrative give it all the meaning that it needs. The first is the quotation of what the angel said. Without that nothing in the story could be understood. And so a lot of attention will be focused on the revelation about the birth of Jesus. The second thing that is added to the story that is essential to the interpretation is the editorial explanation that Matthew makes in verses 22 and 23, telling us how this was all a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. No doubt Mary (and Joseph) understood this connection in due course, but perhaps not at the time of the event. The explanation is put in for the readers of the account that this supernatural birth is a fulfillment of a prophecy from God. This too will have to be studied.
So then, identifying the quotations and the comments in the narrative that explain the story line will direct us to what is most important in understanding the story. We still have to make sure we understand the story line, but these things will lead us to the full meaning of the event.
This account, as its heading says, is about the birth of Jesus the Christ. If we had to identify a principle actor in the narrative, it would have to be the Lord, moving behind the scenes to bring about the birth of Christ. Mary is found to be with child (the verb is passive, and so the story is not emphasizing anything she did). Joseph is about to act, but is prevented from doing so by the Lord through a dream. His actions are in response to the revelation from God. But it is God who is at work in the narrative: God the Holy Spirit brings about the conception in Mary, the angel from God reveals the mystery to Joseph and gives him the instructions, and all of this is a fulfillment of what God had prophesied hundreds of years earlier.
With the emphasis being on the work of God like this, the birth can only be seen as supernatural. This is the tone that Matthew wants to set at the outset of his gospel--there is nothing purely human about this Jesus. The birth was of God, explained by God, in fulfillment of a prophecy by God. God planned it, God carried it out, and God made sure the main participants understood it (as much as they were capable of understanding). The whole thing was supernatural.
Identifying the subject matter and the main “character” in the story helps us stay close to the point of the story, or at least to do justice to the tone of it.
It will be helpful to deal with the cultural aspect of marriage at this point since it comes up so quickly in the story line. Joseph and Mary were engaged to be married, betrothed as some versions translate it. In that culture the betrothal was tantamount to being married, except that they waited for a period of about a year before they actually consummated the marriage. This was to show that the couple remained pure until they were united. If there was a violation in that period--as this appeared at first to be--then it would take a divorce to end the engagement-marriage. For more on the subject of marriage and betrothal you can read relevant discussions in the Bible dictionaries. A good general work to look for (it may be temporarily out of print) is the work by Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (published in paper back in two volumes by McGraw-Hill; one volume on religious institutions and one on social institutions--like marriage).
Another subject you may wish to think about, if you have time, is the importance of dreams in the Bible as a means of divine revelation. Here too you can start with Bible dictionary discussions. Dreams given to Israel in the Bible usually have verbal revelation at the center; dreams that concern the nations often are symbolic and require an interpreter, usually a Hebrew (like Joseph or Daniel). The dreams at the birth of Jesus are clearly revelation. In other words, these dreams are not ordinary dreams capable of various interpretations. They bring a clear word from God. And the people knew about such things because the Old Testament had a good number of them in the revelation of God’s program.
There are not a lot of words in this passage that need defining. But at the heart of the revelation is the giving of the name “Jesus.” Here too you could get help from a good Bible dictionary. But to cut the process short I will summarize what you would find. This is a good Hebrew name very similar to the Old Testament name “Joshua.” The Hebrews loved to give names with meaning; and the meaning usually involved some word play on the name. The word play with this name is on the verb “to save.” That verb in Hebrew is yasha’. Names like Hosea, Isaiah, and Joshua, to name but a few, are all based on this verb. The name “Jesus,” like the name “Joshua,” would mean “the Lord saves,” or shortened would mean “he saves.” This is why the significance of the name is then explained, “For he shall save his people from their sins.”
This latter clarification was necessary because in the Old Testament the verb “to save” is most often used for physical deliverance--saved from enemies, from disease, from oppression, from death. It is also used in the sense of salvation from sin, but folks would probably think of other types of salvation first. In fact, the followers of Jesus often thought more in the sense of a national deliverance from Rome than in a spiritual salvation from sin. The word from God makes it clear from the outset that the salvation Jesus will bring will be a salvation from sin. Once sin is dealt with, then the results of the sin can be taken care of as well (and there will be deliverance from the problems that sin has caused).
Since we are considering the giving of the name, we might as well deal with the whole revelation through the angel at this point as well. The core of the revelation is that “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” This is completely supernatural, of course, and beyond any human comprehension. The point is simply made that Jesus was born of Mary and without a human father.
The genealogy in the chapter prepared us for this: verse 16 said, “and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” It does not list Jesus as a son of Joseph. He was born of Mary. We will come back to this when we discuss doctrinal meanings based on the text. But at this point we should simply recall how Jesus so often said things like “I am from above, you are from below,” or that “God sent His Son into the world.” There was a birth in Bethlehem to be sure. Jesus, the human, was born of Mary; the child was conceived supernaturally in her womb by the Holy Spirit. But the Son, the divine Son, was sent into the world from heaven by the Father. And the person of Jesus Christ has these two natures, the earthly human and the eternal divine, supernaturally united in Him.
The point of the supernatural birth, the revelation about it, and the giving of the name, follows a long tradition of such things in the Old Testament. It all underscored that this one would be a child of destiny, a Godsend as it were. But all of those provisions of children of destiny were mere shadows in comparison to this one, the coming of the Son of God into the world. The body of Jesus was specially prepared by God the Spirit for the Son who came into the world.
Now we need to study the other clarifying section of the passage, the note that this was a fulfillment of the prophecy by Isaiah. This will be a little more involved because most Christians are not that well-versed in Isaiah, and may find it a little complicated to sort through. Any time there is a mention of a prophecy that was fulfilled you have to go back and read it in the Old Testament within its context in order to understand the prophecy, and then see how it was fulfilled in the New Testament.
Here is where a good commentary on the Bible would save you some time; you could read the chapter in Isaiah and then the chapter’s commentary to give you an idea of what is going on. But I shall cut the process short here by summarizing what it going on in Isaiah 7 and how it points to this amazing birth. But you should read the chapter in Isaiah.
The setting. The setting for the chapter was an impending invasion about 734 B.C., just a few years before the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed (722). The threat was from an alliance being made between the king of Damascus (Rezin) and the king of Israel (Pekah) against the king of Judah in Jerusalem (Ahaz). To put it in understandable terms, it would be like modern Syria joining with the people of the West Bank (which is the heart of Samaria/Israel) against Jerusalem--except that in those days the people in Samaria/Israel were Israelites. The troubling alliance sought to remove the king in Jerusalem and replace him with a puppet king, the son of Tabeel.
The prophet was called to go and meet the king as he checked the water supply for the siege. The word from God was that there was no reason to fear these two northern kings--they were smoldering brands or stubs of wood. The invasion was not going to happen. The word of the Lord was that in a few years the whole northern territory would be destroyed and taken into captivity and Judah would survive.
But the message to the king demanded faith if he was to have a part in the future program of God: “If you do not believe, you will not be confirmed” (v. 9). In modern expression we would say that Isaiah told the king that God had a future planned for the kingdom of Judah, but he was not a part of it. Isaiah knew that this king was not going to trust the Lord.
In fact, the prophet offered a sign to the king. To guarantee the reliability of the word from the prophet, the king could have asked for any sign, no matter how strange or how supernatural. But this put him in a dilemma. You see, he was not a believer, not by any means (read 2 Chronicles 28). So he did not want to submit to the prophet’s advice or call for faith; but he did not want to appear as an unbeliever before the people. So he pretended piety and refused to ask for a sign, saying he did not want to test the Lord.
This angered the prophet (and the Lord) and so a sign was given to the House of David (in general, not to this king) anyway. The sign was that there would be a birth that would guarantee the future of the dynasty. War was coming; extinction was possible; but God was guaranteeing a future for the royal Davidic family by an unexpected birth: a virgin would conceive and have a son. The Davidic Covenant would remain in place--but Ahaz would have no share in the future.
The prophecy. Biblical scholars have different interpretations on how this prophecy worked, and you can spend a lot of time sorting them out if you like. Some argue that because this is such a special prophecy it has only one fulfillment, the birth of Jesus. But a careful reading of the passage indicates that some partial fulfillment or application of the words was expected in their lifetime, for things would be happening before the child reached a certain age. It seems more likely that there was a birth in the days of Isaiah, not an actual virgin birth, but an unexpected birth of a young prince to a woman in the royal family, a woman who was a virgin at the time. The unexpected birth would be seen as a Godsend because it was a sign that the royal family would continue. It would tell them that God was with them.
The Hebrew word translated “virgin” essentially means a young woman who is mature enough, or ripe enough, for marriage. But this context would require the connotation of “virgin” since this was a birth of a prince in the royal family, but more importantly it was a sign from God.
Some scholars have suggested it looks to the birth of the good king Hezekiah. Others suggest it is a prophecy of Isaiah’s own son recorded in similar terms in Isaiah 8. But the text does not say; it is simply the oracle given in anticipation of the birth.
We do know that the prophecy has its fullest meaning, and its divinely intended fulfillment therefore, in the birth of Jesus. The Davidic royal family was almost non-existent (Herod was not even a Jew); Rome was completely dominating the political scene. And in the middle of all this a sign was given, which was a fulfillment of the ancient sign of Isaiah: there would be an actual virgin birth in the lineage of David. Any partial fulfillment in Old Testament times would merely have been a foreshadowing of the true fulfillment in Jesus. We shall see this pattern of the way prophecy works again and again.
Please note: the doctrine of the virgin birth does not depend on the etymology of the Hebrew word for “virgin” or “young woman.” The doctrine is clearly taught in the Gospel accounts. But the word for “virgin” has its very specific nuance in reference to the birth of Jesus.
The context in Isaiah. Now, one further thing is necessary for understanding the announcement of this prophecy--its context. Isaiah 7--11 is called the Book of Immanuel. Let me walk you through it so you can see the significance of the section from which this prophecy comes. In chapter 7 the sign of an extraordinary birth is announced, ultimately a virgin birth, and the one born will be known as Immanuel, God with us. In other words, the birth would be evidence of God’s presence with his people. In the Old Testament, that presence could be felt in a number of ways. But in the New Testament, in the incarnation, Jesus was fully “God with us.” The sign was that the Davidic family would continue, and would have a future; but sharing in that future required faith.
Then in chapter 8 Isaiah the prophet lets people know that Immanuel, this king, will be either a stumbling stone or a foundation stone, depending on whether they believe in him and make him their sanctuary or not. If they do not, if they continue to go after spiritists and necromancers and the like, they will find no answer. Why should they seek the answer among the dead? They should seek the living God. (The angels in the garden tomb used this line: Why do you seek the living among the dead?).
Then in chapter 9 Isaiah identifies this wonder king, Immanuel, and gives him throne names: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. He will reign with peace and righteousness. Amazingly Isaiah says that a child will be born, a son will be given. The fulfillment in Christ shows how precise this distinction would be.
And then according to Isaiah 11, Isaiah says that this king will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring about universal changes in all creation.
So the announcement of the supernatural birth of Messiah is in a context filled with descriptions of this coming king. He is, to say the least, much more than a mortal king. He is supernatural in every sense of the word. And from that context the New Testament writers knew that this Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, was the fulfillment of the prophecy given some 700 years earlier. They may not have always understood it, but they soon came to realize that Jesus was indeed God with them, in the flesh (incarnation). When Matthew explains that the verse in Isaiah 7 finds its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus, he is also saying that everything in Isaiah 7--11 that describes the one born of the virgin applies also to Christ.
The better you come to know the New Testament the easier it will be for you to make the connections to related passages. At this point you can use dictionaries and concordances. Once you know how to describe what the passage is about--the incarnation, the supernatural birth of Jesus, the virgin birth--then you can look these up in Bible dictionaries and they will include references in the Bible in their discussions. Or, a commentary you might be using should have some cross references as well.
Gospels. It will be easy to look at the other Gospels to see what they say about the birth of Jesus. I have already mentioned the account in Luke 1. There the annunciation to Mary described Jesus as “the Son of the Most High” and “the Son of God.” And it declared that he would reign forever. Obviously the passage is not talking about just another king. This one is special. This one is divine.
But John offers some more clarification. He describes Jesus as the “Word,” the complete revelation of the Godhead. This Word, Jesus, is the creator of all things (1:3). And this Word became flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us (1:14). And John said that they beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten Son. His description of Jesus as the “only-begotten” is crucial (I think the NIV has made the translation very weak). The verb “beget” (unlike verbs such as create or make) can only mean that the one begotten shares the nature of the father. If Jesus shares the nature of God the Father, it means that Jesus is divine and therefore eternal. There never was a time that he did not exist. Therefore the word “begotten” must not be understood to mean that he had a beginning, but that his nature is divine. And John does not mean “divine in any watered down sense of “godlike”; rather, he means that in this aspect Jesus is truly unique. So he adds the word “mono-” to the front of the Greek word “begotten”-- “the only begotten Son.” There is only one in the human race that is truly divine. The historic creed of the church got it right when it wrote that Jesus was “begotten, not made.” Jesus is God manifested in human flesh.
There are two supernatural signs that speak of Jesus’ nature. The first is the supernatural birth that shows he was not born as we are. The other is the resurrection, that shows that he is not limited to this world’s experiences as we are. He is above it all. Both of these signs attest to the fact that He is the Son of God.
Epistles. There are many passages in the apostles’ writings that address the birth and what it signified. Two stand out above the rest. The first is Galatians 4:4, which says “In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” It was on time because God prophesied it; it was a birth through a woman, without a human father, and it was for the purpose of redemption. If Jesus had had a normal birth with a human father, he would have been totally human and a sinner like us. Redemption required the work of someone different, someone above it all, from on high, sinless and supernatural. Without this description of Christ our salvation would be without any foundation.
Philippians 2:6-11 should also be read. This tells how He did not cling to his lofty position and power in heaven, but laid aside his privilege of divinity and took on the form of a servant, born in human likeness. He humbled himself, even to the death of the cross. Therefore, God the Father has highly exalted him in glory, and someday everyone will exalt and praise him. Someday everyone will acknowledge that Jesus Christ was not simply a good man from Nazareth, not simply a teacher or a prophet, but God in mortal flesh.
The passage is clearly written to inform the readers, us, that Jesus Christ came into this world supernaturally. The child Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God in the womb of Mary. We do not know how that was done. But we do know from the rest of Scripture that this was only the human part formed in the womb--the divine Son was sent into the world.
The natural response to this is that it is incredible, incomprehensible, impossible, amazing. Of course, once one actually believes in God, nothing is impossible for God. But unbelief has trouble accepting something like this. So we are not surprised to see skeptics trying to explain it away. In fact, there is some evidence that even in the time of Jesus people considered his birth “troubled”: John 8:41 records the enemies of Jesus saying, “We are not born of fornication,” possibly hinting at some question about his birth. But Jesus’ response to them was that He was from above, and they were from below, from their father the devil.
So the first response we are to have to the passage is to consider what it is asking us to believe. The Old Testament prophecy, the angelic revelations, the account of the event, and the other witnesses and explanations of it, all declare that the birth of Jesus was completely supernatural, because He is not a mere mortal. While some might balk at this at first, as the chapters unfold in the Book of Matthew it will become clear that no one could do these things if merely mortal. So if at the outset this is hard to grasp, continue through the book and see how the works of Christ attest to His nature. After all, it took the disciples a long time to come to grips with this.
The natural corollary to this response is then to consider what we should do in response to the revelation of the passage. Other passages in Matthew will spell out the application--give to the poor, give thanks to God, pray, or a number of things like that. This one does not so specify. But the natural response would be one of adoration and worship. If this child born of Mary is indeed who Scripture says He is, then He deserves our devotion. And it begins with our faith response to Him as the Messiah sent from Heaven.
This has been the theme captured by so many of the writers of carols celebrating the birth of Jesus. Consider this most popular one:
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark street shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee to-night.
For Christ is born of Mary; and gathered all above
while mortals sleep the angels keep their watch of wondering love;
O morning stars! Together proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King and peace to men on earth.
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven;
No ear may hear His coming ; but in this world of sin
where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in--be born in us today!
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell--
Oh come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.
So Matthew sounds the note from the very beginning. God has visited this planet in order to redeem people from their sins. It all began with the extraordinary birth through a virgin, Mary, which had been foretold centuries earlier. Everything about this incarnation was to be supernatural, or it would not work. And so from the outset we are confronted with the divine nature of Jesus the Messiah, and with the purpose of his coming into the world.
As Isaiah said, this would all be a stumbling block to some, but a foundation stone to those who believe. Whether people believe this first sign or not, the point is clear as to what the Word of God is clearly saying about Jesus. Matthew will now build on this introduction through the chapters.
Now if you were organizing this little section for a Bible study, it can be outlined rather neatly. The first few verses would cover the situation, the unexpected pregnancy and Joseph’s response to it (vv. 18,19). Then, the next few verses explain the pregnancy (vv. 20-23): the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit and would be the Savior of the world, and this child would be Immanuel, the wonder king prophesied by Isaiah. The final section would then report the obedience of Joseph in marrying Mary and naming the child “Jesus.”
In addition to the main idea of the revelation about Jesus Christ, the passage also illustrates a practical principle for God’s people that would be applicable in many other situations. The works of God are always supernatural, and so the revelation about His works must be studied in order to discern what the divine plan is and how it should be embraced by faith. Those who believe in the Lord will receive His Word and obey it.
The very next passage in the gospel after the report of the birth of Jesus records the visit of the wise men to Bethlehem. The account is short and straightforward; but it does include a reference to an Old Testament prophecy which will be important in the interpretation. The story essentially tells of the homage of these “Magi” to the one who was born king of the Jews. But it is a story that is tightly connected to its context; it not only builds on the information revealed in the previous passage about the birth, but it also lays the foundation for the crisis to follow.
At the outset it will be helpful to explain the historical sequence of the narratives. This is because a lot of traditional teaching on the visit of the wise men puts the event a little later, when Jesus was a year or so old, probably because of Herod’s desire to kill the children two years old and under. But we know that Herod died in the spring of 4 B.C., and since the wise men come to Herod to find out where the king was to be born, the visit must have been shortly after the birth of Jesus. Herod probably set the age of two years old in order to be sure he killed the one who was to be king, thinking that the wise men had been traveling for some time. So the sequence would be: Jesus was born somewhere late 5 B.C. or early 4 B.C., the wise men showed up in early spring, and Herod the Great died shortly after have the children slaughtered. For chronological details like this, see Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company).
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5”In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6’But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel’.”
7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you have found him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
The story falls into several parts: the arrival of the Magi looking for the new-born King of the Jews (vv. 1,2), the answer from the prophet Micah on where the king was to be born (vv. 3-6), the attempt of Herod to have the Magi report to him (vv. 7,8), and the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem where they worshiped the child and presented their gifts (vv. 9-12).
If you are looking at the sentences in these sections, the structure is pretty simple. In the first section, in verses 1 and 2, the main sentence is “Magi came . . . and asked . . . . The first two clauses tell us this was after Jesus was born and during the time of Herod. The rest of the section is the direct quotation. As noted in the last lesson, this quotation is the most important interpretive part of the first section: “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” Their arrival in Jerusalem would have caused a stir; but the reason for their coming would have sent Herod and his court into a panic.
In the second section (vv. 3-6), the clauses that advance the story are these: [Herod] was disturbed and all Jerusalem, he asked (the priests and scribes) where the Messiah was to be born, they told him it was in Bethlehem because of the prophesy of Micah. Here the quotation from Scripture is the basis for their answer to the king, as well as Matthew’s confirmation in this section that Jesus was indeed this promised Shepherd of Israel.
The third section is simply the scheme of Herod (vv. 7 and 8). But note again it simply says that Herod called them [the Magi] to find out the time the star appeared, and then sent them to Bethlehem. But what is added to his action is the direct quotation that they should inform him where the child was. This, of course, God would prevent them from doing, for Herod’s intent was evil.
The final section (vv. 9-12) is simply a narrative report that draws the story to a close: they went on their way, the star went ahead of them, they were overjoyed, they saw the child and Mary, they bowed and worshiped, they presented their gifts, and then they went home by another route--because they had been warned in a dream. In this section the individual acts will have to be explained.
It is clear enough to see that the story traces the quest of these Magi to find the one who was born king of the Jews. They arrive in the palace, they receive directions, they are “coached” by the king, they visit Bethlehem, and they do homage to the child.
What this all means will depend on understanding who the Magi were, but an initial guess would lead you to the idea that they are important people from the east who are acknowledging that Jesus is the promised king. The narrative then underscores the truth that Matthew is presenting, that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and that this truth was a real threat to the reigning king because he was evil but a source of joy to the nations.
But there is more here than a visit to a child who would be king someday. These Magi worshiped him. That was the intent of their coming. And so the narrative also reminds us that this child Jesus was far more than a future king. Only if He is divine could He be worshiped.
And this makes us aware of the primary “mover” in the story, God. He is not specifically mentioned, but the presence is obvious. The “star” had guided the wise men to Bethlehem. The prophecy had recorded exactly where Messiah should be born, and the dream warned them to return home a different way. Without this divine intervention they would never have come, the scribes would not have known where to send them if they had arrived, and they would certainly have fallen into Herod’s trap without the warning. The supernatural element moving in the lives of the Magi is the true cause of their actions.
So who were these Magi? We should say at the outset that the tradition that these men were three kings, and that their names have been preserved for us, has no foundation in biblical history at all. Here again you could check out the facts in a good Bible dictionary, looking under “Magi” as they were called. You will probably find that these were a priestly caste of very wise men from Mesopotamia, somewhere in the east, perhaps Persia or Babylonia--we are not told. They were famous for their learning, and for their wisdom. They were very interested in astronomy/astrology; when they observed the movements of stars and planets they carefully recorded everything they saw. Anything out of the ordinary was taken by them to be some kind of an omen. Now they had seen a star that could not be identified.
How then did they know to come to Jerusalem? The straight answer is that we do not know, but can only speculate. These types of wise men were diligent to discover what signs and omens meant. And if they had recourse to the holy books of Israel, which they very well could have had in the east since Babylon remained a center of Jewish studies, they might have come across the prophecy of Balaam, an early prophet from the east who had predicted that a star would march forth in Israel (Num. 24:17). It may be that they saw the phenomenon, searched their collections of books, talked to various scribes of the different religions, and learned that Israel was the place. If they had inquired about it further, they might have discovered that this one who was to be born would be special, worthy of worship. Then, when they came to Israel, where would they have gone looking for a king but to the palace?
Of course it is also possible that the Lord simply revealed these things to them when they saw the star, and then confirmed the revelation when the star appeared over the house where Jesus was.
Now then, what about Herod? This is Herod the Great, who ruled from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. Any study of Herod will immediately show that the man was a ruthless and paranoid tyrant. He would easily kill his own sons, or one of his wives, or the high priest, if he thought any of these were in any way conspiring against him. And so the thought of a king being born was an immediate threat. Especially if it was the promised Messiah, the king of the Jews. Herod, you see, was not Jewish. He was Idumaean--an Edomite, a descendant of Esau and not Jacob. He had tried to ingratiate himself to the Jews by marrying into the Hasmonean family (the line of Jewish kings [the Maccabeans] that had reigned for a hundred years), and by building the temple in Jerusalem. But he could not be trusted; and he himself trusted no one. So if you learn a little more about this character you will appreciate more why he and his court were thrown into a panic. There could also be a little history behind the disturbance as well, for the wise men may have come from a land that was antagonistic to Rome, and so their visit raised a lot of questions.
A short word about the house may also be helpful, primarily because of traditional pictures and scenes of the wise men, the shepherds, and the animals all gathered around the manger. Most people realize that such a grouping just puts all these elements of Christmas together. But if you have time to trace through some of the material, there is some clarification. The Bible traditionally used the English word “inn” for the birth narrative--there was no room in the “inn,” so they had to go to the stable area. Bethlehem was a very small community; it would not likely have had an “inn,” at least not in any sense that we today have. It seems that there is a good bit of evidence to suggest the word refers to a “cave-home” type of dwelling. People often lived in caves, and expanded their building out in front of the cave. Inside the cave-home the few animals they possessed would be kept way in the back in the cave, or down in a lower level of the cave, to keep them from wandering off; and the people would live and sleep in the room or rooms at the front. When Joseph and Mary came to the town it was all very crowded because all the relatives were there to be taxed. And when they came to the lodging, perhaps the home of a close relative, the sleeping places for guests as well as family were all taken. There was no room--except in the back where the animals were. While this seems to us a shame, in some ways it would have been better for Mary--it was at least private and warm. After Jesus was born, there was probably more room in the house proper since the people who came to be taxed would have left. So the Magi could come to the house and find Mary and the child in the living quarters.
But the critical word to define in this story is the word worship. They came to worship Jesus. And after they received confirmation from the Bible and from the Star, they knew this was of God, and so they came and worshiped him. The word for worship in the text does not help us much in knowing what they thought, what they said, or what they did. But a general study of acts of worship would lead us to conclude that they bowed down and worshiped him because they believed he was divinely sent or even divine. Perhaps they considered him another divine monarch. We do not know. But the passage emphasizes that they received the sign from heaven, heard the word from Scripture, were led to the exact place by the star, and naturally bowed and worshiped him. Worship includes submission, adoration, and homage. The evidence of their worship came in the gifts they gave, gifts fit for a divine king.
By recording this event Matthew certainly has in mind that the natural response to Jesus is not simply homage as to a king, but worship to the Lord of heaven and earth. The picture of Messiah will continue to grow with each successive narrative.
You might also want to consider why gold, and incense, and myrrh were brought to Jesus by the Magi. Biblical commentaries often see symbolic meanings in the specific gifts; they say that gold was a gift for a king (but in the Old Testament gold was also the proper setting for the sanctuary where God dwelt among His people), the incense was for deity (as the sacrifices in the Old Testament were sprinkled with it), and the myrrh was a preparation His suffering. Matthew makes no such points out of the gifts, and so we should be cautious about reading something into the text that has little support elsewhere in the Bible. It is easy to get carried away with symbolic interpretations--but you must learn not to do this unless there is some pretty good support for it. There is a lot of symbolism in the Bible, and so if the items were well known symbols (like oil, or the dove) you can do something with it; or, if the text itself makes something of it, that too is the basis for doing it. But there is little that is convincing for the symbolic interpretation of these elements--they are used in too many ways in the Bible. So we probably should simply say that these were costly gifts, and so they were certainly appropriate for a king. They speak of the homage of the Magi. And, they would have been welcomed by Joseph and Mary who were very poor.
The scribes and teachers of the law knew exactly where Messiah was to be born, for they knew the Scripture very well. The scribes probably had most if not all of it memorized. The prophet Micah foretold that from the little town of Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, there would come the ruler who would be the Shepherd of Israel.
If you go back and read a bit of the context of Micah 5:2, say from 4:6--5:5, you will see that the passage is concerned with the announcement of the Babylonian captivity and the death and destruction that will accompany the invasion of the land. But the prophecy quickly advances to tell how God would later deliver Israel from the oppressing nations. He would one day bring from this least-expected place of Bethlehem a ruler. Here we learn something of the way prophecy is written: they have the details of the prophecy exact, but they do not clarify when these events will be fulfilled. In fact, there may be centuries between the fulfillment of one verse and the next. The prophets seem always to begin with announcements of doom and judgment, and end up with the regathering and glorious culmination of history in the coming of the Messiah. They knew the events, and the sequence; we now know the time involved between some of the events.
Well, in the time of Herod the Great the Babylonian captivity was ancient history, but the people were still under the domination of foreign powers, now the Roman Empire, and they were still longing for one who could champion their cause and throw off the bonds of Rome. The Bible prophesied that Messiah would come and be such a champion, delivering the people from oppression and bringing in an age of peace. I suspect that Herod soon realized that the setting in his day was right for the prophecy to be fulfilled. But he was not the king who would fulfill any prophecy--he was not a righteous man, not even a Jew.
If you read closely in Micah 5:2 the prophecy also tells us something else about this ruler: “whose origins [lit. goings out] are from of old, from ancient times [days of eternity].” This final section of the verse by itself could be given a couple of different interpretations; but when put together with other prophecies about the Messiah, it becomes clear that it reveals that Messiah was pre-existent, that He had an ancient history of activities before “coming forth” in Bethlehem. Micah was somewhat contemporary with Isaiah, and Isaiah said this king would be “Everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6). Later, Daniel would see this “Son of Man” in heaven receiving kingship from the Ancient of Days, clearly revealing that the Messiah was sent into the world (Dan. 7:9-14).
Here we learn something about the way the New Testament draws on the Old Testament. These folks knew their Bible, especially the parts that told of the coming of Messiah. When they quote a line from the Old Testament, they intend their citation to be a link to the context. They are not simply proof-texting; they are using a key verse from the passage to show that the fulfillment has begun to unfold. By recording the answer of the scribes to Herod, Matthew has reminded his readers that Jesus is this promised Messiah who was to be born in Bethlehem, and that His “goings were from everlasting.” This is why in Matthew’s view it was fitting for the wise men to worship Him.
Now there are some other Old Testament passages that are significant for the interpretation of this chapter. But since Matthew does not mention them, you would have to work a little harder to find them. A good commentary on Matthew might include them; if not, you would have to read up on Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. We are here concerned with why these Magi from the east come to look for Jesus and worship Him, and why they bring treasures to Him. In other words, what is the significance of this whole event?
Isaiah 49, a prophecy about the restoration of Israel after the captivity, begins to focus on the image of the “Servant of the LORD” for its revelation. Isaiah’s use of the “Servant” has several levels of meaning, but ultimately the “Servant” in the relevant passages (Isa. 49--53) refers to the Messiah. According to Isaiah 49 the “Servant” not only will restore the fortunes of Israel (which means in this chapter the “Servant” cannot be Israel, not in the final analysis), but will also be a light to the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth (v. 6). Ultimately this prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In verse 7, then, it adds that kings and princes will bow down before this chosen one, this Servant. The idea of homage from the nations is repeated in verse 23. It is likely that the complete fulfillment of these predictions of the homage of kings and princes to the Servant of the LORD will be at the end of the age (see also Isa. 52:15). But at the first coming of Jesus, there were token events, previews of that ultimate homage, that made it clear that Jesus was the one to whom this adoration and homage would come.
Isaiah 60 also predicts how in the Messianic Age the glory of the LORD will arise and cover the land. And at that time nations will come to the light, and kings will be drawn to the brightness (v. 3). And the wealth and the riches of the nations will be brought to the city of the Holy One (v. 5). The gifts of the Magi probably are a foretaste of that great homage to come at the end of the age, showing that this child is the one to whom all homage is due.
No other gospel account has this narrative of the wise men visiting Jesus. And so we have to look into the rest of New Testament literature to see if there is anything that will contribute significantly to this. There is not a great deal that we can find that is exactly the same in its teaching, but if we look for the theme of homage to Jesus, that opens up several passages.
Philippians 2:10 and 11 might come immediately to mind (since we looked at it in the last lesson). Because of the wonderful salvation that Jesus has provided for us, God has highly honored Him, and given Him a name above every name, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” There could hardly be a more comprehensive statement about the future homage to be paid to Christ.
In the Book of Revelation we read about those in heaven who lay their crowns before Him and acknowledge that He is worthy to receive all the glory and honor and power and wealth and praise (see Rev. 4:10,11; 5:9-14). So what the Magi do here is a little preview of what everyone will do in the future, bow before Him as Lord and King.
In view of this, the psalmist advises the kings and rulers of the world, as well as their subjects, to “kiss the Son, lest He be angry in the way” (Ps. 2:10-12). Kissing the Son is the way one would bow and do homage to a king; it would indicate submission to the kingship of this Son, whom we know to be Jesus the Messiah (read the whole psalm). Those who are wise, the psalmist says (note we are dealing with the wise men in this passage), will do that before the Son, this Messiah, comes to judge the world..
Well, you can spend as much time in these related passages as you wish. But you can see from a brief survey of a few related passages that the story of the Magi fits into an important part of the plan of God. It gives a little picture of what is yet to happen; but it also instructs people to submit to Christ as the wise men did in paying homage to him.
So this brings us to the conclusion of the study. What we want to do now is to try to state briefly what this passage is revealing to us about the plan of God in Christ Jesus. We would probably say that it reveals the proper response to the revelation about Jesus is one of faith and worship. It does this by telling the story of the wise men who responded to whatever revelation God had given them by coming to look for Jesus, and when they found Him they worshiped Him. The story does not get into any major theological discussions about Jesus, or about worship; but it does hint at all these things through their actions and through the prophecy of Micah, and through the response of Herod.
One of the ways to develop an application (the “so-what”) of a passage, is to try to identify with the humans in the story. You will find in most stories the action works on two levels, what the Lord is doing, and what the people are doing. The Lord is doing something because of what the people are doing, or the people are doing something because of what the Lord is doing (which is the case here). By identifying with the people in the story, you can draw some lessons.
Well, in this story we have Herod. He certainly represents the response of the unbeliever to the news of the coming of the Messiah. He wants to know about it, but is not interested to go four and a half miles to see for himself. In fact, he is more concerned that the presence of the Christ will interfere with his power, with his position, with his lifestyle. The world is filled with people who like Herod want to know, but are not actually looking for the One who will save people from their sins.
But there are the wise men, the focus of the story. The primary application would call for identification with these men. In other words, the way of faith looks for God’s provision of a Savior, and finding it in Jesus, submits to Him and worships Him, even though it may not yet be clear how it will all work out. Over and over again the gospel will call for faith; but as the passages unfold it will be clear that faith in Jesus will be well founded.
And just a review now of some of the Bible Study Methods we have been using to look at the first two passages:
1. Start by laying out the structure of the story so that you can follow the story line but also see how the story explains the important things with quotations and explanatory verses.
2. Try to determine the subject matter of the story--what it is actually about. This will be done easily by noting the subjects and verbs of the sentences that advance the story line.
3. Do a little bit of research to find out what key words mean, or who the participants of the story might be.
4. Connect the passage to Old Testament and New Testament passages that may actually be referred to, or that may refer to this passage, and see how those verses in their contexts provide the information to make a full interpretation of the story.
5. Use the human participants in the story for models when forming lessons, models of either belief or unbelief. This will help identify the point of the passage.
The rest of Matthew 2 is essentially about how Herod killed the infants in Bethlehem, and how the holy family escaped that terror by going to Egypt, and then by settling down in Nazareth. It is a tragic report of how a wicked ruler tried to destroy Jesus, but how God prevented it from happening. The story lets the reader know immediately that the coming of the Messiah would not be welcomed by everyone.
This section will also give us the opportunity to study more closely how the New Testament uses passages from the Old Testament. Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isaiah are all brought into the events recorded here. At the very least this will underscore the fact that God was at work in these events to reveal who Jesus was and what He was here to do.
13When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod.
And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.
So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.
The story is marked off by three quotations from the Old Testament, showing that each of the three parts of the narrative--the flight to Egypt, the killing of the children, and the settling in Nazareth--fulfilled prophetic words.
Dreams again figure prominently in the account. The two that have verbal content quoted begin the account by telling Joseph to go to Egypt, and then begin the last section by telling him to return to Israel.
As you read the passage you might begin to make some preliminary connections, as if you have read something like this before. The setting is in Egypt, the story is about a wicked king trying to kill the little boys, and after the death of the king there is the Lord’s instruction to go to the land of Israel. We shall come back to these links to Israel in bondage in Egypt a little later.
Sorting out the story line is a little different here because we have three scenes. The first is about the Lord’s telling Joseph what to do and Joseph’s obedience; the second is about Herod’s killing of the children; and the third is about the Lord’s telling Joseph what to do and Joseph’s obedience. The first and last scenes are clearly connected to the second or middle scene--they flee to escape the slaughter, and they return when the threat is over. The point is clearly the preservation of the Holy Child.
Once again the human actors are Joseph, Herod, and Joseph. But behind Joseph’s actions there is God once again, revealing in dreams what he should do. And in contrast to Herod’s actions, God is forewarning Joseph. One reads these stories and gains the immediate sense that God the Father was superintending all the details about the birth and childhood of Jesus. And the meaning of this story is pretty clear--there was a concerted effort to destroy the Christ child and to prevent the fulfillment of the New Covenant, but God was not going to let that happen. There is something very evil here, something Satanic (and we will meet Satan’s attack in chapter 4). Other tyrants in different ages were also eager and willing to destroy the people of Israel in order to destroy the work that God seemed to be doing. Herod was simply the instrument that was available at the time.
Since these figure so prominently in the passage we should probably give attention to them right away.
General overview. To start with, let me give you a little bit of an overview. (Do not be frustrated as you read some of these things and begin to think you do not know enough to make these kinds of connections. The more you do Bible Study, the more you will learn about the whole Bible, if you do it right, and then gradually these kinds of things will be easier to connect.) There were two major, major traumatic experiences for the nation of Israel in their Old Testament history, their bondage in Egypt and their exile in Babylon. The Jews never got over these, because they were the historical foundations of the covenants.
The Exodus from Egypt and the Old Covenant. The first experience in Egypt is the subject matter of Book of Exodus. Recall that God delivered Israel under Moses, by the blood of the Passover lamb applied to their doorways. When they got out, God made a covenant with them at Sinai, the Law. This covenant revealed to them God’s standard of righteousness; but it also made provision for forgiveness through the blood of the sacrifice so that they could have fellowship with God. The New Testament writers clearly saw that Jesus was the fulfillment of these passages, the redemption out of bondage by the Passover and the atonement through the sacrifices on the altar. This is the substance of the Old Covenant.
The Babylonian Captivity and the New Covenant. The other crisis came at the end of Israel’s kingdom period when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and carried the people into exile. Most of the prophetic books deal with this theme in one way or another. But in the middle of the trouble, when the cities lay in ruins, the prophets began to predict a New Covenant. This New Covenant would be characterized by several things, not all of which would happen at once: Israel would be regathered to the land, she would rebuild the city and the temple, the Messiah would come to drive out all enemies and to establish a kingdom of peace, the Spirit of the Lord would be poured out, the Law would be written in their hearts, and there would be universal righteousness in a new creation. The New Testament writers clearly saw that Jesus was also at the center of the fulfillment of these prophecies, even though the various fulfillments would take place gradually, starting in the upper room and extending to the second coming. This is the substance of the New Covenant. The New Covenant could not be enacted until the Old Covenant was fulfilled--which Jesus did at the cross.
Now with that background in mind we can look at the first two Old Testament citations, the first referring to the Exodus from Egypt (the historical foundation of the old covenant), and the second referring to the Babylonian invasion (the historical foundation for the revelation of the new covenant).
Hosea 11:1 and the Exodus. Now then, when Matthew records how an angel directed Joseph to take the holy family into Egypt for safety from the king who was trying to kill the boy, he adds that this fulfilled what Hosea said, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” This is Hosea 11:1. If you read that passage you will see that Hosea is writing about the nation of Israel that God called out of Egypt at the Exodus. He refers to Israel when the nation was a child, meaning at the beginning of its national existence--a young nation. But the metaphorical language of the nation as a child, and as God’s son, comes from Exodus itself. Moses said to Pharaoh, “This is what the LORD says, Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go, so I will kill your firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22,23). God was about to bring retribution on the Egyptians for their killing of the Israelites. And in the announcement, there is a word play on “son.” The nation of Israel was God’s firstborn “son”--this is a figurative use of the word. But the firstborn “son” of pharaoh was a literal son. So there are two different meanings of the word “son” in the passage in Exodus. Hosea refers to the first when he refers to Israel as God’s “son.”
Matthew is fully aware that Jesus is God’s Son--in another sense of the word. This word to Matthew catches some of the meaning of both the uses in Exodus. He is the Son of God in that like Pharaoh’s son He shares the nature of His Father and is the heir to the throne (even though He was never procreated); and He is also the Son as Israel was a son in that He fulfills the destiny of the nation of Israel. In other words, Matthew sees Jesus as the true Israel, the Seed of Abraham in the purest sense. Everything Israel was supposed to be, Jesus would be. And the things that God did for and through Israel find fulfillment in the person and works of Jesus.
We will have to leave this for the moment since the subject would be too large to carry further; but to draw this point out would call for a survey of how the sacrifices, festivals, temple, and significant events in Israel were types and figures of the coming Christ.
But Matthew sees the parallels between Jesus’ sojourn in Egypt, preservation from the killing of the children, and return to the promised land, and the historical event of the nation in Egypt, being preserved through the killing of the children, and the call to leave Egypt and go to Israel. He sees the old event as a type, a preview, of the new event. Jesus would walk through (as it were) the experiences of the nation, in order to fulfill all the needs of the nation. So Matthew sees that Hosea’s words that were written for the nation of Israel using the figure of a son find their fullest meaning in the experience of Jesus the Son as He is “called” out of Egypt to go to the land of Israel. We therefore have two levels of meaning for Hosea 11:1--the primary reference is Israel in the Exodus, but the ultimate application is to the fulfillment of the exodus from Egypt in the person of Jesus. Matthew is not simply connecting Jesus’ return from Egypt with the exodus of Israel from Egypt; he is connecting all that was involved with that exodus with Jesus.
If you look at the verse in Hosea in isolation, the quote does not seem to make much sense. But when you put it into its whole context, in fact the context of the Bible and how God is working through history to prepare for the Messiah, then you can understand how the passage fits Jesus’ Egyptian “sojourn.” This may seem confusing to you at the moment because it is so different from simply quoting a proof text; but the more you see it working out in Matthew you will see that the New Testament writers came to realize how God’s history with Israel was a preview of the person and work of Jesus.
Jeremiah 31:15 and the New Covenant. The second Old Testament citation is used in a similar way. It is a lament that comes from the Book of Jeremiah, 31:15. Jeremiah records his vision with tears of lamentation as he watches not only the city of Jerusalem being destroyed, but innocent children being slaughtered in the Babylonian invasion. He imagines, with his poetic vision, that Rachel, the wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph and Benjamin, is weeping for her descendants, her children. Rachel becomes the ancestral representative of all those mothers in the land who wept for their little children.
But his lamentation is in the middle of four chapters, Jeremiah 30-33, that are filled with comfort and consolation and joy. These chapters look beyond the grief of death to the dawn of a new age that will come with the Messiah’s coming, One whom Jeremiah calls the Branch. And with that new age there will be a New Covenant that will pave the way for everlasting peace and righteousness. Out of the chaos of violence and death at the hands of wicked rulers there would come a New Covenant, bringing forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life.
Matthew knew that Jesus is the Messiah, the Branch, and that in the upper room at the Last Supper He inaugurated the New Covenant (“This cup is the new covenant in my blood” [1 Cor. 11:25]). So when he reported the killing of innocent children in Bethlehem, he immediately saw the parallel with Jeremiah’s day. Once again God would bring life out of death, the life of Jesus out of the deaths of the innocent children, and with His life He would bring eternal life for those who died for him in that little village of Bethlehem. And Matthew indicated that if Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Messiah the Branch, and if He inaugurated the New Covenant by His blood, then the lamentation over the children in Jeremiah’s day also finds fulfillment in the weeping of the mothers for their infants in Bethlehem in the days of Jesus.
It is one of the most tragic episodes in New Testament history. It is a reminder of how evil men can become in their quest for power. And to Matthew it is a reminder of how very much the world needs a Redeemer. The only solution for this kind of world is a Savior who will save people from their sins and usher in a new age of righteousness and peace.
Isaiah 11:1 and the Branch. The third use of the Old Testament comes at the end of the chapter. Joseph brought Mary and Jesus to the region of Galilee, and settled into a town called Nazareth. It was a little village, up in the hills away from the main roads. Remote, obscure, tiny, Nazareth was meaningless in most folk’s opinion of Galilee--which also was not very high. This was a region of Gentiles, of despised place of impure commerce and traffic. And so Nazareth was a “nothing” town in a region that was looked on with contempt.
Matthew says this fulfilled what was spoken of the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” Now, you will look high and low, but you will not find a verse in the Bible that says that. But what Matthew has apparently done is relate the word Nazareth to a well-known prophecy, well-known in Hebrew of course. Isaiah 11:1 says, “And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a Branch out of his roots.” Here we see another use of the idea of a Branch. Isaiah pictured the kingdom of Israel as a tree. At the captivity God cut down the tree, but left a stump, which he said was the remnant of believers (Isa. 6). Out of the stump a little shoot would grow, a tender branch. And that branch out of the stock of Jesse would be King Messiah. The image of the tender branch is one of humility, or of lowly beginnings, one of inauspicious origins. That Jesse is mentioned and not David agrees with this, for it stresses the non-royal beginning of the family. Eventually that little branch would become the King of kings an Lord of lords, but His beginnings would be humble--and considered worthless by many, even despised.
The connection is that the Hebrew word for Branch in Isaiah 11:1 is neser (pronounced nay-tser). It sounds just like the name Nazareth. Matthew immediately saw the connection. Isaiah’s prophecy about the Branch (neser) meant that He would have a humble and inauspicious beginning; and when the family settled in Galilee, they settled in a humble and inauspicious village, called Nazareth. To Matthew the very word of that prophecy found its full meaning and therefore its fulfillment in Jesus the Nazarene. In His early days Jesus would be a man from a town not worth mentioning; a man away from the highways of life, seeing nothing of the great movements of kings and armies and caravans; a Nazarene.
But if you read the rest of Isaiah 11, this lowly Nazarene was to become a great King, empowered by the Spirit of God, judging the world in righteousness, and transforming all of creation into a peaceful, harmonious world.
So with these three Old Testament passages, Matthew charts the movement from flight into Egypt to the return to Israel in peace, from the lament over the slaughter of the innocent children to the hope that is in the life of the Savior, and from the adoration of the Magi and the attention of the wicked king to a humble life in the hills of Nazareth. But as one reads the section, one is keenly aware that Matthew will re-visit all these themes as the gospel narrative unfolds.
The other gospels do not include any of this material. Luke 2:40 mentions that Joseph and Mary and Jesus had their home in Nazareth; and this was where Jesus grew up and was filled with wisdom and the grace of God. When Jesus began His popular ministry, the religious leaders were baffled: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” “No prophet ever came from Galilee!” And interestingly, at the empty tomb the angel said, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified. He has risen!” (Mark 16:6). The contrast here becomes great--the lowly Nazarene has conquered the grave.
The New Testament does not deal with the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem. But it does emphasize the humility of Jesus in coming into this world. Again, the passage in Philippians 2 is the best example, because it stresses how He made Himself nothing and took on Himself the form of a servant. This theme then becomes one of the major points of the nature of Jesus as the promised Messiah who would be a suffering Servant before He would reign as King of Glory.
The Bible as a whole reveals how in the end of time the Judge of the whole earth will make things right. And part of His judgment will be to avenge the deaths of the martyrs and to make things right for them. We do not know how all this will be done, but we know that those who have lost their lives for Him will be fully recompensed in glory. In the Book of Revelation the martyrs are nearest to God in the heavenly scenes.
The passage’s main emphasis fits the emphasis of both testaments, that is, that although Jesus was feared and hated by wicked men, despised by many who tried to destroy Him, humble and low in the eyes of the world, He is the Son of God, the King of Glory, the Imperial One in all the human race.
There are not many words and names in the section that call for detailed study. The passage is pretty easy to understand, now that the Old Testament prophecies have been sorted out a bit.
Perhaps the dates and the kings might be put into perspective, although this is not really that critical for understanding the passage. But a little clarification on the family of Herod might be useful. Herod the Great died in the spring of 4 B.C.; his will divided up the kingdom among three sons. Archaelaus was to rule over Judea, Herod Antipas received Galilee, and Philip received the northern frontier and some of the region of the Decapolis (so his lands were north and east of the Sea of Galilee). Philip lasted the longest, as we shall see later. He is the one who built Caesarea Philippi in the north. Herod Antipas is the Herod that Jesus dealt with in His life, as we shall see. Archaelaus lasted only ten years in Judea. Rome removed him, and replaced him with a governor. These governors were called Procurators. The best known was Pilate who came later.
So Joseph took Mary and Jesus and fled for Egypt some time before Herod died. We do not know how long they stayed in Egypt--a few months, a year or so? They returned to Israel when Archaelaus was king, but apparently had heard enough about him that they went to Galilee to live, in the territory of Herod Antipas.
The narrative records how the holy child was preserved in safety when Herod sought to kill him. From a theological point of view, then, the passage reveals how God was ensuring that the work of salvation would be accomplished. God was not about to allow some wicked king like Herod to ruin the plan. And so the account essentially tells how God used angels and obedient people to carry out His will.
But in the process the events recorded here fulfilled several Old Testament prophetic messages. And this also reveals that God’s plan was right on course. Even the hatred of Herod and the slaughter of innocent children was not something unexpected that God had to deal with quickly or lose His Son. No, the prophetic passages that are included here show that the pattern of the age-old conflict between good and evil had re-appeared, only now the threat was greater because the life of the Messiah was threatened. But out of the danger, and the flight, and the quiet and humble setting of Nazareth, would come one who would triumph over it all.
We can think through several ways to look at this passage in practical ways.
1. One point to be made at the outset is based on the evil recorded here. The passage reminds us how wicked humans can be, and how wickedness in power can act, especially when threatened by God’s plan. At the very least these tragic events remind us how very much the world needs the Savior. Man in defiance of God will do what he will, no matter the cost. One can only guess at the countless innocent people who have been killed by wicked and corrupt leaders. Here Herod thought he was getting rid of the problem (the birth of the king) by killing all the children; but the child survived and would live to fulfill the will of God.
Our response to this certainly includes lamentation and sorrow over the suffering in this world; but it also must include hope and prayer for the Lord to make things right. Those who have this hope will then work to bring about peace and safety, and to promote life and justice for all, but especially for those who are victims of evil. Jesus’ teachings will address this later in the book.
2. We can also make a point out of the Old Testament citations. What this passage shows is that every detail of the life of Christ is a fulfillment of the prophetic revelation. We need to remember that prophecy is only possible if God is in control of history--otherwise “prophecy” could only be guesswork, and not always accurate. But God was revealing His plan through the events in the Exodus with Christ in mind; He was working through the Babylonian captivity with Christ in mind. And what He had in mind for Christ is that He would deliver His people from bondage by becoming the Passover Lamb, and then He would bring in a New Covenant that would change everything by the power of the Spirit. These citations at the infancy of Christ point us in the direction the Gospel will go. And they remind us that God will not let anything interrupt His program in Christ.
Our response to this begins with our thanksgiving that Jesus is the One who can deliver people from the bondage of sin and death in this world and bring them into a New Covenant that will last forever. The Lord did not simply step in to judge the world; rather, He came to bring salvation first, to provide the way of escape. By His death on the cross which fulfilled the Old Covenant and inaugurated the New Covenant, and by the work of the Holy Spirit through this New Covenant, God is working in and through us to bring about a holy people who will champion righteousness in the world. So in addition to our thanksgiving to God for sending His Son there should be our commitment to promote the plan of God in Christ--just as Joseph in the story was obedient to make sure that God’s program succeeded.
3. And we are reminded of a principle in this passage too as we read how Jesus was known as a Nazarene. To the world He looked ordinary, commonplace, by no means kingly. But people forget how God works. He does not choose as the world chooses; the world looks on the outer appearance, but God looks on the heart. This lowly Nazarene would turn the world upside down; and at His coming in glory this exalted Nazarene will judge the world and create a new heaven and earth.
Our response to this should be to learn how to see things as God sees them. We are often too quick to judge people by their appearance or by their natural abilities. We should instead be trying to see what God sees in His people, and be assisting all of them to find their place in the work of God.
And finally, a word about Bible study methods. When we see citations of Old Testament passages with expressions like “that it might be fulfilled,” we know that we have to understand the connections with the broader context in the Old Testament. The passage referred to may not be a direct prophecy (we will see those), but it may be an event or a person or a place that forms a parallel with the New Testament event, and owing to the fact that those passages are part of the prophetic message, the parallel with Christ was divinely intended. Thus, those passages have their fullest meaning in Him. So the process of studying Matthew will lead to a greater understanding of the Old Testament prophets.
With Matthew 3 we have the record of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry with His baptism. With the exception of Luke’s account of the time Jesus was in the Temple at the age of 12 (Luke 2:41-50), the so-called “silent years” of Jesus are not looked into by the evangelists. They are clearly more interested in His public ministry. So after recording the various events related to His birth to show that He was unique, Matthew now jumps forward about 30 years to His baptism.
The first part of the chapter (vv. 1-12) tell us about John the Baptizer. Matthew describes John and explains that he was the one prophesied by Isaiah (40:3). If John was the forerunner, then of course Jesus is the Messiah, the one Isaiah described in that chapter as “your God” who will come as a “shepherd.”
John’s message was one of rebuke and warning. He called for people to repent before the “coming” of the Lord. People responded to his preaching and were baptized. Baptism, or ritual immersion as the Jews described it, was frequent in Israel. Jewish people immersed themselves in ritual baths before entering the holy place as a sign of inner purification. And the Jewish sect of Essenes in the desert at Qumran used ritual baths frequently to represent ritual purification. Converts to Judaism also would undergo such a ritual as part of their initiation into the faith. So “baptism,” as the gospels call it, was fairly common in the religious life of Israel. John, though, was pressing them with an urgency to repent before it was too late: “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” It was a warning for people to repent; and repentance meant a change of life, not just feeling sorry for wrongs done. To seal that repentance and commitment, John baptized them (meaning probably that he witnessed their immersion and said appropriate words to them, but probably did not touch them since that was never done).
But John announces that one greater than he was coming, who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. There are a lot of interpretations offered for this prediction (as a survey of the commentaries will reveal), but I believe John is referring to the events that we know are connected with the first coming (the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost to baptize all believers into one body [1 Cor. 12:13]) and then with the second coming (a baptism of fire that he says will burn up the wicked). I know there were tongues of fire at Pentecost, but the context of John’s “fire” is the judgment with unquenchable fire. John was really an Old Testament prophet; he would not have known that centuries would pass between the two events. The Old Testament prophets would include in their oracles descriptions of both comings of Christ, as we now know them.
But be that as it may, John clearly knew that Jesus was this coming one, the one greater than he. The Gospel of John tells us that John the Baptist was told that the one on whom the Spirit would descend would be the one who would baptize people with the Holy Spirit--He would be the Son of God; He would be the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29-34).
Luke gives us the details of the time that John began his ministry (Luke 3:1): it was in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Scholars have settled on the year 29 A.D. for the beginning of John’s ministry. We would put the baptism of Jesus, then, sometime in the fall of 29 (and this correctly allows for the several Passovers [every spring] that occurred during Jesus’ public ministry from 30 to 33 A.D.). So Jesus’ public ministry began in the fall of 29; and he was crucified in the spring of 33 A.D.
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”
This is such a short passage that it is much easier to analyze than most. We have the story of Jesus coming to John to be baptized, and after some conversation is baptized. After the baptism we then have the descent of the Spirit from heaven on Jesus, and a voice from heaven.
What makes the passage significant, and often difficult to interpret, are the three quotations in it. The first is John’s uneasiness about baptizing Jesus, the second is Jesus’ explanation of why they should do this, and the third is the voice from heaven confirming the person and work of Jesus. Most of this Bible study will be spent on these three quotations and the meanings of the words in them. Once they have been interpreted, the significance of the baptism will be better understood.
So this particular Bible Study will basically be on each quotation. In them there will be words to define and figures to interpret, and so those can be done as they come up. Every passage that is studied will require the same procedures, but often in very different order depending on the layout of the text. The idea is to do the study in the simplest and quickest way. Here, that would be quote by quote.
John’s Question. The first quotation is found in verse 14; it is John’s response to Jesus’ coming to him to be baptized. A simple reading of the statement and question clearly indicates two things: John knew something about Jesus, and John knew that his baptism did not apply to Jesus.
John had been preaching a baptism unto repentance. People had listened to his preaching, were convinced of their sins, repented, and then received baptism as a witness to and sign of their inner purification. But when Jesus came to John, it was not as one who had sinned and wanted to repent, but one who was majestic and authoritative. Moreover, it is the witness of Scripture that He was absolutely sinless (if He were not sinless, then we have no gospel). John looked into the face of this one who now came to him, and he could see the difference. He had been looking into the faces of those filled with guilt and remorse and sadness; but this one had none of that. This was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world; this was the one coming who was greater than he, whose shoe latchets he was unworthy to loose. There was no place for John’s baptism in the life of Jesus. And so John countered that he should be baptized by Jesus.
Jesus’ Explanation. Jesus responded to John by saying that it was proper for them to do this to fulfill all righteousness. There are two important aspects of this sentence that we should observe. The first is Jesus word “us”--”it is proper for us.” It was not simply something Jesus was to do, but John and Jesus had to do something to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus was not acting in isolation; he was acting with John--the Sinless one with the sinner, to fulfill God’s plan. Or, as the gospel at large teaches, the one who had no sin to repent of takes his place among those who had sin to repent of. The one who was sinless went down into the water of baptism that was the portion of the sinner.
And this act of baptism would be part of John’s fulfilling his mission as well, because the forerunner was to introduce the Messiah to the world.
But we have to probe a little deeper to find out what this identification with sinners was all about. The key has to be the meaning of the term “righteousness.” It is one of those words that receives a lot of explanation in teachings and lessons, but some explanation talks around the basic meaning. Certainly righteousness is right living, good deeds, virtuous acts, and the like. But if you were to do a detailed word study, you would find a more specific meaning behind all these connotations.
As an aside here, the way that you would do a detailed word study is to trace the usage of the word. Most people simply check a word book and read a few paragraphs. That is usually satisfactory, if the word book has done its work. To do the work yourself, you would get a concordance, check all the passages where a word was used, and place the uses/passages in categories of meaning. The result would be a dictionary-type conclusion--such and such a word means this, this, and this. Then you would decide which of those categories of meaning fit this passage your were studying the best.
A concordance is not a dictionary; it is a reference book that will list the passage in the Bible where your word is found. You would have to know the precise Greek word, find the references in Matthew, then in the rest of the New Testament, and then in the Old Testament in conjunction with the Hebrew word it translates. As you would guess, for a commonly used word like “righteousness,” this would take hours and hours (but you would learn a lot about many passages you found). This is why most folks will rely on someone who has done the work. That may by a little more risky, but usually the reliable sources have the basic things. You may want to check some passages they discuss and see if you agree with their interpretation; but on the whole they should provide the information.
In studying the words of Matthew it is usually helpful to see what the Old Testament Hebrew word behind the Greek would have been. The New Testament Greek is a translation of the things that Jesus would have said in Hebrew, or at times Aramaic. And much of the New Testament Greek terminology was developed from Old Testament Greek (usage in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament). I know this sounds technical at first, but it simply emphasizes the close connection between the New Testament and Old Testament vocabulary.
In light of this, a full study of “righteousness” for this passage will start with a survey of how it is used in the Gospel of Matthew, but ultimately draw in the Old Testament background. The whole study will lead to a meaning for the word as that which “conforms to the standard,” which would mean doing the will of God.1_ftn1 What is intrinsically “right” has to be in harmony with the will of God. Accordingly, then, the idea of fulfilling all righteousness does not here mean that Jesus has been unrighteous. It simply means that here He is committing Himself to do God’s will for Him, to conform to the standard which is the will of God.
And God’s will for Him was laid out in Scripture for centuries. It is clearest in Isaiah 53 which announces that the Suffering Servant was to be “numbered with the transgressors.” Here he began to be identified with sinners. And, as John had said of this Lamb of God, Isaiah had prophesied that the LORD would lay on Him the iniquity of us all. And further, Isaiah described this one as God’s righteous servant: “my righteous servant will justify many.” So the Messiah, the Servant of the LORD in Isaiah, would identify with sinners, take their sins on Himself, and justify them through the suffering He would endure. Jesus was saying that this baptism was the beginning of all that; it was here that He began to fulfill the righteous will of God that He become the Suffering Servant who would take on Himself the sins of the world. This baptism was the inauguration of that ministry.
In two other places Jesus used the word “baptism” to describe His suffering and death for the sins of the world. Two disciples sought positions of greatness. But Jesus said to them, “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38). And on another occasion he said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am straightened until it be accomplished.”
So this water “baptism” of Jesus had a different connotation; it began His mission in life as the Suffering Servant. He committed Himself here to God’s will.
There is an Old Testament passage this appropriate to think of here (and rather than put it in a separate section of the study I will mention it here). It is the dedication Psalm 40. In verses 6-8 we have the words of the worshiper’s dedication: “A body you have prepared for me . . . . Here I am, I have come--it is written for me in the scroll. I desire to do your will O God, your law is within my heart.” The devout worshiper would come to the sanctuary and express his commitment to doing what the scroll, what Scripture prescribed for him to do with these or similar words. The apostles saw right away that no one could say these words more meaningfully or appropriately than Jesus. And so they were quoted in Hebrews 10 with reference to Christ. The Father prepared a body for Him--the incarnation, not simply the natural body that others have as a gift from God; Scripture prescribed the will of God for Him--not just rules on how to live, but predictions about His Messianic work; and He came, delighting to do the will of God the Father--and no one could say that in the same way that He could. And so one can imagine these ideas in the mind of the Savior as He went down into the waters of the Jordan: “A body You [Father] have prepared for me. Here I am. I have come--it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”
You would probably come across this passage in your reading if you did not know about it already--it is the main bit of liturgy for dedication in the Old Testament. Any discussion of dedication, commitment, prophecies about Messiah, or even a good commentary on this passage might very well tip you off about this. O bring Psalm 40 in on the study is not absolutely crucial for the understanding of the passage--but it makes a lovely addition about Christ’s commitment to fulfill the plan.
The Father’s Response. The rest of the passage records the supernatural response of God the Father. When Jesus went up out of the water, heaven was opened and Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove on Him. This is a little difficult grammatically, but we must be careful to read it correctly. It does not say a dove descended on Him, but the Spirit of God. The image of the dove describes the way in which the Spirit was descending--descending like a dove and lighting on Him. Of course people down through history have used the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit ever since.
Two things have to be explained here. The most important is the coming of the Spirit of God on Jesus. Why?--especially if Jesus is God in the flesh. If you read about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament or Israelite world (and remember the events in this book are still in Old Testament times), you will soon come upon discussions of “anointing.” Leaders were anointed with oil--kings, priests, prophets, judges. And with that anointing came divine empowerment to do the work set out before them. So today the church uses the expression “anointing” to refer to empowerment by the Holy Spirit. But in the New Testament that “anointing” comes when a person believes in Christ, or at the moment we call regeneration, and the Holy Spirit then dwells within our spirit, and our bodies become the temple of the Spirit. This is too big a discussion for me to take it much further; you will have to study this one at length later on. But what we have here in our passage is the reality of the Father’s anointing of the Son for the ministry that lay before Him. It was not just an anointing to preach, but for His whole life to make atonement for sin. Even Jesus needed that extra divine empowerment to do the will of the Father, and so the Spirit of God descended on Him. By this, Heaven approved His commitment to do the will of God the Father and provided the power to fulfill it. Without the power of the Spirit of God, He would not have been able to fulfill the whole plan of God.2_ftn2
Second, why is the description of the dove used? The dove is often described in terms of peace, especially in the light of the doves sent out by Noah after the judgment of God on the earth. The dove is a harmless and gentle creature. But is “peace” all that is meant here? And why should “peace” be signified at this point? It is understandable after the judgment of the flood, but why here? Again, if you read up on doves in the Bible you will quickly see how significant they were in the religion of Israel. They were the sacrifices of the poor people who could not afford bulls or goats. The Book of Leviticus lays out how the sacrifices were graded according to income. The dove with its gentleness and harmlessness was accessible to the lowliest of the people. So right after Jesus made His commitment to doing the will of the Father to become the suffering Servant for the sins of the world, the Spirit descends as a dove, a bird of sacrifice for sin for the lowliest of the people. The dove then also symbolizes power in gentleness, the power of God to salvation in the meek and lowly Savior. And the dove also re-enforces the idea of Jesus’ identification here with the people of Israel.
So Matthew is showing that the King was here empowered by the Holy Spirit to deal with what was fundamentally wrong in the kingdom and to set it right. Jesus has the will to do it; and He now has the power.
Finally a voice from heaven affirms the “rightness” of all of this: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The word “Son” may carry two nuances here. According to the Davidic Covenant in the Old Testament (2 Sam. 7 and Psalm 2), the king would be known as God’s “Son.” He would have a special relationship with the Father, and He would be the heir of all things, even his enemies. The gospels identify Jesus as this King, this Messiah, this Son; but He does not receive His kingdom at His first coming (see Hebrews 1). The second way the Bible uses “Son” to describe Jesus is to emphasize that He has the same nature as the Father, namely, that He is eternal and divine. Sometimes the people who followed Jesus declared that they believed He was the Son of God, no doubt thinking in terms of the first meaning. But their words were used by the writers with the fuller meaning as well because they were writing with the evidence of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. For example, Peter declared to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matt. 16). Later, after the resurrection and after the sending of the Holy Spirit, Peter would have realized the full meaning of what he had said a year or so earlier.
The voice from heaven states that the Father was well-pleased with the Son. Was there anything Jesus should repent of? No. Was there anything He should have been doing differently? No. This witness from heaven affirms that as the Lamb of God He is spotless. He always did what was pleasing to the Father (and of no one but Jesus could this be said). So this statement not only approves what was happening here, but it also attests to His righteousness during the so-called “silent years.”
In similar terms the prophet Isaiah had prophesied the effect of the death of the Messiah: “It pleased the LORD to bruise Him” (53:10). That does not mean that the Father took delight in the pain. It means that the suffering and death of the Messiah fulfilled the plan of God to provide salvation for sinner. Here, at His baptism, Jesus began His work as the Suffering Servant, and God the Father was pleased with that commitment; and so at the fulfillment of this commitment, namely His death, God the Father would be very well pleased.
So the baptism of Jesus was unique. It was not like John’s baptism before it; and it is not exactly like Christian baptism after it. There are similarities of course, but because Jesus was sinless, His baptism was different.
By His baptism Jesus identified with the people, the sinful people He came to save. And by His baptism Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, beginning His service as the Suffering Servant who would die for the sins of the world. And God the Father approved it, and sent God the Spirit to empower it. And John witnessed it.
I have already connected Old Testament and New Testament passages for this theology, and so it is not necessary to repeat those things here. The primary point of the passage is to report Jesus’ submission to a life of service to do the will of God, and God’s pleasure in and provision for that service.
As a little aside here it would be well to say that we as humans, with finite minds, cannot fully understand the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit, or what the church calls the trinity. We are not talking about three people, but three persons within one essence. There are simply some things in revelation that we have to accept as mystery, and realize that the nature of the Godhead is far more complex than we can imagine. It is one God, always acting in unity; but revealed as three persons. The incarnation makes it a little easier to grasp, but we will always be left with questions. This is why the apostles state that if revelation had come by the will of man, it would have been very different. But it came from God. And God does not see fit to explain everything to us, probably because we do not have the capacity to understand it all.
Now then, as to a practical application for believers, we have to look at the meaning of the event, and not the event itself. We cannot make a simple application to our lives from the event because it is a report about a unique event in Christ’s life. There is no, “Go and do likewise” with the same meaning. But we can use the meaning of this event to make a practical application, simply because Jesus is the primary example for us of doing the will of God.
God desires every believer to make a commitment to do His will, and doing that will (we learn from Scripture) means sacrificial service--to God, and to others. That is what the Christian life is all about. This commitment often comes at the same time as conversion, but it may also come later when we realize what God desires of us. It should be connected with Christian baptism, if possible, because the ritual of baptism (as in the first century) was a tremendous sign of commitment to the Christian way. But a lot of people realize later in their life what it is God is asking of them.
Now God’s will for us will obviously be very different from what Jesus was to do. But God’s will for us is also recorded in Scripture (not as prophecies as there were for Jesus, but teachings), and so we should make an informed commitment to do it. And since it will mean a life of sacrificial service, or to put it another way, since it will not be a natural or easy way of life, we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit--far more than Jesus did. The Christian life is not natural; it is supernatural. So the epistles are filled with instructions for Christians to present their bodies as living sacrifices, for example (Rom. 12:1,2), and to be filled with (controlled by) the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). With such a life of spiritual service our heavenly Father will be well pleased.
1 For an interesting illustration, take a look at a non-theological usage of the term in Deuteronomy 25:13-15. The warning is not to have two different sizes of weights and measures (for dishonest selling and buying), but to have weights that are “right”--that conform to the standard.
2 As a little theological rule of thumb, we usually say that in every work of “God” from creation through redemption, the Father decrees it, the Son does it, the Spirit empowers it. There is no work of “God” that all three persons of the Godhead are not so involved with.
So far in our developing a method for studying the Bible we have noted that while the narratives themselves give us the basic reports of the events, what we call the story lines, the quotations in the story reveal to us what is actually going on and why. So we focus on the quotations a good deal. Now in the account of the temptation of Jesus that is going to be true as well. With the quotations we know what kinds of temptations the devil brought to Jesus, and how Jesus overcame them.
We have also seen that the narratives are filled with citations from and allusions to the Old Testament. This should come as no surprise, for our Old Testament was their Bible. And they knew it well--they were people of the book. It would be hard to interpret these events without the understanding of Scripture. So we learn that even though we are in the New Testament, we have to spend a good deal of time searching the Old Testament to get the full understanding and background.
It is also true that there are frequently parallel experiences to be compared (such as the killing of the children by Herod and the killing of children in the Babylonian invasion according to the record of Jeremiah). Sometimes the parallel events do not at the outset seem that unique (a birth in Bethlehem--there had been lots of births in Bethlehem). But on closer study there are some significant comparisons (it was the birth of the king).
And so now in Matthew 4 we will find that the subject matter is temptation. Well, there are zillions of temptations--everyone is tempted to sin, almost daily, if not hourly. But, there is something different going on here. Here Jesus, at the outset of His ministry, is confronted by the devil with all his power, and He does not sin. Biblical writers from the outset have seen the parallel between this temptation and the very first, the temptation of Adam and Eve. The Bible, in fact, will refer to Jesus as the second Adam, the head of a new “race” of people born into the family of God. As we shall see later in Matthew, with the agony in the Garden, the crown of thorns, the sweat, the nailing to a tree or cross, all the motifs in the record of Genesis 2 and 3 find a corresponding solution at Calvary. Likewise, the temptation.
And so we can think for a few moments about parallels and contrasts between the two great temptations, the first which plunged the human race into sin, and the second which began the way back with victory over Satan. Perhaps the most celebrated “study” of these two events are the works of John Milton, “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained.” It is at the temptation of Jesus that Satan realized that he could not ruin Jesus as he had the parents of the race, and therefore that he could not stop God’s plan of redemption.
You might want to make a list of comparisons and contrasts to think this through further. In Genesis Adam and Eve were in a lush garden with all the food that they could eat; in Matthew Jesus is in a wilderness where he has been fasting for forty days. In Genesis the temptation was to eat; and in the wilderness the temptations of Jesus began with eating. In Genesis the temptation was to be like God by disobeying God; in Matthew the appeal to Jesus was to be the king, but without obeying God. In Genesis Adam and Eve sinned because they did not know precisely what God had said, not as well as Satan did; in Matthew, Jesus was victorious because He knew Scripture better than Satan. In Genesis, after the pair sinned, angels barred them from the tree of life; in Matthew, after Jesus drove the devil away, angels came and ministered to Him.
So with this history in mind, we can look now into this little passage in some detail. Mark 1:12,13 mentions the temptation, but does not include the details. Luke 4:1-13 provides a parallel account to what Matthew has. This raises an incidental question: how did these writers know about the event? The simplest answer is that Jesus told His disciples, and that report found its way to Paul and therefore Luke. The only significant difference is that in Luke the second temptation is concerning the kingdoms of the world, and the third is the temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple. Putting things in a slightly different order is a frequent characteristic of the different gospels, whether parts of an event or a teaching, or major events. The different gospel writers are writing for different audiences and are arranging the materials for their individual purposes. It does not make a major difference in the interpretation of the passage if one of them comes before another. Matthew’s is probably the original, and Luke seems to have reordered it with the Gentile world in mind (although you will find a lot of scholarship that spends a lot of time deciding who was first). We can appreciate why Luke would have the emphasis on the kingdoms of the world being Satan’s to give coming before the temptation in the temple of Jerusalem.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting for forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
3The tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6”If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
‘He will commend His angels concerning you
and they shall lift you up in their hands,
So that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9”All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The structure of this narrative is relatively easy to trace: there is in introductory section providing some details, then three temptations with three answers, and then an aftermath. The main focus of the study will, of course, be on each of the three temptations, to determine what the temptation actually was and how Jesus dealt with it.
The introduction, the first couple of verses, tells us a couple of very significant things. First, that He was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is the same Spirit that just descended on Jesus at His baptism. Almost immediately this Spirit forces the temptation. This has to be given some careful thought. What it indicates is that it was the plan of God for Jesus to begin His ministry with this challenge--and that it was not the devil’s doing. The devil was willing to tempt Jesus, to be sure; but it was the Spirit of God leading Jesus to it. The devil could tempt Jesus with every power he had, but he would not succeed. The temptation episode was God’s way of showing that Jesus was the perfect man, that He could resist sin, that he could defeat Satan.
The second thing for us to consider here is the devil, Satan. This is the first introduction to him in the Gospel. Somewhere along the way you should read up on Satan in a good Bible dictionary. This is that old Serpent (Rev. 12:9) who had been in the Garden; this is the prince of demons, the god of this world, the fallen angel (or archangel) who seeks to destroy God’s work. The Gospels do not shy away from affirming that there is a whole spiritual world around the physical world, filled with angelic beings, some of whom rebelled against God with their leader Satan and are therefore evil. These that are the fallen angels, devils, demons as they are called, do the work of their prince, attacking and inflicting all kinds of disorders on those who want nothing to do with God. But that prince, the devil himself, undertakes the more significant efforts. He was successful in getting Adam and Eve to sin and plunge the world into darkness; but he was not able here to defeat the Son of God.
Third, we are told that Jesus had been fasting for forty days and forty nights, and was hungry. There is no reason to doubt that it was forty days and forty nights as the text says; but “forty” is a common number in the Bible for a period of difficulty, hardship, or suffering. One thinks immediately of the Israelites’ wandering for forty years in the wilderness--one whole generation. Forty days was a good long time to be fasting; and that duration is here underscored with the symbolic meaning that it was forty days, the number of duration and testing. You could look in some of the resources for the symbolical meaning of numbers to find other passages where this occurs.
In the aftermath of the contest we read how the devil left Jesus and angels came and ministered to Him. The enemy left as a defeated challenger; and the angels of God came to Jesus and served Him in ways that we cannot quite imagine. But they must have affirmed to Jesus with comfort and encouragement that He had done everything well and had won the victory over Satan.
But the center of this study will be the three temptations themselves, so we should look at them now to determine what they meant, and how they were met.
1. Turn stones into bread. The first temptation picks up immediately on the fact that Jesus was hungry, that he had not eaten for forty days. The tempter said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
There is a fine point of grammar here that you would probably learn from a good commentary (unless along the way you studied Greek). You can still understand the temptation without knowing it, but knowing it helps just that much more. Sentences that begin with “if” (called conditional sentences) have different meanings. Some are contrary to fact, and some are not contrary to fact. The way it is written in the original indicates the type. For example, Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here [but you were not], Lazarus would not have died.” That is a condition contrary to fact. That is not what we have in the words of Satan here. When he said, “If you are the Son of God,” he did not mean “If you are the Son of God [but you are not],” but rather he meant “since you are the Son of God.” He knew who this was, and would build his temptation on it. He was saying, “Look, you are divine! Why should you be hungry? Just change some stones to bread.”
Now then, we have to ask what was wrong with that. Was there anything wrong with making something to eat? He had the power to do it. He multiplied food later for people who were hungry. So why was this a temptation?
The answer, I think, is that Jesus had come out into the wilderness to fast for forty days. That was a spiritual exercise that had a very important place in His life at the moment. But the devil wanted to ruin the mission of Jesus, and so if he could convince Jesus on this seemingly trivial thing to abandon a spiritual work, then he would have had him. The temptation was to turn His spiritual nature into a means of satisfying His material need without reference to finding the will of God. In fact, he would be doing the will of the devil. The devil simply chose a little thing for the test; but it would have destroyed the work of Christ.
The perfection of Jesus is displayed in His refusal. Hunger was not wrong, especially in a spiritual time of fasting (fasting was designed to focus attention on the spiritual and away from the comforts of life). And Jesus was announcing to Satan, and to all of us who will hear it, that it is better to be hungry than to be fed without any reference or recourse to the will of God. Satan had hit the nail right on the head--Jesus is the Son of God. But the essence of Sonship is obedience to the will of the Father. He would not, therefore, act independently of the will of the Father. Jesus knew that the Spirit had led Him into a place that necessitated hunger, and so He would fulfill that task.
In response Jesus quoted from the Book of Deuteronomy: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” If you go back and read Deuteronomy 8 you will see that the topic there is about the Israelites hungering in the wilderness for forty years. God tested them in the wilderness so that they would learn that they must obey what comes from the mouth of God. He gave them Manna; but to acquire it and enjoy it required that they follow God’s instructions carefully. The main point was that if they obeyed the LORD He would provide their food. And so it was more important to obey God than to have all the food they could eat (recall that Adam and Eve chose to eat rather than obey God’s word).
So Jesus saw through the clever little ploy of Satan. He defeated the temptation by appealing to a clear principle of Scripture. But He was not just quoting a favorite verse; He was drawing in the whole context of the passage to show that if God puts you in a place of deprivation for some spiritual purpose you do not try to change it solely for the purpose of satisfying your physical needs. The first thing that the person must do is try to discover what God is doing through the deprivation, what spiritual growth is desired and how it should be achieved. This would show that one does not live by bread alone, but by everything that God says and does.
2. Throw yourself down from the temple. If the first test was in the realm of the physical, the second is a test of the spiritual. In fact, the test strikes at the heart of the previous victory. Jesus had escaped that temptation by showing that He was not just physical but spiritual, that He could accept the hunger and the weakness if it meant obeying God. And so Satan wants Him to do something spectacular to demonstrate that He is spiritually perfect. Satan was saying to Jesus, “Very well, you have shown your trust in God in response to my first appeal; so now show your trust in God by flinging yourself from the pinnacle of the temple.” This, no doubt, was to be in full view of all the assembled people; they would witness that God was with Jesus in a very special way.
What is interesting now is that Satan himself quotes Scripture in making the appeal. He quotes from a psalm that says that God will give the angels charge over him so that he will not dash his foot against a stone (Ps. 91:11,12). The psalm is a psalm of trust, telling how God protects his people. It was never intended to be claimed apart from practical wisdom. God promises to protect His people; but He has also given them common sense.
The response to this temptation is a little more involved. At the outset one should consider the source: if the devil, or, more obviously for us, someone who has no inclination to obey Scripture, if such a person prompts you to do something that it looks like the Bible says you can do, you would be wise to think it through very carefully. A lot of Scripture is quoted out of context, or partially, and needs to be investigated.
Jesus’ response is also from Scripture: “It is also written, ‘You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.” This also comes from Deuteronomy, 6:16. This is the chapter in the Law that is foundational to Israel’s faith. It had the creedal statement in it, “Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone.” The chapter then exhorts the people to obey His commands, and to do what is good and right before Him--but warns them not to test God.
The moment an individual puts God to the test, that person gives evidence that he or she does not really trust God. The context of Deuteronomy 6:16 refers to Massa and Meribah in the wilderness where the people murmured against God and tested Him--because they did not believe He could or would give them water (“Massa” is one name; it is derived from the verb in Hebrew nasa,. “to test”; the other name is “Meribah”; it is from the verb rib, “to strive”). A trust that is weak or wavering seeks a sign or a dramatic intervention to make it steady.
So Jesus said, “No, my trust is perfect; I do not need to do anything heroic to prove it. And I will not test God’s word by doing something foolish--at your prompting.” And so the spiritual nature of Christ retained its dignity and lived out its quiet, confident trust in the Father. He refused to do something dangerous to see if the angels would protect Him.
3. Fall down and worship me. The last temptation is amazing in its boldness. It is almost as if the devil realized he was not winning, and so with nothing to lose calls for Jesus to worship him. Its purpose was to prevent the work of the king, the work for which He had come into the world.
He took Jesus to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. This verse seems to suggest something mystical, something supernatural. There is no mountain in Israel high enough to see much of anything. But the idea is probably that the devil provided some vision of these kingdoms. And the promise was that he would give them to Jesus if only Jesus would fall down and worship him. Luke adds that Satan claimed he had been given these kingdoms and it was his right to give them to whomever he wished. Satan was saying to Jesus, “Look, you came as the king to inherit the nations. Here they are. Why go through the trouble of being the suffering servant to get to the crown. Give me one moment’s homage and I will abdicate.”
Well, even in the words of Satan there were some clues that this was a malicious temptation. First, the offer was coming from the one who is the prince of liars. Who would knowingly do a deal with the devil? Jesus will later explain (John 8:44) that he was a liar from the beginning and the truth was not in him. What a lie this was. Did Satan actually imagine for one moment that the Son of God would believe him? Never would Satan have given him the kingdoms; that was simply the bait for him to bow before the evil one. Unfortunately, far too many people have believed the evil tempter. Adam and Eve surely did.
Second, all Satan could offer were the “kingdoms,” plural kingdoms--these warring, divided, conflicting powers and races in the world. Who wants them? The Father had promised the Son a Kingdom, united in peace and righteousness and harmony. Of course, there is no way to inherit such a kingdom apart from redemption, apart from changing human nature to make it fit for the kingdom, for without it there would never be peace and harmony in the world. Satan’s offer is a cheap substitute.
So Jesus’ response was, “Away from me Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the LORD your God, and serve Him only.’” This too comes from Deuteronomy (6:13). It is the cardinal truth of Scripture: worship God only. For the righteous there would not even be a thought of bowing down and worshiping the prince of darkness. Jesus would hold to that principle; He would never worship Satan. And so He would receive the kingdom in God’s time, and in God’s way--by defeating Satan, first here in the temptation, and later at the cross.. And His will be a far better kingdom than this world could ever offer.
As mentioned above, the obvious parallel and necessary background is the temptation in the Garden. The tempter there came in disguise, in the form of a serpent, a creature that the humans were to rule over; here Satan did not come in disguise, but in a bold and direct attack on Jesus.
In the Garden the tempter took the ploy of questioning what God had said. If you make a detailed study of that passage, Genesis 3:1-7, against the background of chapter 2, you will see that Eve made three changes in the wording (or was it Adam who told her incorrectly?): first she diminished the privileges (God had said “you may eat to your heart’s content of all the trees,” but she simply said, “we may eat”); second, she added to the prohibition (God had said, of this one tree “you must not eat,” but she added, “neither may you touch it”); and third, and most importantly, she was not convinced of the punishment of death (God had said, “You shall surely die,” and she said, “lest you die,” leaving it as a contingency). When the tempter saw this, he immediately denied the penalty for sin in exactly the words of the Creator: “You shall not surely die.” And this is the lie from the beginning, that you can sin and get away with it, or that God will not punish people whom He has made over sins like this.
The two observations to be made here are: Satan knew more precisely what God had said and was able to draw them into a discussion about the word of God with that advantage, and Satan boldly denied that there was a penalty for sin. This is why Jesus said that he was a liar from the beginning (John 8:44).
With that in mind we can see in Matthew 4 that Jesus could defeat Satan because He knew the word of God better than the tempter. He could come back with the wider picture: It is also written. Often temptation requires “getting rid of” one verse, or a prohibition that stands in the way (“if only that passage could be explained differently”). But the victorious believer will know how all of Scripture works, and that behind a prohibition or an instruction there is a general theological revelation that will govern the interpretation and application of details.
But we can also see that there is no trivial temptation. Eating from the tree in the Garden?--such a little thing. Turning stones into bread?--harmless. But each was a prompting from the devil to go against the will of God. And when anyone chooses to act contrary to what the living God wills, that person has chosen death. Satan knew that. We often do not; we often think something small can be winked at, easily rationalized, even though we know at the time it is not what God wants. The Bible is filled with examples of this, and the more you study the Bible the more you will see them. One classic example is the case of Moses. Commanded to “speak” to the rock and bring water from it, he lost his temper and hit it (Num. 20). For that he was not allowed to go into the promised land. Who could blame Moses after putting up with the people for forty years in the wilderness? But, in the eyes of all the people he disobeyed God and gave them the impression that God (and he) was (were) getting fed up with the people. God wanted them to see His power--not Moses’ anger.
Well, in the Garden the aftermath of the temptation is also instructive. The text of Genesis 3 tells us that when the woman realized that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, then she took and ate.
This is probably what John is referring to when he talks of the cravings in the world as the lust/desire of the flesh, the lust/desire of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). Temptation worked on all three levels--desire of the flesh to eat, desire of the eyes for beauty, and the desire to be like God, spiritual pride. But when they ate, all that they discovered were guilty fears and their vulnerability to evil.
Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews tells us that we have a High Priest, Jesus Christ, who was tempted in every way as we are, yet remained without sin (Heb. 4:14-16). This means that He fully understands all that we face in this world--He was tempted in every way, not just in these three temptations at the outset, but throughout His life on earth. Therefore, Hebrews says, we may approach the throne of grace in prayer with confidence so that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in the time of need. Prayer to Christ in the times of temptation and trial is therefore critical for victory over temptation. And this makes sense--seek help from the one who did it.
James. If you look in a Bible study book, or a dictionary, or a theology book, or a concordance, you should find New Testament teachings on temptation or on Satan rather easily. James tells us “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (4:7). That indicates that the devil will go where there is the least resistance. It also indicates that the human heart is capable of producing a good bit of evil without the devil’s prompting, a point that James makes in his epistle.
2 Corinthians. Paul also tells us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14--but read the whole section of verses 1-15). Paul tells us that thanks to Scripture we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, and therefore should be able to resist the tempter. But it will require more knowledge of Scripture, and better spiritual perception (see Hebrews 5:11-14). By knowing Scripture well, we will both know what the whole plan of God is for our lives, and we will be better able to perceive what would undermine it.
So we have here a great drama between Satan and Christ. It ends with Christ’s victory over the tempter because of His knowledge and use of the word of God. The attack of Satan was made against every vulnerable point--hunger, trust, and responsibility--and when these were held firmly, there was no other area the devil could attack. He struck at the material or physical need of food, but he found one who knew the spiritual was more important than the physical; he struck at the spirit’s confidence in God, but found one whose trust in the Father did not need testing; and he struck at the carrying out of the divine commission, but found one who was determined to carry out that plan in a divine way. Thus was Satan defeated.
What did this mean for Christ’s mission? It was a foretaste of the victory at the cross. Here Jesus defeated the tempter who tried to ruin His mission. But here Christ demonstrated that He would not be deterred from His mission. It was a very significant spiritual victory over the devil. And it would have given Jesus a tremendous boost (if we can say that reverently); He would know that the anointing of the Spirit gave Him the power to resist the evil one and to fulfill His mission.
On the theological level you might want to get off on an aside and think about what was going on here theologically. It makes a good little discussion. People often wonder whether or not Christ could have sinned, and if not, was it a real temptation? We would probably say that as Jesus He could be tempted, but as the divine Son He could not sin (and so it is bound up in the mystery of the two natures). But we would also say that at the moment of the temptation Jesus may not have known this--it was a real temptation and He worked through it. But Heaven knew He would not sin. In His time in this world there were times when Jesus had that greater knowledge and insight, and there were other times that He did not seem to have it or use it. And when and how this works is hard for us to know. But this was a true temptation. Satan thought he could win. Jesus fought back with His knowledge and obedience of Scripture. And Heaven was not surprised that He defeated Satan. And I do not think Satan was all that surprised either.
The applications or lessons that can be drawn from this passage are many--and you may think up others as well.
One very clear one would be the necessity of knowing Scripture, knowing what God’s will is (not for a career for your life, but the day in and day out spiritual life of devotion and obedience to God). This involves both understanding and being able to use the word of God in making choices between what is good and what is evil.
Another application would be the inspiration that can be drawn from the fact that Jesus as perfect man defeated Satan. Therefore, because he was tempted and because he was victorious, he understands us and stands ready to help. So prayer to him for victory would be a good lesson.
Other lessons can then be drawn from the individual temptations (and these have been discussed above so I will not go into detail here). The first had to do with knowing what is most important in life--obeying the word of God--and not living only to satisfy the flesh, or making a living, or using spiritual resources just to meet physical needs. Living by obedience to God has fallen on hard times today when so many are only interested in security of life through investments and entitlements, or indulging themselves in the good things of life. Seeking the good life can truly crowd out the spiritual things.
The second temptation had to do with trusting God. Those who truly know God and experience the reality of their faith daily do not need to find something spectacular to convince themselves and others. Today there is a growing pre-occupation with miraculous signs. Now God will do miraculous things--when He chooses to do them. But if people seek the spectacular in order to believe, or to convince themselves of the faith, it betrays a weak faith. Remember how in the vision of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus in their rewards, and the rich man asked Abraham for Lazarus to be sent to his family to warn them, thinking that they would believe if one came back from the dead? The answer was, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets [Scripture], they will not be convinced even if one rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
The third temptation had to do with fulfilling the commission or plan of God with a shortcut, not doing God’s way. This is the common temptation to avoid the means to get to the ends, or as is said, the end justifies the means. But with God there is a way to accomplish His plan for your life, and it calls for absolute devotion and obedience to Him. But Satan always offers shortcuts, that if looked at carefully, will ruin your life.
So there are a number of very useful lessons that can be drawn from this account. These should start your thinking. You can probably meditate on these for a while and find other examples of how the temptations would work in life, and how knowing what God wants would prevent them. The bottom line is that Jesus demonstrated for us how to achieve victory over temptation. In other words, we do not have to sin. There are ways to spiritual success, if we are willing to take them.
One thing that the rabbis taught on temptation is helpful. You work the issues and temptations and choices out like a business person, with a profit-loss ledger. If you make this choice and do this, what are the benefits, and what will the cost be? In many cases the cost, including fallout afterward, is just too high. A wise decision will count the cost.
If Christ had followed any one of these temptations, the immediate result might not have seemed so great, but the overall results would have been disastrous--He would have been a sinner, another fallen human like us, unable to redeem anyone, and the mission would have been ruined by the devil. But that was not going to happen, for the Father sent the Son into the world to redeem us, and by doing that He had to conquer Satan.
This section of the “Beatitudes” is one of the most loved portions of the Gospel. It forms the beginning of what has come to be known as the “Sermon on the Mount” which is recorded in Matthew 5-7. The preaching of this sermon may have come a little later in the chronology of the life of Christ; but Matthew placed it here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry because it forms such a grand proclamation of the kingdom. It is the first of the five major discourses that Matthew includes.
We first need to fill in what Matthew has included between this passage and the last one we studied. Matthew followed the account of the temptation of Jesus with a brief note that Jesus began to preach a message of repentance because the kingdom of heaven was near (4:12-17). In order to reach a wider audience, He moved from Nazareth to the city of Capernaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, but more importantly, on the main highway through the land. His declaration of beatitudes would come, but not until He called for repentance.
Matthew then reported the calling of the first disciples, Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, who were fishing (4:18-20). Jesus promised to make them fishers of men, for He was beginning to build His kingdom. He then called James and John, also fishermen, who were mending nets in their boat (4:21-22). The authority of the king to call people to follow Him is clearly portrayed by these events.
Then Matthew reports the popular success of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (4:23-25). He went throughout the region proclaiming the message of the kingdom, and authenticating His claims by healing people. Throngs of people responded to His ministry from as far away as Jerusalem.
So that brings us to the present lesson, from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus saw the crowds coming to Him, so He went up on a mountainside and sat down, the well-known posture of the teacher. The traditional location of this “mount” is the low hills behind the region of Capernaum and the other fishing villages on the shore. His disciples came to Him, and so Jesus began to teach them. And what follows is the material of Jesus’ teaching.1_ftn1
This is the first and longest message of Jesus that we have in the gospel. Jesus had been announcing that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and He had been calling for people to repent. Now, in what has been described as the manifesto of His kingdom, Jesus unveils the foundations and character of life in that kingdom. Here He teaches the ethical guidelines for life in His kingdom; and the guidelines point to the quality of righteousness that characterizes life in the kingdom, now in part, but fully in the future.2_ftn2
The discourse was intended for the nation of Israel, the crowds who had been flocking to Jesus. But it was delivered immediately to the disciples. Jesus here considered His disciples the “true Israel” (the spiritual Israel) which is already present and beginning life in the kingdom; and He considered the crowds the “Israel” of the future, the Israel that is hoped for, who should repent and follow the king. Or to put it another way, Jesus spoke to all the people of the true will of God, the righteousness that they must all exhibit if they repent and enter His kingdom, but which the disciples had already begun to perform. So the entire sermon is directed to all. And its theme is the righteousness that is the standard of his kingdom.
So in some ways this sermon will tell people just how righteous they must be to enter the kingdom, and what that righteous life should look like for citizens of the kingdom. But it does not include the details of how this righteousness may be attained.
The sermon begins with the beatitudes. These qualities give a picture of the character of the true people of God, those who are a part of his kingdom and have the full blessings of the kingdom to look forward to. Taken together they give the picture of the perfect disciple of Christ who is the heir of the promises. Jesus does not here tell people how to become like this; that will come in subsequent teachings.
One of the most convincing descriptions of the meaning of the beatitudes at the beginning of this sermon is that they are planned echoes of Isaiah 61:1-3, a passage which is certainly eschatalogical3_ftn3 in its orientation. Matthew constantly shows how Jesus came in the light of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, and so this one would fit as well. So as we study the passage we will have to look at Isaiah’s prediction of what the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom will be like.
The Beatitudes are a little different to study than ordinary story-passages. Each saying is proverb-like. Cryptic, precise, and full of meaning. Each one includes a topic that forms a major biblical theme. So you could spend a lot of time on each one--and that would be worth doing if you so desired. But we will make this a brief, introductory Bible study on the passage, and leave more to be done later.
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, 2and He began to teach them, saying:
3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
So here we have a series of proclamations without a narrative. The narrative introduction simply sets up the sermon; and the sermon begins with these proclamations. Each of the beatitudes is formally a declarative sentence; but each is implicitly hortatory, calling for a response.
The method of studying these will be a little different. We still must think in terms of the contexts, not only the historical context of the first century Jewish culture and beliefs, but also the context of the beatitudes in the sermon on the mount, the proclamation of the nature of the kingdom. The study of this section will have to deal primarily with the meanings of the words within those contexts, especially the context of the culture that knew these ideas from their Hebrew and Aramaic languages. Here is where it would be good to have a good word study book, or a book on biblical theological themes or ideas, and possibly a good Bible dictionary if it deals with words like “meek” or “poor” or the like.4_ftn4
Once the meanings of the words are understood, then we will have to consider the relationships between the clauses, primarily the connections between the “blessed” sayings and the promised result. To understand these saying we will have to relate the teachings to the biblical understanding of the kingdom of heaven as it is presented in both testaments. Here we will see that with Christ’s first coming the kingdom has been introduced--believers are in the kingdom; but we shall also see that the kingdom will yet be fulfilled in the second coming. So we will have to fit these sayings into both aspects of the idea of the kingdom.
Most summaries of the beatitudes say that there are eight of them--but you may observe nine “blesseds.” The difference is that the last saying in the list is different: it does not say “blessed are they” but “blessed are you.” Moreover, it seems to be a further clarification of the eighth one with specific application being made to the disciples.
Perhaps it would be helpful at the beginning to deal briefly with this word “blessed.” There is a desire today to translate the word with “happy.” But that does not seem to capture all that is intended here in the text, primarily because modern usage of the word “happy” has devalued it. This term is an exclamation of the inner joy and peace that comes with being right with God. Happiness may indeed be a part of it; but it is a happiness that transcends what happens in the world around us, a happiness that comes to the soul from being favored by God. That is why it can call for rejoicing under intense persecution. In some ways the Lord’s declaration of “blessed” is a pledge of divine reward for the inner spiritual character of the righteous; in other ways it is His description of the spiritual attitude and state of people who are right with God.
The opposite of Jesus’ “blessed” in Matthew 5 would be the “woes” pronounced in Matthew 23 against the scribes and pharisees. Those woes pass judgment on the apostate people who refuse to recognize and do the full will of God. The woes describe their character as well, but it is an evil and hypocritical character; and the woes are a divine pledge of judgment if those lives continue in their wickedness.
So when Jesus says “blessed are they,” He is not only describing them as being filled with an inner sense of joy and peace because they are right with God, but He is praising them for their character and pledging divine rewards for it.
One interesting Old Testament connection that would make a good related study is the section in Proverbs 6:16-19, which lists seven things that the Lord hates. These have been taken as the antithesis of the righteous who receive this blessing from the Lord. The first one is “haughty eyes” or arrogance, which is certainly the opposite of the “poor in spirit.” The last is “one who stirs up dissension among brothers,” which is the antithesis of the peacemaker. In between the characteristics include lying, killing, scheming wicked things, rushing to do evil, and bearing false witness. These differ sharply from the spiritual characteristics that the Lord loves.
Probably the best way to study these beatitudes would be to work through the basic process for each one--the definitions, the backgrounds, the connections and the applications. If you were teaching the beatitudes to a class you would do better by applying each one as you discuss it, rather than to wait til the end to try to apply them one by one.
The Old Testament Background. Part of the understanding of the beatitudes is to see the Old Testament background concerning these descriptions of the Messianic kingdom and the people who enter it. I mentioned Isaiah 61:1-3 before, and so this for one passage could be read. In it the Messiah would be anointed “to preach good tidings to the poor” (recall that in Luke 4 Jesus read that passage in the synagogue and said it was fulfilled in their hearing). That passage helps us a little with our understanding of “the poor.” We tend to think of the “poor” primarily in terms of finances or possessions. That is part of it, but there is a spiritual side to it too. The word Isaiah uses describes the people who had been taken into exile. They were of course poor, having their land and possessions ripped away; but they were also afflicted and oppressed, they were powerless and without hope, and they were desperate. The physical poverty was intensified by the poverty in their spirit.
The Meaning of the Text. The words that describe the poor in the Bible include these aspects, for the poor in Jesus’ day had few possessions, were usually oppressed, had little power and less hope. They had no resources to fall back on; they had to depend on others for survival. Isaiah brought the people of his day good news--they would be delivered from bondage. But Jesus fulfilled that promise of bringing good news by proclaiming the gospel, the “good news” of God. He did not make them rich in earthly possessions and power; but he fulfilled their greatest need.
People who are “poor in spirit” are those who are humble before God. They realize that they have nothing in this life that they can contribute to receiving the kingdom of heaven. They have afflicted their souls, meaning that they have humbled themselves and repented with deep contrition; and they have come to the king as helpless and hopeless sinners. There is no arrogance in them, no self-righteousness, no self-sufficiency. They are free from their own pretensions, and therefore they are free for God. Everyone who wishes to enter the kingdom must be “spiritually poor,” for salvation is a gift from God.
And that is the good news for the genuinely poor and oppressed in this world. The poor person is not excluded because of his poverty; and the rich person is not accepted because of his wealth. Both must humble themselves before the Lord in order to be part of the kingdom. It is often easier for the down and out of this world to do that, than for the rich to do it.
The blessing Jesus announces that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Now this of course does not mean that all poor people are in the kingdom. One thinks of the self-made poverty of the prodigal son. No, the poverty is not the chief thing, but the qualification of the spirit it. It is the poor in spirit, those who have humbled themselves and become dependent on God--they have the kingdom of heaven. In fact, everyone who is in the kingdom had to become poor in spirit. They all come with a broken heart and a contrite spirit seeking the Savior.
Application. The clear lesson is that if any are going to enter the kingdom of heaven they must become poor in spirit. This is the message of the kingdom; it is the call of repentance. They must humble themselves before God and acknowledge that they bring nothing of their own power, possessions or merit to gain entrance. Those who truly humble themselves and express their need of the Lord, they have the kingdom of heaven. And in this they find heavenly bliss.
So how does one become poor in spirit? The implication from the context preceding this is that one would hear the message of the kingdom and learn what kind of a kingdom it is and how to enter it--through repentance for sin and submission to the will of God. The first step is to confess that by themselves they can do nothing, and then seek the gracious provision that God has made.
A secondary application would be to develop how this attitude is to characterize the attitude of the believers who are in the kingdom. They do not simply humble themselves to get in and then become self-sufficient (although some try to do it); they are to live their lives in total dependence on God to supply their needs. This will open the study to themes such as humility, faith, prayer, and obedience.
Now we have a slightly different beatitude. In the last one the promise was that those who are poor in spirit have the kingdom. Here now the promise is for the future, for those who mourn will be comforted.
Old Testament Background. Isaiah also said that the Messiah would bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim the hour when the mourners would be comforted, when their ashes would be replaced by a crown of joy, and their mourning would be replaced with the oil of gladness (61:1-3). Mourning indicates the pain and the grief and the anxieties of the soul over some loss, often the death of a loved one. But it could be over the loss of a valued life, such as those Israelites who went into exile had to mourn. Or it could be over the loss of possessions, or status, or health. People mourn over any disaster or tribulation. And in times of mourning they look for hope. And most often in this world there is little hope.
The Meaning. The focus here is on the people of God who mourn, because they will be comforted. Everyone experiences sad and tragic losses at some time or another in this life. But the mourning that leads to comfort in the kingdom is a mourning over the humiliation of Israel and its cause. The nation was in the grips of tyrannical powers and ruthless rulers--because of their sin. Jesus came and announced the kingdom was at hand; He expected the response of people would be tears of contrition (see also Isaiah 40:1). Messiah would comfort those who mourn, but the comfort would come because the Messiah would save them from their sin, the cause of the mourning.
So for mourning to be “in the faith,” it will be likewise be a mourning not just for the suffering and sadness of life, but for the sinfulness that causes it. They understand that their grieving is ultimately for a world that is lost and ruined, in which God and his will do not prevail. But in their mourning the disciples of Jesus have opened their heavy hearts to the Lord, and they know that their grieving is not without hope. They know that their weeping and grieving is but for a time only. They know that death does not have the final victory, for the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible. They know that the Messiah will turn all that away someday. And that hope brings them comfort.
So the promise is that they will be comforted. They will be consoled above all when God wipes away all tears, and death will be no more, nor grief nor tribulation (Isa. 25:8; Rev. 21:4). This is what citizens of his kingdom can expect.
Application. The instruction here would concern the focus of the mourning, not the mourning itself. The mourning that will be comforted is the mourning of the disciples, those who have the proper understanding of the reasons for the mourning. And they will have the proper faith to see them through. As people face the sadness of life, they can do so with hope if they have mourned over sin--a clear sign of faith in the Savior.
The Old Testament Background. This beatitude is very much like the promise in Psalm 37:11, “The meek shall possess the land.” And if you study that passage you will see that it also is a Messianic psalm. The promise of the land certainly was the Promised Land.
The Meaning. In the Bible the meek are those who have a spirit of gentleness and self-control; they are free from malice and a condescending spirit. The meek may like the poor have no resources of their own; but then they may, for Moses was described as being meek and humble (Num. 12:3). But the meek do not exploit and oppress others; they are not given to vengeance and vendettas, they are not violent, and they do not try to seize power for their own ends. In short, they have emulated the nature of Jesus in their lives and learned from him. This does not mean that they are weak or ineffective in life. They may be gentle and humble, but they can and do champion the needs of the weak and the oppressed.
The promise here is that they will possess the land. What land is meant? Probably the promised land. All through the Bible this was the promise to the people of Israel, a land. But possessing the land signified much more than a possession; it signified a sense of place, security, an inheritance from God. But the land was constantly invaded and the people exiled and scattered. And yet the promise of the regathering to the land remained in the promises of the New Covenant. Those promises seem now to be realized with the second coming of the Messiah when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The promise is for all who are in the New Covenant. And the promise will be fulfilled in a far more glorious way than anyone could imagine. The new creation will not be possessed by the powerful despots, the ruthless tyrants, or the manipulative schemers. It will be possessed by the meek.
The Application. How does one become meek? What if one’s nature is not meek? The answer to this comes from other passages of the Bible that describe how the spiritual life works. Meekness and gentleness and goodness are part of the fruit of the Spirit--they are produced in the Christian by the Holy Spirit. So the direction people should follow to cultivate a spirit of meekness would be to walk by the Spirit, or be controlled by the Spirit of God so that the qualities of Christ can be produced in and through them. That instruction alone will call for some study, but that is the way the Bible describes meekness developing.
The Old Testament Background. The image of hunger and thirst compares this drive for righteousness with the deepest and most constant needs we have (see Ps. 42:3 and 63:1). Hunger and thirst constantly cry out for satisfaction; it is a basic human drive. The image then is portraying the desire to do the will of God as that constant and strong.
The Meaning. This beatitude is saying much more than most people think. It is not simply describing those who are righteous, or who try to do good things. It is describing their passion in life--they hunger and thirst for it. Like the poor and the meek these people put their lives into the hand of God and hope for his help.
We have already thought about righteousness with its meaning of conforming to the standard, i.e., doing the will of God. Here the word probably has two meanings. One would certainly be in the personal life--the strong desire to be pleasing to God, to do what God wants, to live up to the will of God. But out of this would grow the desire for righteousness in the land, for social justice in a world that is unrighteous and unjust. The desire for personal righteousness cannot be separated from the world around.
And because that is a proper desire it will be fulfilled. It may not be filled immediately, but certainly shall be in the future when the king establishes his reign of righteousness. But the promise of the King is that the desire for righteousness will be filled. Theologically this happens in several stages. The basic desire to be right with God is met by the gracious gift of righteousness. This we call justification, being declared righteous in the courts of heaven. Then, as a disciple of the Savior, the desire to do righteous works will find fulfillment by the power of the Spirit. This we call practical sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ. And in the future, when the Lord returns and establishes universal righteousness, we shall be changed. This we call glorification, being transformed into the glorious state.
The Application. Here too we must ask how this desire is developed. Most Christians are for righteousness--but how does the desire become so intense? It also has to come from the development of the spiritual life. Paul teaches that the spiritual person is one who yields his or her members as instruments of righteousness. So it begins with commitment to God’s will. Then, as the spiritual walk is guided by the Holy Spirit, He leads the believer into righteousness. And the closer one lives to the Lord, the more sensitive he or she becomes to the unrighteousness and injustice in the world. The truly spiritual person then will begin to long for righteousness.
The Meaning. One thing that is common to the poor in spirit, the meek, and those who hunger for righteousness is that their life is not self sufficient but looks outward for help. They understand mercy for they know their own inadequacies, dependence, weaknesses and incompleteness. And, when they receive gracious and merciful bounty from the King, they in turn know to show mercy to others. Showing mercy to others includes both the forgiveness of the sinner and compassion for the suffering and the needy.
They are called blessed because they place showing mercy above their own rights; they take no hostile stand against people in need, but try to show kindness to others and heal wounds. It is not that they are merciful by nature, but because they have been shown mercy and live in constant dependence on the Lord.
And because they understand mercy and show mercy to others, the word from God is that they shall obtain mercy. Ultimately this looks forward to the coming of the king and the day of judgment when by his mercy they will be welcomed through the judgment and into the kingdom. They will receive mercy, not because they did enough good deeds, but because they understood how important mercy is in their own spiritual pilgrimage and having entered into that state of grace were eager to share it with others. They learned to forgive others because they were constantly being forgiven; they learned to show mercy to others because they were being shown mercy every day.
The Application. Here to the act of showing mercy comes from the genuine spiritual experience. People who know more of God’s mercy will be merciful. It is important, then, that people have a good understanding of the grace of God in their own lives. This will come from the experience of confession of sin and thanksgiving for forgiveness--two aspects of the believers walk that often get neglected. Christians some times get to the point of thinking that they deserved the grace they have received, and they become then intolerant of others, even judgmental. The reality of our own spiritual condition and God’s provision must never be forgotten.
The Meaning. This beatitude picks up an Old Testament image and applies it to its fulfillment in the kingdom. It describes both an inner purity and a singleness of mind. The “heart” is used in the Bible for the will, the choices. And so to be pure in heart means that the decisions one makes, the desires one has, the thoughts and intentions of the will, are untarnished by sin, and that the will is determined to be pleasing to God. From the pure of heart come only good things, acts of love and mercy, desires for righteousness and justice, decisions that please God.
The description of the human “heart” outside the household of faith is very different--at its worst it is constantly acting selfishly and causing pain (Gen. 6:5). Jesus said it was what came from the heart that defiled people, evil thoughts, impure desires, blasphemies and the like (Matt. 15:18,19). Nothing short of a change of heart will bring about a pure heart. Jesus does not explain that here; but his language of being born again will necessarily begin the process. The transformation from a heart of flesh to a pure heart will come by following Christ, but it will not be an easy or a swift change. But those who enter this kingdom of righteousness must have this new heart.
And the promise for them is that they will see God. What an incredible statement! The Bible says that no one has ever seen God (Exod. 33:18-23; 1 Tim. 6:16). People have seen appearances of the Lord in various forms, like Moses on Mount Sinai seeing the hem of the garment(Exod. 33), or the Israelite leaders eating with the Lord and seeing the God of Israel in the form of the revealed presence (Exod. 24), or an Isaiah (Isa. 6) or John (Rev. 1).
One aspect of this promise is here and now by faith--they will see God in all the events and circumstances of life. But the Bible promises much more. Here on earth the vision of God is denied to us; but one day when heaven will be opened he will be visible to our transfigured eyes. As Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I and not another. Howe my heart yearns within me” (Job 19:25-27).
The Application. How does one gain a pure heart? It begins with conversion when God gives us a “new heart,” and it continues through the spiritual growth as we follow Christ. Walking in the light, meaning learning to live by the word of God, will change the way we think so that our hearts will grow more and more pure. But as the light of the word reveals impurities, we must deal with them and change.
The Meaning. God is the God of peace; His whole plan of redemption is to provide peace with God for those who were formerly alienated from God, and ultimately bring peace to the whole world (Isa. 9:6,7). This is the goal of the work of the Messiah.
But in the human race, however, there is strife and conflict with little hope for peace and unity. The peace that God brings is not a cessation of hostilities, tolerance, or the readiness to give way. True peace that the world needs calls for a complete change of nature. And only God can give this kind of peace. It is a peace that the world does not understand (John 14:27). It begins with reconciliation with God and extends to reconciliation with other people.
Those who are peacemakers are then first and foremost people who understand what true peace is. Their effort is to strive to establish a peace that embraces God’s provision of peace, so that people will be in harmony with one another because they are at peace with God. In other words, the true peacemakers are they who promote the kingdom of God. Their lives are given to working for promoting the kingdom of God, reconciling adversaries, quenching hatred, uniting those who are divided, promoting true understanding and spiritual love. And they do this because they know what true peace is. So the quality described here is one that is spiritual and not simply a political seeking of peace.
And the promise is that they shall be called the sons of God. That means they will be true children of God. This adds to what life will be like in the kingdom--possession of land, stilling of hunger, vision of God, and now sonship. And all these begin when people enter the kingdom by faith, but will be fulfilled completely when the kingdom finally comes.
In the Old Testament “sons of God” is a description of angels, and rarely is such language used for salvation. But in the New Testament sonship is a powerful expression for salvation. It means that believers have been born into the family of God by the Holy Spirit, and that those so designated have a personal relationship with the Father through Christ the Son, that they are joint heirs with Him, that they have a place in their heavenly home by birthright. Not yet in the full sense, but truly in the certainty of the promise can believers say, “We are called the children of God” (see John 1:12,13 and 1 John 3:1).
The Application. So the disciples of Jesus should be promoting peace. They do this by spreading the Gospel of peace to the world, and by promoting reconciliation within the household of faith as well. In short, they should be doing the work of the Messiah.
The Meaning. In this fallen world when people try to promote peace, or champion righteousness, or live a life of gentleness and meekness, they find opposition. One would think that such a life would attract people to the kingdom of God. But the fact that it does not naturally do that tells us clearly that the race is not only alienated from God, but in rebellion to God. They might want a form of justice, but in their own terms. They much prefer power, and privilege, and possessions. And so John the Baptist called for righteousness and went to an early death. And Jesus proclaimed all the right virtues but found opposition to his message because it called for them to enter his kingdom. And if they persecuted these, will they not also oppose the disciples?
The beatitude is not simply for all who have suffered persecution. God, as the righteous judge of the earth, will deal with that as well. But this beatitude is for followers of Christ, those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness. And as the next verse clarifies to the disciples, that means suffering for Christ’s sake. They have been identified by faith with the King, they carry his name, and they proclaim the good news that there is a kingdom of righteousness and peace that is spiritual and eternal. But they will find opposition. Nevertheless, they should rejoice, for their reward in heaven will be great. God will make it up to them, and more.
But the blessing stated here for those who suffer such persecution in this world is that their destiny will be a complete contrast to their present humiliation--theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And that, the disciples know, is something worth dying for. But it is not a future reality only--they have it now (and so this blessing parallels the first).
The Application. The lesson would simply be that people should be living for Christ in this world, living the way members of the kingdom should live, championing righteousness and justice, showing mercy, remaining meek and poor in spirit--all the things that the beatitudes praise. But they should know that genuine righteousness is offensive to many, and so they will be prepared for opposition.
The last couple of verses have an implicit claim to deity by Jesus. In the Old Testament the prophets were persecuted because of their faithfulness to God. Now Jesus says that His disciples will be persecuted because of their faithfulness to Him. He is God.
1 _ftnref1If you read widely about this portion of the Bible you will find a great range of views and interpretations. The very radical views, the skeptical views, we do not have to spend much time here discussing--that can await a more opportune time. But you should know that there is a very vocal group of teachers and writers who are teaching that practically nothing in the Gospels is true--that Jesus did none of these things, and said very few of the things he was supposed to have said. To them Matthew did not write Matthew, but the book was the product of teachings in the church from a much later period, most of which were embellished if not fabricated. This is not a new position, just better published today because of modern means. The view still means that these chapters have been fabricated, no matter how you look at it.
A less offensive view, but still somewhat problematic on several levels, is that the Sermon on the Mount is what Jesus taught, but not here and not in one sermon. The teachings have been moved from other settings to form this sermon. This view at least acknowledges that what we have in Matthew 5-7 are the teachings of Jesus himself. It simply says that Matthew has put this material together in this place to form one major address on the kingdom. In theory one could accept some of this, if it could be shown that that is exactly what Matthew did. But proving such a theory would be difficult to do.
The plain reading of the text supports the traditional view that this was a message proclaimed by Jesus. The passage begins by saying that Jesus taught them, saying . . . . And then the teachings follow one after another on the related topics of the kingdom. And then Matthew says he finished. For those who believe the Scriptures are historically true in what they affirm, it would be appropriate to say that wherever Matthew or the other writers connect a sermon or teaching to a place and time, that is where it was given. If there is no such note, then the material might have been put together.
To say Jesus delivered this sermon on the mount, then, does not necessarily mean that these are the exact words that were used. Matthew has translated the teachings into Greek; and he very well may have condensed some of the teachings and put them in his own words; and he may have appended clarifications to some of the things that are in the sermon. Comparisons with Luke and with other teachings in the Gospels may suggest some of this went on. But we can also be sure that Jesus probably preached these themes rather frequently in his Galileean ministry, and so the memory of them would reflect the oft-repeated themes. In sum, the study of the sermons and teachings of Jesus is a rather involved study and not easy to address with any certainty. We shall return to this matter (called “historical criticism”) later at the end of the study of Matthew when we summarize the various issues to be included in the study of this book. I will just say at this point that I believe that the reader can be confident that these are indeed the teachings of Jesus, and that the wording presents what Jesus said, either precisely, or in summary form (as was done with Matt. 4:17). Matthew’s record of the sermon on the mount was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that what is written in these chapters is the truth, and truly what Jesus taught in his sermon.
2 There is an enormous amount of literature on the Sermon on the Mount, which, in time, you may begin to work through. But at the risk of oversimplifying the issue of the meaning and nature of the sermon, these comments will do for now.
3 Another big word, “eschatology” is the study of last things; it is the portion of doctrine that deals with the events yet to come, such as the second coming, the judgment, the eternal state. It is primarily concerned with “Messianic” events, things that Jesus the Messiah will do to fulfill all things.
4 You can work for the time being with whatever resources you might have, perhaps a commentary or perhaps a good dictionary. If you really get into Bible study it would be of great benefit to invest in a couple of thorough sets on the meanings of words and theological ideas--Colin Brown’s (editor) set for the New Testament, and Willem van Gemeren’s (editor) for the Old Testament. These are both several volume sets, but certainly would give you all the word study material you would need on both testaments. See the recommended lists at the end of the studies.
In this section of the book we are in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. The subject matter in these verses focuses on personal piety in the areas of giving, praying and fasting. The initial reading of the passage will show that the basic teaching of Jesus will be to avoid the ostentatious show of piety and to seek to please God.
The material is all teaching--there is no narrative story here. So the approach will require us to isolate the clear point being made in each section. The point will include first something to be avoided, then something to do, and finally the promise of reward for doing it right. This should be fairly easy to study--it is often painfully obvious what Jesus meant.
Included in the section on prayer, however, is the teaching of the “Lord’s Prayer.” This will require a good deal more attention, and in fact could be a lesson all by itself. But it is helpful to see it in the context of these teachings. Each petition in the prayer will have to be studied carefully, taking into account both its Old Testament background and its setting in the Gospel. Here the meanings of words and the grammatical constructions will require more attention.
“Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2So, when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
5”And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed by your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
16”When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men that they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
The first thing to observe is that this is entirely instruction. That makes the study of the passage rather straightforward: the instruction will identify a case, tell what not to do and what to do, and give reasons for compliance. The only real difficulty in studying these kinds of instructions is on the level of application, because at times (fortunately not really here) the instruction is tied immediately to a specific context (“go show yourself to the priest in the temple” for example) and has to be then paralleled to a similar situation or need in the modern culture. Here the instructions deal with personal piety and are immediately applicable.
The section is part of the context of the Sermon on the Mount, and so all that was said about the entire discourse has to be kept in mind here. The sermon has a series of instructions on various topics, so why do we pick out these three? Well, by their subject matter these three seems to fit well together. One could just as easily include some of the others, but these make a nice unit on personal piety (as opposed to, say, the “you have heard but I say to you” series back in chapter 5). But having isolated these verses we have to keep in mind that the context will help us in our interpretation. For example, when you try to sort out what Jesus meant by “your kingdom come” or by “your reward,” the context of the sermon will be of great help.
The passage can be divided easily into its three parts: giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting. The study (and any teaching of the passage too) could deal with each individually, along with a general conclusion about piety. The study procedure will still involve the analysis of the sentence structure, the meanings of the words, connections to other Scriptures, general cultural considerations, and conclusions for theology and for application.
The common theme through these paragraphs will be easy to identify--you would get the basic point even if you just heard the passage read in church. Jesus was warning people not to do righteous acts for the purpose of being seen by people. He was instructing people that if a righteous act was done for God alone, and was not tarnished by this desire for recognition and applause, it would be rewarded by God. That is genuine piety. But if it was done to be seen by other people, then that acclaim was all the reward that would be received. So His instruction was that it is best to hide any righteous acts that may lead to ostentation and thereby ensure that they will be done for God. The three samples He gave are at the heart of personal piety: giving to the poor, praying and fasting. And so the warnings also provided Jesus with the occasion to give instruction on these subjects.
The Text. The first four verses cover the subject of “almsgiving” (as it has been traditionally called), or giving to the poor. The structure is easy to follow: verse 1 gives the general introduction, not only for this case, but for the others to follow. The general warning is not to do acts of righteousness before other people, to be seen by them, for then there will be no reward. Of course, many good deeds that people do are out in the open necessarily. But Jesus was here speaking about intention--not to do them so that people would see and therefore think that you are spiritual. That is one form of hypocrisy, for in doing it that way you would not be seriously interested in doing the good deed, but in appearing to be doing good deeds. The motivation would be primarily self-promoting--and the Lord always looks at the motifs when He evaluates our works.
Verse 2 then gives the first case, giving to the poor, with a warning not to do it like the hypocrites do. Then verse 3 gives the positive instruction, to do it secretly, and verse 4, the reward.
The Case of Giving. The subject matter of giving to the needy really does not need a lot of study; it is self-evident what it means. But perhaps your study on the subject might be helped by looking into the Bible to see how important this matter is. There is a trend today, especially in affluent societies, to let this one go. The thinking may be that the poor are just lazy and should work harder, or that it is the government’s responsibility to help them, or that it is a never ending task and so it won’t do much good anyway . . . and so on. There are many reasons people can come up with to avoid this spiritual duty. Prosperity theology fits into the reasoning as well, teaching that if people had faith they would have wealth, because God wants His children to be rich. This is not the place to deal with this theology, other than to say it is unbalanced at best. What is most disturbing to me is to see the wealthy and the successful being paraded on Christian talk shows on television or on stage in services as if they were the spiritual ones, blessed by God. They may be, but Jesus’ warnings about ostentatious show gets lost in the presentation somewhere.
So what was Jesus talking about here in this passage? Here is where we might find a little help from the first century Jewish culture. There are a number of books on customs and manners that are worth having, but you can still start with a good Bible dictionary and read up on fasting, almsgiving, and the like. An old work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, by Alfred Edersheim, is still to me a very helpful work. It is frequently criticized for some of its Jewish culture backgrounds, but on the whole seems to be right in its interpretations. You would have to use his Scripture index to find passages, because it goes in the order of the life of Christ and not in chapter order of the Gospels. I will put other recommendations in the bibliography later.
So Jesus said that when people try to give money to the poor they should not “sound the trumpet” as the hypocrites do in order to be recognized and honored by others (6:2-4). There are a number of ideas about the meaning of “sounding the trumpet” in the literature, none of which can be established with certainty from primary sources. But the point is clear that the hypocritical almsgiver was more concerned about being noticed for his deed than for helping the poor.
One very plausible suggestion is that this form of giving was connected with the public fasts that were proclaimed by trumpets. At such times of fasting, prayers were recited in the streets and alms were given to ensure the efficacy of the prayers and fasting.1 This would mean that such folks were choosing the most opportune moment to display their “generosity,” so that others would consider them to be truly spiritual. Such individuals were also deceiving themselves into thinking that they were acting in the best interests of God and man--the large gifts would be well received by the needy, and their praise and gratitude would feed their egos, and everyone else would see them as the “pious” in action.2 But Jesus was saying not to do this. Those who do this would receive no reward from God, because it was all hypocritical.
You might want to look up the word “hypocrite” in a word study book or a Bible dictionary, not to find out what it means--I think we all know pretty well what hypocrisy means--but to find other places that Jesus talks about hypocrites. They are essentially people who say or do one thing but mean something else. Here those who give to the poor (and they may give generously) are called hypocrites because they do it for a totally different reason. It is all a show of spirituality, but it is not genuine. Many people will give to the poor, but they thrive on the praise of people who perceive them to be generous and spiritual. Jesus was saying that if you give to the poor in order to receive this acclaim, then that is all the reward you will receive. Enjoy it.
Rewards. Sooner or later you will have to deal with the theme of “rewards” in the Bible. This is really difficult to get right. On the one hand the Bible warns people not to do these things for the praise and honor you would get from other people; and on the other hand it instructs people to run the race for the reward, like the laurels of an olympiad runner. There is nothing wrong with doing a righteous deed for the sake of receiving a reward, or praise, as long as the praise you seek is of God. On occasion people will say that true piety means doing something without any consideration of reward. That would have to be qualified, because when we are instructed in the Bible to do acts of righteousness there is always a mention of reward from the Father in heaven. There has to be a motivation for the righteous deeds, and at the bottom of all this discussion would be that our chief motivation is to please God. How will we know if we have pleased God? By His “Well done, good and faithful servant,” or what C. S. Lewis described as a divine pat on the back. Now this is very different than doing something so that others in the church will praise you or think more highly of you than they should.
In fact, in Matthew 6 right after these passages we are studying we have Jesus instruction to lay up treasures in heaven (6:19-21) because where the treasure is, there will the heart be. A study on the Bible’s teachings on rewards will lead you to think more of greater positions and responsibilities in the kingdom than simply physical possessions. In that kingdom the Lord will make everything right, and that will include revealing and rewarding all righteous acts. One gets the impression in studying all the relevant passages that in the world to come there will be a whole hierarchy of places of service and areas of responsibility based on faithfulness in this life.
So Jesus said that when you give to the poor, give to the poor. Do it in a way that is secret, without the public notice and acclaim, and without the poor knowing it was you who gave. Worry less about what people will think about you or what debt of gratitude they feel they owe you than what you should do for the poor. If you can get to the point of making your service to God the governing motivation, then earthly recognition will cease to matter. The trouble is that we are human; we all like to be thought well of, or recognized for what we do. But in the Christian world it is best to leave that recognition and reward up to God so that our giving may be righteous. And if you do something good and the church does not make a big fuss over you like they often do, do not worry, for if your work was for God it was noticed by Him and will be rewarded by Him.
The Text. This is the longest of the three sections because it includes the Lord’s Prayer. Verses 5-8 parallel the first section in structure: the case of praying with a warning not to pray like the hypocrites do (v. 5), instruction on spiritual prayer (v. 6), a second warning not to pray like the pagans (v. 7), and an explanation of spiritual prayer (v. 8).
The next section, verses 9-15, is the Lord’s Prayer. Because it seems to be an intrusion on the pattern of the passage, many biblical scholars conclude that it has been added here (by Matthew perhaps himself) from other teachings of Jesus on the subject of prayer. That is not impossible, or that problematic, as long as the suggestions make it clear that Jesus taught this prayer. But again, as I said before, there is not a whole lot of evidence for saying things like this. Luke 11 includes parts of the prayer in Jesus’ instruction on prayer to his disciples. But a good case can be made that many of the teachings of Jesus recorded in the Sermon would have been taught again and again in other places.
The section of the Lord’s Prayer includes the address to God and then six petitions, three for God’s glory and three for our needs. Then, after the prayer is finished, there are two verses explaining the request for forgiveness further.
The Case of Praying like the Hypocrites. Jesus said that the hypocrites love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others (Matt. 6:5). Here too the Lord was describing someone who may or may not be sincerely praying, but certainly wants everyone to know he prays. Jesus was not ruling out public prayer; rather, He was criticizing the motivation of the hypocrite. Once again the King was denouncing any religious act that is inspired by the opinions of people. And in denouncing them Jesus used sarcasm again: “They have their reward.”
Prayer is a spiritual matter between the one praying and God. To do it for show is to pervert what it is all about. So in verse 6 Jesus instructed to make it private by going into your room (not on the streets), and to keep it personal by praying to your Father (not to be seen by others). A good test to use would be this: if someone prays frequently in public, on stage, in front of gatherings, but not at home in private, then there is probably something wrong with the motive.
In another place Jesus took this a step further. He spoke of the Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray. He stood up “and prayed about (or, to) himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get’” (Luke 18:11,12). This one Jesus said would not be justified by God, for whoever exalts himself will be humbled. People like this have their reward in their public show. But God does not consider this to be righteous.
The Case of Praying like the Pagans. In Matthew 6:7 Jesus also referred to the pagan babblings in prayer which people used, and still use, thinking that they would be heard for their many words, or their repeated chanting of words or even non-sense syllables. Jesus was not speaking against long prayers or repetition in prayers, both of which can be found true of His own prayers. He was talking about the pagan attitudes to prayer, that is, that God can be manipulated or induced to act through the incantations and continuous sounds (like the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18). Even today folks fall into this mentality, thinking that making long and repetitious prayers will break through to God, or making continuous, non-sensical sounds will induce speaking in tongues or some other higher level of communication with God. This is all too much like pagan manipulation of the deity.
God does not require or honor such devices to break through to Him. Nor does He need endless detailed information. Jesus said to avoid these practices, or thinking that the longer prayers or additional muttering would “work.” Jesus said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Here you may want to correlate your study with other teachings on prayer in the New Testament. But you might decide to make it a separate study altogether, for it is huge. But start again with a Bible dictionary or a New Testament theology book (like Colin Brown) to see what passages and what discussions are involved in the subject on prayer. But one that might be germane here would be the advice to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:16-18). How would that teaching harmonize with Jesus’ warning not to think long repetitions prayers will break through to God. Well, we would have to say right off the bat that “pray without ceasing” is not meant to be taken slavishly literally--or you would do absolutely nothing in life but pray. But it is meant to be taken literally in the sense that prayer should be a continuous, never-ending discipline of the spiritual life. It should be like a natural reflex--every time the Christian encounters a need, a problem, a person in trouble, a situation in the world, prayer should be made. One preacher said it was like a hacking cough--you cough “all the time”--whenever the cough is stimulated in some way. Not a bad illustration. The point is that prayer should be the natural communication between the Christian and the Father in heaven--on every issue in life.
Instruction on Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer. It is here that we have the Lord’s prayer. The prayer has an opening address and then six requests, the first three requests are for God’s glory (primarily), and the next three for our good (and ultimately His glory).
The address, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” is clearly intended for us, the disciples and believers, for Jesus always called the Father “My Father” or “the Father” apart from this instruction on prayer. There is therefore a great difference in the use of the word “Father” for us, as opposed to the use by Jesus. When Jesus refers to “the Father,” or “My Father,” He can claim a special and unique relationship, for He shares the nature of the Father. When we use the word “Father,” it is a reminder that we have been brought into the family of God by adoption, and made joint-heirs with Christ, the true Son.
The address is interesting from a theological perspective as well. It refers to God as “Father.” And before one gets caught up in the modern attempt to make the language of the Bible unisex, one must determine what the word “father” meant in the Hebrew culture and in language in general. It clearly emphasizes the biblical teachings that God is the creator, the sovereign head of all creation, the provider of all life, the great benefactor, and the covenant-making God, to name a few of the connotations. The fact that Jesus taught us to address God this way has to be taken seriously. We all substitute words for God when we pray (Lord, Everlasting God, God of all comfort, and so on), and so that is not a problem. But some substitutions would be a problem if they give the wrong impression of God’s nature. This too is a big study, and should be worked through sometime.
But the balance with heaven and father is also interesting theologically. To address God as Father in heaven is to emphasize the transcendence of God. God is not of the earth earthly, or of our world physical. God is in heaven. Thus, “Father” is clearly an intended metaphor; God is not like any human father, but is perfect, heavenly, exalted. And yet, referring to God in heaven as “our Father” emphasizes that God is immanent as well. We are related to God; God is near and approachable. So if you wanted to study the theology that informs this prayer, you would have quite an involved (and rewarding) study.
The closing benediction used in the Lord’s prayer is generally considered a later addition to the text: “for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, amen.” This is not merely an assessment of literary criticism--the theory that this or that part must have been added, even though there is no evidence. Here there is evidence, for the benediction is not in the earliest or best Greek manuscripts. There is really nothing wrong with using it, though, for it comes from biblical benedictions in Revelation. The early church found that in using so many benedictions in their worship that it was appropriate to use one here as well.3
The first request is Hallowed be your name.” Here you will have to study two things: the meaning “holy” and the meaning of “name.” The background certainly must be the Old Testament, since when Jesus taught this that was the background--the Bible. A study will show that the word “holy” means “set apart, unique, distinct,” and that the word “name” referring to God means His character, His attributes, and not just a personal name (e.g., “his name shall be called, wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace). You can read in the resources on these two ideas (see possibly the recommended work edited by van Gemeren).
This request does not mean to pray that God would become holy; rather it means that one is to pray that his nature or reputation would be treated as holy (set apart) in the world. The primary way that this would be accomplished would be when the Lord fulfills the promises He has made and shows that His word good and His character trustworthy.
The background of this request seems to be in Ezekiel 36. There the word of the LORD said that the Israelites had profaned the name of the LORD everywhere they went. Now that they were in captivity, God’s word was in question, and His ability to save challenged. So the LORD declared that He would restore them to the land--not because they deserved it, but because His reputation was at stake--it would be “for His name’s sake” (something we often say in prayer). God will fulfill His promises in order to rescue His reputation. By sin people have interfered with God’s program; and the faith has been made to look ineffectual, and God, common. But God will not leave it there. So to pray “Hallowed be your name” is to pray that God will act to fulfill all His word so that everyone will know that he is different from everyone else, that He is the holy Lord God.
The second request is “Your kingdom come.” This request logically follows the previous, for when the kingdom fully comes God will be seen as the one whose word can be trusted. So this request ultimately looks forward to the consummation of the age.
It is true that the kingdom of our Lord has begun, and that all of us who are believers are already in the kingdom, and that the Lord Christ is seated on the right hand of the Majesty on High. And so we talk of the king, and extending the kingdom, and sing about how He reigns. But all of that is but the beginning, for the kingdom has not yet fully come. The Lord is not yet ruling over the whole world in righteousness and peace. Sin still abounds. And so the writer to the Hebrews explains that the fulfillment is yet to come (Heb. 1). There will come a time when the Father will say to the Son, “Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance” (Ps. 2). Then he will bring the Messiah into the world for the second time (Heb. 1:6), not then in shame and sacrifice, but in glory. So the prayer here is actually a request for the second coming, and all that will come with it.
The third request is “your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” It is a prayer that God would bring about His righteous demands in history as fully as they are realized in heaven. The simple fact is that God’s will is not being done on earth, apart from pockets of obedience here and there from time to time. We pray for, and eagerly look forward to, the time that Christ shall put down the last of the enemies. But until then we must endure a world where sin, and disease, and death reign.
Of course, praying such a prayer would remind us that we should be doing the will of God that we are praying for--otherwise it is hypocrisy. It is true of many prayers that those who pray become part of the answer to the prayer. This principle is true of all these first three requests. As we ask for major changes in the world for God’s glory, all the requests are actually applicable in this way for us. We as God’s people are to act in such a way as to hallow His name (ensure that God’s reputation is upheld in the way we live), submit to His rule (show all allegiance to Him) , and do His will (study His word to know and do the will of God).
The fourth request is “Give us this day our daily bread.” The last three requests are for the good of the people in the meantime, that is, while they await the consummation of the ages. The first request focuses on God’s meeting our daily needs (not greeds). The use of the word “bread” is, of course, a figure of speech, a synecdoche (a part for the whole), meaning the basic food we need.
So why do we need to pray this--when we have a steady income and there is always food in the house? Well, it is a humble request, designed to ensure that an attitude of faith and reliance on God will be kept in mind day by day. It is when we gain abundance so that we have far more than we ever need that we forget about depending on God each day for our livelihood. A good chapter to read in conjunction with this petition is Deuteronomy 8; it warns the people not to forget the Lord when they are settled, comfortable, and well off.
So this request is for God to provide our daily sustenance while we travel through this temporary life.
The fifth request is “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This and the next request are linked by conjunctions, as if to say the daily bread is not enough--after all, one does not live by bread alone. So we have connected to the fourth request the prayer “and forgive us . . . .”
This petition recognizes that everyone of us owes a debt to God for sin and its consequences, and that it is essential for all of that to be forgiven. There is not a day, or an hour, that goes by in which we do not sin in some way. And while we may claim to be redeemed and forgiven by the blood of Christ, we still must maintain a spiritual relationship with the Lord for service and for fellowship. So it is absolutely essential that we regularly pray for forgiveness.
But Jesus adds a clause to this petition that should give us all pause: “as we forgive our debtors.” We have to have an attitude that makes forgiveness possible. To forgive others is the natural response of one who knows and understands forgiveness; to refuse to forgive others does not. One who does not forgive others has an arrogant attitude, which is not representative of someone who acknowledges the need for forgiveness we all share. It is like playing God. Jesus seems to be saying that there is no forgiveness for one who is unforgiving--that person is self-righteous and apparently does not exhibit a need for forgiveness. But when we ask the Lord to forgive us, we should be so thankful for his forgiveness that we share in that spirit in our dealings with other people.
This request, then, is concerned with our inter-relationships, with our community life as confessing believers. Jesus further explains it in verses 14 and 15, which indicates how seriously He intended us to take forgiving each other. But we must admit that we surely do fail in this area. None of us would want God to forgive us the way that we in the church forgive one another. But our asking God for forgiveness should make us think again of how we forgive others.
The last request is concerned with our conflict with evil: “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The traditional translation uses the word “temptation,” and this is still in use today in a lot of services. The idea seems not to be “temptation” in the immediate sense, for the Bible says that God does not tempt anyone to evil. So that would be an unnecessary prayer. It probably should have as its primary rendering “lead us not into testing/trial.” And yet, “temptation” is not totally unrelated to this meaning. The use here may combine the two English ideas in some way. If we pray that God lead us not into testing, we would be praying that He not do something that Scripture says that He frequently does. A good illustration (there are many in the Old Testament) is in the wilderness, such as in Exodus 15, where the LORD led the people to bitter water to test them. There they murmured against the LORD, a sin. God led them to the test; but it was their response to the test that was sinful. So there is a fine line between the two. But no one can say God made me sin, or led me into temptation; but we can say that God puts us into situations to prove our faith.
Jesus is probably intending for us to pray that God not lead us into a place of trials that would be so severe to bring about a fall into sin. The final clause shows that the ultimate desire is victory over evil in this world: “deliver us from evil,” or more likely, “the evil one.” Satan often awaits in the times of trial for his opportunity, and to fail to demonstrate faith in a time of testing would be to succumb to the evil one. But the focus of the prayer is for spiritual victory over all evil in the world.
The added benediction (not included in many modern translations) was probably based on the Trinitarian nature of these three requests: the Father provides the bread, the Son provides forgiveness through atonement, and the Spirit leads us to victory over evil.
The Text. The third section now concerns fasting. The pattern is picked up again with a warning first of what not to do (v. 16), then the instruction of what to do and the promised reward (v. 17).
Fasting. Jesus here criticized the hypocritical acts of disfiguring the face for a public show--to be seen by others as one who fasts and therefore who must be spiritual (6:16). This is perhaps the biggest hypocrisy, because fasting was a sign of humility before God, not an occasion for self-promotion.
Fasting had a distinct purpose in Israel. It was a way of saying “no” to the physical and material needs of the body, so that all the attention could be given to spiritual matters. It was a way of saying that this time of prayer, or this time of repentance, is the most important thing in life. The Law commanded Israel to fast at the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29-31; 23:27-32; Num. 29:7); and after the exile other fasts were added (see Zech. 7:3; 8:19). But people could fast and pray anytime there was a need (see Jon. 3, for example). Private fasting could be engaged at any time that some special petition was offered. Jesus Himself was in the wilderness for forty days, fasting and praying.
In the Old Testament the hypocritical fast was rebuked (Isa. 58:3-7; Jer. 14:12; and Zech. 7:5-6). To proclaim a fast without any concern for changing the life as a whole missed the point. People cannot think that by fasting for one day, or for one month (as in lent), they have put things back into balance. The fasting is supposed to have a lasting impact for righteousness. Fasting is not common in a lot of churches today, which is perhaps a pity, for if it were understood and done correctly it would be most beneficial spiritually. But in much common and popular thinking it is a bit of a sham. Certainly excess revelry and debauchery prior to a time of fasting is a pagan corruption of the whole idea.
Apparently from what we read from that first century setting there were Pharisees who adopted a somber, downcast disposition (Matt 6:16-18), perhaps not washing off the ashes or using cleansing oils for a time. Their purpose was to convey to others that they were deeply pious--this was worthless to God.
Jesus said that when we fast we should wash our faces and anoint with the ordinary oils we use, so that people will not see we are fasting. Only God will see, and He will reward the act as a righteous act.
There is little reason now to reiterate all that has been said point by point. The lesson is very clear. And it is painful. How much of our religious conduct is regulated by the opinions and approval of other people? Probably the vast majority of us are influence more by what other people think than by what God Almighty thinks! And that is truly perverse thinking, even though somewhat understandable since we are more aware of what people think. But that is exactly the problem, isn’t it? We should become more and more aware of what God thinks of what we do.
It is not our task to appear to be righteous before other people. Rather, it is our task to be well pleasing to the King. That is the ethic of the sermon. But if we choose to be pleasing to people, then whatever enjoyment we derive from that will be all the reward there is. But what we do to please God, even if we go largely unknown in it, will be praised and rewarded in the courts of heaven.
This is why the Lord’s Prayer is such an important part of this passage. In praying such a prayer we are seeking to know and do the will of the Father in heaven. With that theme as our daily prayer, our understanding of and motivation for praying, and fasting, and giving to the poor, will reach a higher level. But it will be a constant struggle within ourselves, and with the expectation of the people around us whose inclination is all too human.
1 A. Buchler, “St. Matthew vi 1-6 and Other Allied Passages,” Journal of Theological Studies 10 (1909):266-270.
2 D. A. Spieler, “Hypocrisy: An Exploration of a Third Type,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 13 (1975):273-279.
3 Some might argue that if here there is manuscript evidence for a verse being added later, then theoretically it could have happened in many other places as well and that we just lack the primary evidence. That is not the way exegesis works (the study of the text that leads the interpretation out of the text rather than read ideas into it). But the fact is that there is not a shred of evidence for the major changes many critics want to make, especially in suggesting that all of the book came from a later period in the early church.
After Jesus finished His great discourse on the mount, He came down and large crowds followed Him everywhere. The message that He had just delivered would have been enough to gain such a following; but the fact that He spoke and acted with perfect authority commanded attention. And so in the next few chapters Matthew has presented us with case after case of events in which Jesus demonstrated His authority, authority over disease, authority over nature, authority over demons, authority over sin and authority over death. These were the credentials of the King. They show that He could realize a victory as well as project a vision.
It is helpful in Bible study to try to determine why the material has been arranged in the way that it has--what is Matthew saying with these accounts, arranged as they are? Here, in chapters 8 and 9 of his Gospel we have nine manifestations of Christ’s power. And these are arranged nicely into three groups of three events each. After each set of three wonders there is an immediate effect. The first three miracles were the cleansing of the leper, the healing of the centurion’s servant, and the restoration to health of Peter’s mother-in-law. Immediately after that a man said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever You go,” to which Jesus replied with a teaching on the cost of discipleship.
Then moving beyond the realm of the physical we have three events where Jesus showed His authority over the elements by stilling the storm, over the spirit world by casting out demons, and over sin by healing the paralytic. Immediately after these three the response was that people were afraid and glorified God.
Then we have the third group, miracles in what seemed impossible difficulties: raising the child from the dead, the healing of the woman who touched Him, and the healing of the blind man. After these things the multitudes marveled.
In the first part of Matthew 8 there was the first set of three events. The first case is of a man with leprosy. The four verses give us the brief report of how a man with the dreaded disease came to Jesus to be made clean. This miracle demonstrates not only that Jesus could heal, but that in so doing He was fulfilling the Law. The Law declared that the leper was unclean, and could only bar him from the holy place; Jesus could satisfy the Law by making him clean and sending him to the priest for reinstatement into sanctuary worship.
The second case in the chapter is our passage in which the centurion came to Jesus on behalf of his paralyzed servant. Here the emphasis in the story is on the power of the word of the Lord, that by His command He was able to heal the sick. And here we have a brief lesson by Jesus on faith. The fact that this faith was demonstrated by a Gentile and not a Jew has a sense of foreboding about it in the Gospel of Matthew.
The third case (vv. 14-17) is the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, probably of malaria. With a simple touch now he healed her. Then Matthew records how many demon-possessed and sick people were brought to Him for healing. This He did with a word. Then the evangelist quotes Isaiah 53:4 that the Suffering Servant would take our infirmities away.
Matthew is clearly using these three cases to support the message that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Servant of the LORD who would take away their illnesses and diseases. The point of Isaiah 53 is that this deliverance from infirmities and illness is to be accomplished by His death as the sin-bearer, when He would take the sins of the world on Himself. Matthew will show that this would be at the cross. In taking care of the sin problem Jesus the Messiah would also be taking care of the effects of sin, disease and death. Jesus fully understood that all of mankind’s disability that He corrected were the outcome of sin_ftn1.1 And so it was based on the power of the cross that He healed this leper, this servant, this woman, and countless scores of others, all prior to the actual historic accomplishment of the atoning death on the cross which was the basis for these healings.2 By doing these things Jesus drew attention to Himself as the Messiah who had come to restore a lost order to what God had originally intended. So it is in that light that we read how He made people whole.
We also see in these events the humility and the compassion of the Lord. He did not stay on the mountain making declarations. He did not go immediately to enter the holy city. He began to deal with human need at its lowest level--leprosy, paralysis, and fever, in individuals who were suffering. And all these events were in response to appeals that the afflicted made. Jesus responded willingly to them, and personally. First, he touched a leper, an outcast, whom no one would dare touch. But Jesus’ touch made him clean and fit for the temple. Then He healed the servant of a hated Roman, with whom there would be no communication. Then he touched a woman, who in the opinion of many people, did not count. This, then, is the picture that begins to emerge of the Suffering Servant in the Gospel of Matthew. He did not hesitate for one moment to take hold of sin and all its effects as He showed compassion for these poor suffering outcasts. At first the people were shocked, and afraid; but then they began to bring people to Him to be healed. His power to deal with sin and its effects was revealed through His compassion.
5When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, asking for help. 6“Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”
7Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
8The centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But speak the word only, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10When Jesus heard this He was astonished and said to those following Him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11I say to you that many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
The story is also told in the Gospel of Luke (7:1-10) with some additional information. Luke says that the centurion sent word to Jesus through Jewish spokesmen, which would make sense if he was sensitive to Jewish-Roman relationships and also if there was a language barrier. The Jewish elders appealed to Jesus to help him because, they said, he was very deserving, he loved Israel, and had even built them a synagogue. Then, when Jesus drew near the house, the centurion, again with representatives, appealed for Jesus to speak the word only because he was not worthy for Jesus to enter his house. The centurion could have been there in person but speaking through his spokesman. So Luke focuses more on the details of the centurion and the way he communicated with Christ; Matthew simply records the request from the centurion and focuses more on Jesus’ teaching about faith and about Gentiles in the kingdom.
So here we have the report of a miracle with a teaching. There are a number of these in the Bible so we have to determine what unique things are found here that set this passage apart. The occasion is certainly unique, because the request is made by a Roman soldier on behalf of his servant. The study will have to deal with the impact of this in the Gospel.
The focus in the story, judging from the centurion’s speech, is on the authority of the spoken word. Here was a man who understood the power of authoritative commands, and who recognized that Jesus had that power.
And this prompted Jesus to express His amazement at the faith of this man, a faith unequaled in Israel.
So while we have a story about a healing, these three elements will play a big part in the interpretation. But of the three, the most important is the authority of the spoken word, because the other two elements play off of it. This will be the subject matter then.
As far as the structure of the passage goes, it is easy to follow. It is mostly made up of conversation and speeches. In verses 5-7 we have the initial request: the centurion appeals to Jesus on behalf of his servant, and Jesus immediately responded to go and heal him. But this is interrupted by the centurion who expresses his unworthiness and asks for Jesus to speak the word only (vv. 8,9). That faith is then appraised by Jesus in a short teaching on faith and on Gentiles in the kingdom (vv. 10-12). Finally, we have the spoken word and the healing (v. 13). So the structure is:
(A) the initial request for healing,
(B) the appeal for the authoritative word only,
(B’) the response to this appeal by Jesus, and
(A’) the healing.
At the outset we need to make sure we know the facts about the setting, and then the significance of those facts. The story takes place in Capernaum, the town that Jesus made his “base of operations.” Capernaum was a good-sized place on the shores of the lake, a natural site for fishing, which is why Peter had his home there (and perhaps Jesus stayed with him). But Capernaum was also on the main road, the road that led from Damascus in the north down past the lake at Capernaum, through the hills and passes to the Jezreel Valley, and then over to the coast through more mountain passes to connect with the coastal highway to Egypt. It was a main thoroughfare for caravans, traders, and military. Since Capernaum was a significant city on the main highway, it had a military presence there, hence, the centurion. A centurion was, as the name suggests, a military officer over a hundred men. That would mean there was a sizeable military unit stationed at Capernaum.
Capernaum was also the home of Levi, called Matthew, the tax collector (Matt. 9:9-13). There would be tax collectors in such a town, backed up by Roman soldiers, to collect taxes and tariffs from both the locals and from the traders passing through the region. Neither the Romans or the tax collectors would have been accepted by the Jewish population.
Matthew does not make a point out of this Roman’s character, but Luke does (so we have to be careful not to play up the hatred of the Romans too much here). This was a man who loved Israel and built the people of the city a synagogue. This would happen more easily in Galilee, where people were somewhat used to having Gentiles around, than in Jerusalem where separation from Gentiles was pursued with greater zeal.
But the significance of this setting is not diminished by the goodness of this Roman. Jesus had just healed the leper, an outcast. Now he turned to the servant of a Roman, a non-Jew. Jesus was declaring that He came to seek and to save the lost, those who had no hope, those who were the outcasts, those who had nowhere else to turn. And in turning to this Roman and his servant’s need Jesus saw a marked contrast between his faith and the faith that He has seen in Israel.
This emphasis on championing the needs of the outcast or downtrodden was always present in the Old Testament as evidence of genuine righteousness, and certainly the top priority of a righteous king--but many of the “pious” Jews had different criteria for their expected Messiah. Psalm 72, for one example, says of the anointed king (looking forward to the Messiah): “He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy, and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in His sight” (vv. 12-14). To this passage we could add prophecies that say the Messiah will take away all illnesses and infirmities, and passages that say He will vindicate the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in the land. Jesus wasted no time in His ministry in demonstrating that He came to fulfill these, and more.
The initial request (8:5-7). There is not a whole lot more that needs to be said about these verses. The goodness of the man that Luke explains is clearly shown in this passage too in that he, a centurion, was appealing to Jesus on behalf of his servant who was paralyzed and suffering. Either this was a wonderful, irreplaceable servant, or the centurion was a kind and responsible master--or both. But his request speaks of his humility, first for coming on behalf of a servant, and second, coming to a Jew as a Roman commander. But there was a need, and so he came asking for help.
By the way, the point can be made here that as the story unfolds we learn that the servant was healed, but also that the centurion who exhibited great faith was healed, spiritually. Jesus’ little teaching implies that this centurion will be one of the Gentiles who will come and sit down in the kingdom of heaven.
Verse 7 records Jesus’ response: “I will go and heal him.” There are two things about this statement that are worth thinking about. First is Jesus’ willingness to go. This willingness was first introduced in the story in 8:1-4. Here he is willing to go again--but now into a Gentile’s home. The second thing to note is the confidence that Jesus has: “I will go and heal him.” It will happen, no doubt about it.
The centurion’s speech (8:8, 9). If we look at the sentences in this section we find a statement, a request, and an explanation of the request. The statement is that he is not worthy for Jesus to come into his house. Perhaps several things informed this statement: he was a non-Jew, he was a Roman soldier, and he was inferior to Jesus. He certainly recognized that he was in the presence of someone who was much more than a prophet. He had heard of this man’s power and authority, and so turned to Him for help.
So his request was that Jesus would speak the word only. Jesus did not have to come and see the sick man. He did not have to lay hands on him. He simply had to speak. This indicates the centurion’s tremendous faith, but it is only a tremendous faith because he considered the object of his faith powerful. He believed tat Jesus had so much power and authority that His word would be sufficient for the healing.
It would be interesting here, or along the way in such a Bible study, to look at the passages where Jesus did mighty works simply by the spoken word--healings, exorcisms, resurrections, calming storms and the like. From there the study would turn to authoritative things that Jesus said that would be fulfilled after death or in the future, things like “Today you shall be with me in paradise,” or, “Depart from me” and the like. You cannot take too much time here doing this, because it will be a very large subject. But a brief listing could be a helpful correlation.
Then we have his explanation. The centurion was in the military. He was a man under authority. He gave commands and people obeyed, because he had authority to do that. He was given commands by his superiors, and he obeyed them because he recognized authority. Because he was under authority he was able to exercise authority over others. And so he was saying that this was true of Jesus as well. Because Jesus was under authority, He was able to exercise authority. It had been given to Him. But His authority was far greater than the centurion’s authority. The centurion commanded men to do things physically possible, and had the authority to make them do it (with threats of punishment or discipline). But Jesus had the authority to command things physically impossible, things beyond human capacity, diseases, demons, dead people, and the like. And the only reason that there was a response to His commands was because His word was efficacious in and of itself. Thus, in the Bible this is one of the basic attributes of deity--it is God who commands light to shine in the darkness; and it is God who commands the blind to see and the lame to walk and the deaf to hear. As people said, “No one could do these things unless God were with Him.” But as Matthew unfolds the Gospel it will be clearer and clearer that this was God with them.
Jesus’ Response (8:10-12). Jesus first praised his faith, and then predicted that Gentiles would take the place of many Jews in the kingdom. The praise is: “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” In His travels in the land, in His public ministry, Jesus saw every kind of response. But this one was the greatest demonstration of faith He had seen, greater than any Israelite’s faith so far.
Here it will be helpful for you to try to study the word “faith” a bit. It will not be that important in this particular story to spend a great deal of time on it. But you need to be able to define faith, for Jesus is praising it here, and saying many in Israel did not have it. A good word study book or theological dictionary will give you enough ideas to work with. Faith is the confidence or reliance one places on the object of faith; it apprehends the facts, it assents to their truth, and it acts accordingly. Here the centurion had a certain amount of information about Jesus, he accepted that it was true, and he acted in confidence on it. It is also worth emphasizing that strong faith in the Lord also comes from great humility, from one who depends on the Lord for that which he cannot do for himself. Those who are self-sufficient seldom have the opportunity to develop faith like this.
But Jesus said He had not seen such great faith in Israel. No, what He saw very often were self-righteous and self-sufficient people, or people demanding a sign from Him to prove what He had said, or people following Him for a while and then leaving when His sayings became too difficult. Even His disciples who believed in Him exhibited a weak faith when threatened by the storms and challenges of life. But they continued to follow Him, which in itself is a sign of growing faith.
What was it that Jesus found so amazing about this man’s faith? Perhaps it was the simple acceptance of Christ as the sovereign commander of life and all its aspects. Or perhaps it was the fact that it was so intelligent, so well reasoned and logical. Or in the final analysis, it may be that he simply accepted the fact that Jesus had authority. The majority of Jews did not accept that Jesus had authority over life and death, that He came in the full power of God. But this man apparently did.
Because of the difference in the faith of this man and the Jews, Jesus took the opportunity to prophesy that many Jews--”subjects of the kingdom” He called them, would be cast out when people from all over the world would enter the kingdom and sit down with the greats. John started his gospel by telling us that Jesus came to His own, but His own received Him not, but to as many as received Him He gave the right to be called the sons of God. Jesus foresaw this dark side of Israel’s unbelief and already announced that because some would not come to Him with this kind of faith there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth--pictures of the great anguish of judgment. The Bible will make it clear that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that faith now must be in His Son (Heb. 1 and 11).
The healing (8:13). The declaration was clear in the light of this man’s faith: “It will be done just as you believed it would.” This is a basic principle of faith in the first century--as you believe, so will it be. But here Jesus recognized the faith of this man, and honored his request by healing his servant. And He was pleased to do it in a way that demonstrated to all who were there, and to us, that He has this authority even over disease.
I have already said enough to tip you off about thinking about the authoritative word of the Lord. But there is another area of biblical material that has to be connected to all such healing passages, and that is the reason for illness in the world and the promise to remove it. Matthew 9 will afford a better chance to discuss the reasons; but here we may consider the plan of God for sickness and disease. As has already been mentioned, the Old Testament prophecies, especially Isaiah, and the New Testament visions of the world to come, have no place for sickness and sorrow and death. The Bible foretells that the Lord will wipe away all tears, destroy death and disease for all time, and make all things well (either through the resurrection of the dead or the glorification of the saints who are alive and caught up to be with the Lord).
So if you read a bit in the theology books on that subject you will soon have a collection of ideas and biblical passages to work with. Then, when you look at individual studies like this one, you can fit it into the picture. Jesus did not heal everyone on earth, and is not healing everyone now (Paul, remember, did not have the thorn in the flesh removed), because it is not yet the time to do that. Jesus first had to deal with the question of sin before He would make all things well. But in doing these selected mighty works Jesus was showing that He indeed is the promised Messiah who is able to do these things, and will do all that Messiah is to do when He comes again.
There has been enough discussion already on the theme of this little passage that it does not have to be repeated at length here. Matthew records this event to show that the King has authority over disease, and that by His powerful word He is able to heal. Matthew is also showing that the healing is a response to the man’s faith, a faith that was not shared by many in Israel.
I think there are a number of applications or lessons that you could make from this story if you rethink the details. The obvious one would be that if you have an infirmity, or if you have a friend or relative who is ill, prayer to the Lord is a vital expression of the faith and a means to restoration to health. The passage shows that Jesus has authority over these things. And so as a believer you may pray to the Lord in confidence and in simplicity, “Speak the word only” and I/he/she/they will be healed. In connection with this you would then tie in other passages in the New Testament that talk about praying for the sick (like James 5:13-18).
But remember that this passage is a narrative; it records something that Jesus did upon an occasion. We call that a “descriptive” passage because it reports what he did for the centurion’s servant. The lesson here reveals that Jesus can do this kind of thing. It does not teach that Jesus always will do it. For specific promises to believers you need to connect passages in the epistles. And there we find that God may not heal in the way we ask or at the time we ask; he may, but we cannot presume. Paul was told, “No. My grace is sufficient.” So we learn to pray as Jesus did, adding to our petition “Nevertheless, thy will be done.” This is not a cop-out for when prayer doesn’t seem to “work.” We can still pray with perseverance and confidence for Him to heal. But it acknowledges that the Lord is sovereign, and if it is His will to heal the one we pray for, He will heal that person. If it were not this way, then the whole process would be mechanical and predictable and require no faith at all.
A second, related application, then, would be instruction on how to build this kind of faith. The story does not explain how to do this--it says he had more faith than the many Israelites Jesus had seen. So you would want to gather a few instructions on how faith is to grow. Here you would have to consider the teaching of the Bible as a whole on how to develop this kind of trust. Ideally, faith is best taught in a believing home from the very beginning (see, for example, David’s experience in Ps. 22:9,10; and 2 Tim. 3:15). And that gives us a paradigm--if you come to the faith as an adult, you have to start as a child. This means first beginning to learn about the Lord from the word of God (for faith will only be as strong its knowledge of the object of the faith), and second seeing the life of faith modeled or lived out by genuine believers. The more you are in the word of God, and the more you fellowship with believers who have learned to put their faith into action through prayer and praise, the faster you grow in the faith. And as you grow you begin to pray and see the Lord work in your life; and in the process you build even more confidence in the Lord.
Some people have a greater capacity for belief (like this centurion whose role in life led him to it quickly), and some have tremendous hurdles to believing (they have known only broken trust in their childhood or their relationships and find believing difficult). But whatever your experience, you must see developing faith as a process in the Christian life. Developing a strong faith usually involves all that is connected with spiritual growth in the word of God, by the power of the Spirit of God, under the influence of the saints of God, and through a personal relationship through prayer with God.
1 This is not to say that the leprosy in the man, or the paralysis in the servant, or the fever in the woman was directly caused by some sin. They could have been, but we are not told that. But in general, all sickness and death is a result of sin in the world, and so often we find Jesus addressing the cause when dealing with the effect.
2 Somewhere in these studies it would be good for you to read about the effect of the death of Jesus, that is, what all it accomplished. Christians often think of it as basically paying for sins. And while that is certainly true, it is not complete. What Jesus paid for on the cross was all the sin of the world and all its effects. Because of His perfect sacrifice He made reparation for all the damages that sin has brought (Isa. 53:10). When He paid for our sin, He also made it possible for us to be whole.
One of the best known stories in the Gospels is that of Jesus’ calming the storm on the lake. Just from a simple reading of the few verses we would rightly conclude that the account demonstrates Jesus’ authority over the elements of nature, and, the disciples weak faith for being afraid. The story comes in a series of reports about Jesus’ authority in various areas—sickness, demons, death, and sin. It provides another significant part to the portrayal of the King: He is not just a king over the people of Israel; rather, He is king over all nature as well.
The story is placed here in chapter 8 no doubt to be a part of this demonstration of Jesus’ authority. Chronologically, though, it has to come later in Jesus’ ministry, probably in the fall of the second year of his ministry (fall of 31 A.D.). The reason for this is the account of the calling of Matthew is reported in Matthew 9:9, but it would have to have been before these events on and around the sea for the simple reason that Matthew was there. But a rearrangement of the order of the stories by Matthew for rhetorical or theological purposes is not a problem.
But there are a couple of apparent difficulties that you would have to deal with in studying this passage. You would discover them right away when you read the account in the three synoptic1_ftn1 gospels: Matthew 8:23-27 of course; Mark 4:37-41; and Luke 8:23-25.
The first one is that Matthew says that the disciples cried out to Jesus “Lord, save us. We’re going to drown.” Mark says that the disciples said, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Luke says that they said, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown.” Now this apparent “discrepancy” as it is often called affords us a good opportunity to understand the synoptic gospels. Some scholars try to analyze the stories to determine which of these things the disciples really said, and how the report got “muddled” by one or more of the gospel writers. But that is a stilted bookish view and totally unrealistic. The disciples said all these things and probably more as well. Think about it. We have a sudden storm in the middle of the lake; the little fishing boat is about to go down; and the group of disciples are thrown into a panic, yelling all kinds of things. Do we think they huddled, decided on a precise wording to use in their approach to waking Jesus, and then in unison or by representative said their one sentence? Of course not. So, taking the three gospels together we get a wonderful reflection of their fear and the chaos in the boat. Matthew remembers one thing that was said and records that. Mark, who relied on Peter’s report, recorded another. Luke, who did research in writing his gospel, traced the memory of something else that was said. They are not contradictory statements; they are not discrepancies. Each gospel writer includes some of the things that happened there in the boat.
Similarly, but a little more problematic, Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples is stated differently in the gospels. Matthew says that Jesus said to them, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Mark says, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Luke simply says, “Where is your faith?” This is a little different because they are all reporting what Jesus said, not what different people said. But remember, in reporting the event the gospel writers are not working from a dictated record; rather, they are all telling what happened and what was said in their own words._ftn22 And while the precise wording is different in each gospel, none of them are incorrect. Jesus rebuked the disciples for their weak faith. Luke simply summarized it in a question to capture the essence of the rebuke. Both Matthew and Mark included Jesus’ question about their being afraid. But Matthew used a word that means “of little faith” while Mark says “do you still have no faith?” Mark did not mean to imply that the disciples had no faith at all--he has already described their following Jesus. And so his wording is meant to convey that the disciples did not have enough faith. He is saying essentially the same thing that Matthew said.
When you compare stories in these three gospels, remember that the writers have the freedom to summarize the speeches or to put the sayings in their own words. When the sayings were particularly important teachings, or teachings that were repeated frequently, then they might put more of the exact phrasing in their gospel reports. And sometimes they can summarize a saying by putting it into a question when it was an assertion, or by making it negative when it was positive--they are trying to capture what was said, but capture it in a way their individual audiences would best understand it.
A simple illustration. One day in teaching class I was instructing students about the form of their homework assignment. I told them very specifically to write their work on only one side of the paper. One student asked another, “What did he say?” And the answer was, “He said, ‘don’t write on the back’.” Well, if we were looking for a dictated or recorded transcript, that is not what I said. But that is certainly what I meant, put in other words that the fellow student would understand better (he was not in the habit of listening well).
So when you come upon apparent discrepancies in the narratives (and some interpreters like to exploit these as errors), remember that the writers have a certain amount of freedom to put things in their own words, or to summarize, or to select only parts of the event for their book. But be careful: they are not making things up to embellish the account.
23 Then He got into the boat and His disciples followed Him. 24 Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us, we’re going to drown!”
26 He replied, “You of little faith! Why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him!”
In addition to the items mentioned above, Mark adds some more information. It was in the evening (4:35); Jesus said, “Let us pass over to the other side” (4:35); there were other boats that went along side (4:36); Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion (4:38); when Jesus rebuked the storm He said, “Peace! Be still!” (4:39); and the disciples were terrified (4:41) and asked “Who is this?” (4:41).
Luke says that “one day” Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake” (8:22); He fell asleep (8:23); and when the storm came up they were in great danger (8:23). The other changes are small variations of the wording.
So with all three accounts we have a full picture of what took place. It is helpful to keep that in the back of your mind. But as you are studying Matthew’s account, only the points that Matthew makes should be your basic Bible study, because you are studying the passage in the way he wrote it in his gospel.
It is helpful also to get all the facts straight in the event before looking at the point of the story in the passage. We are dealing with a sudden storm on the Sea of Galilee. This sea, or better “lake,” is in the north of the land of Israel; it is the only fresh water lake in the land, and so a great place for fishing. The fishing villages of Capernaum and Bethsaida so frequently mentioned in the gospels were on the north west and north shores of the lake.
The lake is about seven miles across at its widest (it is shaped like a harp, which is what it is called in Hebrew: Kinnereth). At its deepest it is about 160 feet deep, depending on the fluctuation over the years. And the surface of the lake is about 600 feet below sea level. In our story Jesus must have gotten into the boat in the region of Capernaum, on the north west shore, because He got out of the boat “on the other side” near Kursi (on the eastern shore about half way down the coast).
Now as for the sudden storms, these are fairly frequent. I myself was ready to take a group out on the lake in a boat but we had to cancel because there were fifteen foot waves on the other side. The lake is in the famous rift valley, a natural fault line that runs from this region in the north down the Jordan River Valley to the Dead Sea and in fact all the way to Africa. Mount Hermon to the north is over 9,000 feet high, and the Dead Sea is about 1250 feet below sea level. That means the valley drops sharply to the desert region in such a short distance. Hot air can come up this valley quite suddenly and collide with the cooler air from Mount Hermon in the north of the valley, causing sudden storms on the lake.
All this kind of material you can gather from a good dictionary. But you can also gain a great appreciation for things like distances, temperatures, altitudes, and such by actually taking a good trip to the land of Israel.
Now the boat would not be a large one. In fact, archaeologists found a first century fishing boat of this kind a few years ago. The year was dry, and as the water of the lake was down they were able to see parts of a boat buried in the mud along the shore south of Capernaum--in the mud for 2,000 years! Over the next several years they treated and preserved it. It is now on display in a lovely new museum there on the shores of the lake at Genneseret. It is not large, but you could get twelve or so men into the boat fairly easily, but not a whole lot more. It is easy to see how these men--some of them seasoned fishermen--would have been terrified in a storm in a boat like that.
Structure. This little passage is rather straightforward in its structure. There are three parts, based on the three things that were said. The first part is the storm on the sea and the disciples words to Jesus. The second section is Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples and then the calming of the storm. The third is the disciples’ amazement and their words about Jesus.
Contrasts. The story can also be looked at from the perspective of contrasts. The storm is contrasted with the calm after the miracle. The disciples fear and panic is contrasted with Jesus’ sleeping on the boat. Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples is contrasted with Jesus’ rebuke of the storm. And if we can go into the next story, the disciples’ question about who this one is will be contrasted with the demons who knew exactly who He is.
And the contrasts in this passage reflect the conflicts in the gospel itself, for Matthew likes to contrast Jesus with the limitations of ordinary people. Jesus was tempted, like a man, but rebuked Satan (Matt. 4). Jesus was accused of having a demon, but He cast out demons (Matt. 12). And here Jesus is tired and sleeping, but He has control over nature (Matt. 8).
Jesus’ Words. It is always good to pay close attention to the exact words of Jesus in a passage. We have already noted how the speeches give us the meaning of the flow of the story. And that is certainly true here, for without the speeches we have a storm, the disciples’ panic, Jesus’ calming the storm, and the disciples’ amazement. But add the speeches and we see that Jesus calmed the storm at their request for help, but before He did it He rebuked them for their weak faith. Afterward their amazement is on who this one is. In a way, their request for Him to save them already had answered who this one was.
In between their request and their amazement is Jesus’ rebuke of their weak faith. That will be a primary focus of the study. It will indicate that Jesus did the miracle not only to authenticate His claims, but also to build their faith.
The text is brief, and we have already noted several things about it, so this part of the study should be brief as well. But if we work through the passage now, section by section, we may observe certain things that help us gain the message.
I. The disciples ask the Lord to save them in the storm (23, 24). We have already discussed the boat and the storm so that we do not need to reiterate that now. Here we can simply note that it was Jesus who got into the boat (to escape the crowds) and the disciples followed Him. I would not make too much of their following Him (some folks make a spiritual point out of some common statements), because the word is used even for the crowds of unbelievers who followed Him where He went. Here it simply reports that they went with Him in the boat.
When the storm came up, He was asleep, but they were in a panic. The other accounts describe their fear more than Matthew, but you can hear it in their words to Jesus in Matthew’s account as well: “We’re going to drown.” A number of these men were experienced fishermen, who had been on the lake in storms before. But here they were afraid. This indicates the severity of this storm.
Jesus’ sleep is significant to consider for a moment. Here we have a very human characteristic. He was exhausted from His ministry with the crowds, and so in the boat He was asleep during the storm. It is a reminder that Jesus was truly human.
Their words are interesting: “Lord, save us.” In their experience this was a simple and urgent request. They did not want to drown. But as is often the case in the gospels, words like this are retained in the Christian community with added meaning. Kyrie soson, “Lord, save,” became a part of the liturgical language of the church. It is the basic cry to the Lord for help by a needy people.
II. Jesus calmed the storm to encourage their faith (v. 26). The first thing that Jesus did in response to their request was to rebuke their weak faith: “O you of little faith, why are you afraid?” They were right to ask Jesus to save them--and their request shows that they had faith that He could save them. But it was their fear that betrayed the weakness of their faith. They were in a panic when they came to Him, not in confidence. He did not rebuke them for waking Him to ask Him to save them, but for waking Him in fear. They had been with Jesus for over a year now (judging from the chronology); they should have had more confidence after hearing all His teachings and seeing all the miracles He did (“little faith” is also used in 6:30; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20; and Luke 12:28). But, the circumstances of the storm on the sea terrified them and they thought they were going to drown—even though in their presence was the Son of Man. Hence, the question, “Why are you afraid?” It is a rhetorical question not meant to be answered, but meant to tell them that since He was there they had nothing to fear.
Then, after this Jesus rebuked the winds and the waves and they became calm. Here we see the power of His word over nature. He had already done miracles by His powerful word, and now here He did another over the storm. Of course, some of the more liberal writers would say it was simply a coincidence that the sudden storm would also have a quick ending, and Jesus, knowing that, rebuked it at the right moment. But that does not make much sense, for these seasoned sailors thought they were going to drown right up to the moment that Jesus calmed the storm. Surely they could have seen a sudden calm too if that had been the case. This is a miracle by Christ, demonstrating His power over the storm.
The use of the word “rebuke” is interesting and deserves some study. It is used usually against things that ought not to be, such as the weak faith of the disciples. But it gives us also a clue that the storm, although only a storm, is a symptom of something else about nature.
Now Jesus is revealed in His power. He might truly be a man, but He is also clearly the “Son of Man” (see Matt. 16:21-23; based on Daniel 7:13-14). This was the Messiah, the one everyone believed would be the Lord of all the earth.
The effect of Jesus’ powerful command was to calm the storm on the sea, but also to calm their fears. By taking care of the troubling circumstances of life Jesus was able to take away their fears and build their faith in Him. He had not rebuked their weak faith simply to point out their weakness; He had rebuked their faith in order to show a weakness that He was now about to resolve. They would look back on this and always remember His “Why are you afraid?” because they would not be so afraid again in His presence.
This becomes the powerful thrust of the passage to all subsequent believers. Even though there are so many things in life that threaten our lives and cause us to fear, the more we know the Lord and His power, the less we will be afraid. Our prayer for deliverance from our troubles will be less and less out of fear and desperation and more out of confidence.
III. The disciples are amazed at His power (v. 27). Their response is amazement! They had never seen anything like this. And so their question is “What kind of man is this?” It too is a rhetorical question, not designed to be answered, but to express the idea that there is no one like this. What other person can speak and have the winds and the waves obey His voice? — clearly, no one.
So Matthew uses their words to drive home his point that Jesus is truly unique, for He is sovereign over nature. This one truly has authority.
This passage does not quote from the Old Testament, so we are left to make connections with the theme—one who controls the elements of nature by His word. Of course, in the Old Testament, this is descriptive of the LORD God. One thinks immediately of creation where by His word the LORD brought everything into existence, even including controlling the seas (Gen. 1). This theme of controlling the seas was stressed in Job 38:8-11. That idea was important in the Bible, for the seas were always the symbol of chaos. To control them was to show sovereignty over the chaos that was in the universe. In fact, throughout the ancient Near East the sea was the symbol of Sheol, the abyss, the evil enemy. But God is portrayed as mightier than the raging seas (Ps. 93).
The 29th psalm is also a good one to connect with this study. That psalm describes a thunderstorm growing in the Mediterranean Sea and sweeping inland over Lebanon, causing damage to the trees and shaking the hills with an earthquake. All of that is said to be “the voice of the LORD” (not of Baal, the storm god of Canaan where that storm was situated). The psalm closes by reminding the reader that God sat sovereignly at the great Flood (Gen. 6-8). So in the Old Testament God alone has the authority to command and control nature, especially the chaotic element of nature like this huge storm in Psalm 29. For additional references, see Pss. 65:5-7; 89:9; 107:23-32. Even something like the story of the battle of Deborah against Sisera (Judg. 4, 5) would be of interest as well since God caused a huge thunderstorm to assist Israel.
When Jesus calmed the storm, then, He was demonstrating that He has the power of heaven at His command. The disciples’ wonder at what kind of a man this was could ultimately be answered only by an understanding of the incarnation, God with us.
And yet the disciples were looking at a man, a human being, who had some special kind of authority over nature. Here was a man having dominion over the earth and the sea. Psalm 8 had said that God made man a little lower than the angels and gave him dominion over creation. Everything was to be subjected to mankind (Gen. 1:27,28). The writer to the Hebrews quotes from that 8th psalm, and then says, “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor . . .”(2:5-9). Jesus is the second Adam, as the Bible expresses it, beginning another race—the righteous seed.
In these nature miracles, though, Jesus was demonstrating what God had intended for humans to be. This is one reason why He chose to designate Himself as the Son of Man, a Messianic title from Daniel 7:13-14 to be sure, but also a way of describing Himself as the authentic man, invested with power, humble, obedient, and finally exalted.
Jesus’ power over all nature is referred to at the very beginning of the Book of Hebrews, for it begins by reminding us that Jesus is sustaining all things by His powerful (spoken) word (1:3). Sometimes the powerful word of the Lord is described in very vivid pictures, such as in Revelation as the sharp, two-edged sword that comes out of His mouth and will strike the nations (19:15).
The message of the passage is rather straightforward: Jesus has authority over nature. This is part of the overall presentation of the king in these chapters as one who has the authority to do all the things that He said He came to do. The authority that Jesus has is usually demonstrated by His mighty works, His miracles. And while some of those miracles seem to be less spectacular than others, they all reveal to us the nature of the Son of God who does not have the limitations we now have.
What does this mean for us? First, it should help us to build our faith, our confidence in Christ. We do not follow a simple itinerant preacher from Galilee; we follow Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. Nothing is impossible for Him.
Second, our faith may be expressed in our prayers to Him, “Lord, save us” — from any of the dangers and troubles of life that we face. It is interesting to note that here Jesus answered their prayer/plea and calmed the storm even though they had “little faith.” Any turning to Him in prayer is an act of faith. Jesus did not rebuke them for their request. It is the proper thing to do.
Third, the more we see the power of the Lord, both in the Bible and in the experiences of believers around us (and in our own lives), the more our confidence will grow. We will always struggle with fears in this life, because the world is not a safe place. But gradually as we learn more and more in the faith, as the disciples did over several years, we will become bolder and more confident in the Lord (look at the confidence of the disciples in Acts 2-4). But building faith is a process, and so we have to be patient and continue to develop it. And the comforting thing is that even in our fears and terrors, our weak faith, we may cry to the Lord: “Lord, if you are willing, save/heal/deliver/protect . . . .” And often He answers our prayers in ways that we can only marvel, and say, “What manner of man is this?”
1 You will no doubt see the word “synoptic” frequently in studying the Gospels. It is a simple word made up of syn, “with,” and optics, vision, sight. It is how we refer to the first three Gospels that have the same basic presentation of the account of Jesus, although with variations. John has a different view of the life of Christ and so is not always being paralleled.
2 Even if the writers were relying on a separate and earlier source of Jesus’ sayings and works, as much of modern scholarship assumes, they still had the freedom to put it in their own words to suit their purpose, yet never making it say something Jesus did not say or mean.
We continue now in this section of Matthew with a passage that shows that Jesus had authority over the spiritual world, or to be more precise, the world of spirits. Matthew has already recorded the account of the temptation in which Jesus overcame Satan, the prince of demons. But now in His public ministry Jesus encountered humans who had been so controlled by evil forces that they were completely out of control. We use the expression “demon-possessed” to describe these folks, because the demons took control of their faculties and tormented and twisted their lives out of control. But when Jesus came to their area, He brought deliverance for them from the powers of darkness.
28 When He arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met Him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 29 “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their region.
The so-called “synoptic gospels,” Matthew, Mark and Luke, often record the same events but slightly differently. Besides our passage in Matthew, this account is reported in Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39, both of which are longer than Matthew’s account. It is important for the Bible Study to compare the passages when studying in one of them for several reasons: 1) to see if there are possible discrepancies that need to be addressed, 2) to gather more information about the event to safeguard the interpretation, and 3) to be able to understand why one gospel writer used only the bits that he did.
First, then, are there apparent discrepancies between the accounts? There are two matters that need to be dealt with. One is the fact that Matthew says that two men met Jesus and the other accounts say one met Him. Some interpreters rather quickly conclude that Matthew simply got it wrong, or invented the second man. Others think that it must be a different event, only remarkably similar. But neither of these explanations is necessary or helpful. The better solution is that Matthew, who was there, had full and separate knowledge of a second man.1_ftn1 There were two demon possessed men. But one of them spoke to Jesus; and the other two gospel writers simply report what they had been told—the conversation between Jesus and the demon-possessed man. Their focus on one man was sufficient for their purpose. Matthew will do the same thing in Matthew 20:30 where he reports two blind men who met Jesus.
Besides, where one person is more remarkable, it is not uncommon to mention that one alone. One could say, “I met John downtown today,” and later add that his family was with him. This would not be considered poor reporting.
The second difficulty is the name of the place. Matthew says it was in the region of the Gadarenes. Mark and Luke say it was in the area of Gerasa. Some of the older Bibles had Gergesa, but that was based on a later manuscript tradition.
Gadara is most likely Um Qeis, about five miles to the southeast of the lake. Josephus, the Jewish historian from the first century, says that Gadara had village settlements on the border of the lake. Remember too that these men lived in the tombs, and they would most likely be outside the city area. This is why Matthew says it was “in the region” of the Gadarenes, not in Gadara.
Mark and Luke say it was in the area of Gerasa. Some have suggested that this would be the city of Jerash. But that is thirty miles to the east, and would not fit the circumstances of the story which took place on the shore of the lake.2_ftn2 Most likely Gerasa is a reference to the village settlement of Koursi, or Kersi, located on the eastern side of the lake. The location in Matthew overlaps with this location; the two names in the gospels simply identify it differently, Matthew with reference to the main town, and the other two with reference to the local village. The area where the miracle took place was in the tomb area outside cities and villages, and could be located either way.
So what looks like some mistakes on a superficial reading really are not such at all. They can be explained easily enough by considering the perspective of the different reporters. But this passage makes us aware of something very important about studying the Bible. If you go into it with the idea that the Bible is filled with irreconcilable errors and falsifications, you can find things like this that you could explain to make your point. But if you go into the study with the idea that these are careful recorders and interpreters of history and with the intent of harmonizing difficulties, you can find reasonable explanations for what appear to be discrepancies. Too many people do not put forth the effort to see if these things can be harmonized. A fundamental rule of literary criticism is that if you find an apparent error in a good author, you assume yourself ignorant until you have exhausted all possible explanations. Too many modern “scholars” do not want to assume themselves ignorant; rather, they assume they know more than the writers.
The second purpose of comparing the accounts is to ask what additional material the other accounts give us. Since both Mark and Luke are longer, there will be a lot more information. All three accounts put this event at the same time in the sequence of events, and all three have the basic facts about the miracle and the pigs and the people from town. Matthew does not give the name “Legion,” which refers to the number of demons, nor the number of the pigs. Matthew does not give the details of the torment of the demon-possessed in the tombs. And Matthew does not record how the demon-possessed sat, clean and healed and sane, wanting to follow Jesus. So with all accounts the whole picture emerges of the nature of demon possession and the dramatic change as a result of the exorcism. When we interpret Matthew, we work with the material Matthew gives us, but knowing the details from the other accounts we may be precise in what we say about what Matthew actually gives us.
Third, why does Matthew not include these extra details? I think it is one of the evidences of the integrity of Scripture that these writers could simply include what they wanted to include for their purposes, rather than get their material together to make sure it was all the same. In that case, there would be no reason for the different gospels. But each was writing to a different audience to present a specific perspective. Matthew wants to present Jesus as the Son of God, the King of the Jews, in full authority over all the powers in the world, both physical and spiritual. This he did with the material he used. Mark and Luke are interested in this too, but they also have an interest in Jesus as the perfect man, the Son of Man, who meets all the needs of mankind. For them the descriptions of the wretchedness of a demon possessed person contrasted with his saneness after being healed are important to their audiences. Besides, since this miracle takes place in Gentile territory and not Jewish, they have added interest.
You will have to do a little bit of reading in dictionaries and theologies, whatever you have available, on this whole issue of demon-possession. To the modern skeptics of the Bible, some who claim to be Christian, demon-possession is rubbish. They might say that it was just a primitive way people had to describe psychic or social disorders. But the Scriptures are not so accommodating to popular superstitions; if they were false or fanciful, they would correct them. Rather, they clearly affirm that there is a spirit world all around us that cannot be ignored.
The revelation of this began for Matthew with the account of the temptation. Satan, or the Devil, according to the biblical tradition, was an archangel who was cast out of heaven when he rebelled against God. Apparently, he took a sizeable number of the angels with him. These fallen angels are what are referred to as demons. It is interesting in our passage that the demons instantly recognize who Jesus is and know that His presence could mean judgment on them. They remember Him from glory; they knew His mission on earth; and they know that all judgment has been given over to Him.
I will not list all the passages of Scripture on this subject because there are so many of them. But certainly the account in Genesis 3 introduces the conflict between the seed of the woman (humans, and ultimately Jesus) and the seed of the serpent, demons. Revelation 12:7-9 gives us further identification of this Serpent and his angels. Jude 8-10 gives us another window on the spiritual struggle in the spirit world, as indeed Daniel 10:13 mentions with the spirit power behind Persia. Ezekiel 28:11-19, a prophecy addressed to the king of Tyre, very quickly begins to speak of the spirit power behind him, and is one of the biblical hints to the history of Satan. And 1 Peter 3:19 seems to be referring to evil spirits who have been imprisoned since the flood for leaving their first habitation and corrupting the race, probably a reference to the horrendous hubris of Genesis 6:1-4. It was to these that Jesus while ascending to heaven to declare His great victory over them.
Well, there is enough material on this subject to keep you busy for some time. But what the Bible indicates is that some of these spirits can become aggressively active in dark areas of disobedience and corruption—where people make it easy for them to function. But where righteousness and purity exist, the demons have no desire to remain. Apparently they liked this region of the Gadarenes, and did not want to leave. As we shall see, some demons are harder to deal with than others, as Jesus explained to his disciples, and required much prayer. Accordingly, Mark and Luke tell how Jesus had been commanding these to come out.
Can Christians be demon-possessed? You need to do some reading on this issue; but I will say at this point that I think the Bible teaches that they cannot. They might be attacked and caused a great deal of trouble in the spiritual battles of life; but if the Holy Spirit is indwelling the Christian, as the Bible affirms, then demons cannot. And the Bible tells Christians to resist the devil and he will flee from them; how they resist the devil is by submitting to God (James 4:7). Apparently there are too many easier places for evil to lodge than in a Spirit-controlled Christian who is aware of Satan’s devices and resists them.
But I am reminded of a caution by C. S. Lewis. People make two mistakes in considering demons and demon activity: either they discount it and think nothing of it, or they become too fascinated and too pre-occupied with it. Demon activity is real, more active in some darker3 regions than others, but is something the Christian should not live in fear of, for Christ has won the victory over all such evil forces.
Well, with a little of that reading behind you, you can think some more about the details of Matthew’s account. One thing to observe is that the setting for the encounter is on the other side of the lake—across from Capernaum. A look at the political map of the day will indicate that this was largely Gentile territory. It was in this part of the land that the Decapolis was established—the league of ten, largely Gentile, cities.
This explains the pigs. As most people know, pigs were considered an unclean animal by the Jews. The Law of Moses strictly ruled out eating pork. There were a number of reasons for this: some animals that were called unclean were objects of pagan worship, some were scavengers on unclean carcases, some were out of the order of creation (fish that don’t swim, birds that don’t fly) — quite a number of issues involved. You can read up on Israel’s dietary laws (in the late spring my commentary on Leviticus, Holiness to the LORD, will be out and has a full discussion). But Gentiles at that time ate pork. It is possible that the Gadarenes were Gentiles, and that the owners of the pigs were Gentiles as well. It is also remotely possible that they were Jews who could not eat pork but could sell them to Gentiles. In either case, the raising of pigs in the land of Israel was something that could not be justified by the Law of Moses. Jesus’ use of the pigs in this exorcism attests to that point.
Once again the narrative is a blend between the events and the discourse. In Matthew’s account we have only one word from Jesus—”Go!” But the way it is stated, and the circumstances of its statement, indicate that it has all the authority of the heaven in it. The rest of the speeches are made by the demons in their initial address to Jesus and their appeal to Him to enter the pigs. So the structure is:
A. Meeting the violent demon-possessed at the shore of the lake
B. Demons worry that Jesus has come to judge them early and request to be sent into the pigs
C. Jesus sends them into the pigs.
B’ Pigs run down into the lake and drown.
A’ Meeting the people of the town who reject Jesus.
At the center of the story is the miracle that transformed the pathetic demon-possessed people into normal, healthy individuals again, one of the most dramatic examples of the mission of the Son of God in this world to rescue people from the prince of darkness and make them whole, physically and spiritually. But the greatest contrast is between the demon possessed who are saved from the torments of the evil one, and the “respectable” people of the town want Jesus to leave their coasts. They thought these men were the worst of humanity, but they proved to be.
We can break the passage down into several sections than that will make the study easier to analyze. The first will be the meeting with the Gadarenes. The second will be the exorcism. And the third the reaction of the people.
I. The Meeting with the demon-possessed Gadarenes (8:28,29). The text tells us that as soon as Jesus got out of the boat on the other side of the lake these men came running to meet him. Matthew simply mentions that they were so violent that no one could tame them. We know also people tried to tame them by chaining them, but they broke the chains. People then just avoided these two since they were so dangerous. They lived outside the city among the tombs, a place that was ceremonially unclean for Israel, but fitting for demons.
But there is more going on here than two men running to meet a boat. They shouted at Jesus, “What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you come to torture us before the appointed time?” Clearly, the demons had taken possession of the various capacities of these two men, and it was they who were speaking through the men.
What they say is most significant. First, they knew exactly who Jesus was. The disciples in the boat may have been trying to figure it out, but the demons knew that this was the Son of God—or as the other narratives have it, the Son of the Most High God, stressing His sovereignty over all spirits. These demons were free to be doing their worst in and through these men; but the presence of Jesus on their shores was trouble for them.
Second, they knew that Jesus had the power to destroy them, and that there was an appointed time for Him to do that. John 5:22 tells us that the Father has given all judgment over to the Son, that the Father judges no one. These spirits knew that the Judge was stepping into their territory, and they were afraid their freedom would now be cut short. What a strange phenomenon, though, to have demons knowing that they will someday be judged, but can only think of preserving their wicked little experience for the time being. And that is how they often convince people to think.
The irony is that they were afraid of being tortured before the appointed time; but in the meantime they would torture and torment these two poor souls. How this demonic activity in the region came about, we do not know. But it seems that in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts when the truth of Christ began to make significant inroads into the lives of people to rescue them from sin and death, there was plenty of spiritual opposition. We saw this at the outset of the Gospel with Herod trying to destroy Jesus. He was not acting alone.
2. The casting out of the demons (8:30-32). After this initial confrontation, the demons begged Jesus to send them into a herd of pigs that was nearby. If they could not stay in the men, they at least could stay in the area. And unclean pigs would be a natural place for the unclean spirits.
And Jesus said “Go!” The ease of the command demonstrates the authority of Christ. He had just rebuked the wind and the waves, “Peace. Be still.” Now he expels the legions of demons with one word, “Go!” It anticipates the Bible’s revelation of the judgment of people, in which He simply will say, “Depart, I never knew you.” Here is true authority—He commands illness to depart, storms to calm, and demons to leave. And Matthew wants the reader to see it in its simplicity and clarity.
The contrast in the story is wonderful. Here are these powerful evil spirits. But they are in a panic, afraid of Christ, worried their days are coming to an end, knowing that a judgment is appointed for them. They may exert power over these two poor wretches, but against Christ they have no power at all, and they are desperate.
Now, when the demons go into the pigs, those poor animals cannot bear up under their presence, and they run headlong down into the lake and drown. Mark tells us that there were about 2,000 animals. What the humans tolerated and lived with these unclean animals could not. The sudden shock to their systems of the evil spirits drove them into the sea.
We said in an earlier lesson that the sea was to the ancient world a symbol of evil, of the primordial chaos. It was fitting, then, that the demons were rushed down into the sea where the pigs died. The demons themselves would not drown, but were driven out by Jesus and knew that He was controlling them and their destiny. It is possible that when they rushed into the lake they rushed further into the abyss (see the other accounts) and were imprisoned. But the text does not say. The story is concerned with the victory over demons and the rescue of these men.
III. The rejection of the people (8:33,34). The news quickly spread to the town about what had happened, and no doubt to the owners of the pigs. Many rushed out to see for themselves what had happened, to see if these men had been truly cleansed from the demons. It was something that would have been impossible to imagine, given the history of the men.
But the amazing thing is that when they saw Jesus they pleaded with Him to leave their region. Why would they not welcome Him as the great deliverer, the one who could solve the problems and needs of the human race? Perhaps they thought only of their loss of the pigs. Or, perhaps they were more afraid for themselves, for this was no ordinary prophet in their midst, but one who judges and casts out evil. Perhaps they did not want that kind of power coming into their region, for they might have had a lot to give up as well. We do not know, as we do not understand why some believe and some do not. But they did not want Him there among them. And so the gospels record this as one of the great rejections of Christ in spite of all the evidence of who He was.
I have already referred to Old Testament passages where satanic or demonic activity first began to appear and create havoc in the world. But with regard to such evil tormenting of humans, one thinks naturally of the Book of Job. Satan had been roaming in the earth, no doubt seeking whom he might devour as Peter puts it. And God challenged him with Job. Satan could try to destroy Job’s integrity by attacking his whole life. But, to put it perhaps too crassly, God was betting on Job. In the arrangement God was sovereignly in control of Satan; He gave him permission to torment Job, but not to take His life. God was going to prove to Satan that faith overcomes suffering. In the Book of Job, then we get a picture of God’s sovereign control of Satan in what he can do in the human race.
New Testament Correlation
Outside the Gospels we have several passages that deal with the problem of spiritual conflict (and your reading will open these up). Perhaps of primary interest to us in our spiritual struggles is the fact that we are still dealing with spirit forces, even though it looks like we have struggles with humans. Paul says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12). It may appear that we are dealing with people, but Paul says that something greater is at work in them. Therefore, we cannot fight this conflict with ordinary weapons, and certainly not with our own wits and knowledge, but we must use spiritual weapons, which he proceeds to list in the chapter.
And, as I mentioned before, the New Testament tells us that the victory over Satan and his demons is certain, because Christ has defeated them at the cross and at the resurrection (see the sermon on Revelation 12 in our archives). We need only resist the devil and he will flee from us. And, of course, we look forward to the day when Christ will destroy all such forces of evil.
The main point of the passage, then, is that Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, has absolute authority over all the spirit world, over Satan, over demons, and over those whom they control. That he expelled this legion of demons shows this authority; and it was a preview of the final judgment of these evil spirits.
But that final judgment would not occur until there was the victory at the cross when the head of the Serpent would be crushed (Gen 3:15). Interestingly enough, when his disciples tried to prevent the arrest of Jesus, Jesus made it clear that He was in control and would die. He said that He could ask His Father and His Father would send legions of angels to destroy the world. But then, the Scripture would not be fulfilled. There was a judgment to be fulfilled before the final judgment of evil, and that judgment would take place at the cross. Once that was achieved, then it would be just a matter of time before Christ would put down all enemies.
The immediate response of people to this revelation about Christ is to worship and to serve Him as the true Son of God. And they should also take great comfort and encouragement in the fact that He has complete control over the forces of evil in the world. Knowing the power of Christ casts out all fear.
We learn from other passages that humans alone are no match for such evil spirits. But we have the Holy Spirit within, and He is greater than the one who is in the world. And we have the spiritual resources for engaging in this spiritual battle. Paul does not instruct us to get involved with conflicts with and exorcisms of evil spirits; but he does instruct us on how to use spiritual weapons in our warfare--truth and righteousness and salvation and the gospel--to drive out evil and to rescue people from sin and death.
So the passage makes us aware of the problem, but it provides us with confidence and courage because of the authority of Christ. In an application we usually say to identify with people in the story to get ideas. Well, this is a little difficult here. We would say not to be like the “respectable” but “law-breaking” citizens of the town who wanted Jesus to leave because he upset their system. We would say to follow Christ and share in his victory over evil, by presenting Christ to the lost and troubled world. And while most of us were not rescued from demons like them, we can share with the Gadarenes the testimony that Christ has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and made us whole.
1 Some have tried to argue that Matthew made up the second man so he could have “two witnesses” according to the Law. But this is completely unwarranted, for there is not an emphasis in Matthew on witnesses.
2 On one of our trips to the area we were discussing the terrain, and one of the group who happened to raise pigs said that the miracle had to be close to the water at a down hill slope, because pigs are not great cross-country runners. Some wag in the group, a clever student no doubt, said, “Yes, but these were demon possessed pigs.”
3 By darker regions I do not simply refer to primitive locations with voodoo and ritual magic. It is pretty clear that Hitler’s Nazi world was driven by demon forces, given Hitler’s hatred of the biblical God and Christ, and his attachment to the occult.
In our studies in the Book of Matthew we have been seeing how the evangelisthas been emphasizing the authority of Jesus.1 Now, in the beginning of Matthew 9, we have an account of an event that shows that He has authority to forgive sins.
In our method of studying the text we have been noticing how the dialogue in a passage is the critical element for interpreting the events. This will be very important again in this short narrative as Jesus offers a detailed explanation of the connection between healing and forgiving.
We have also been noting how in studying the text we have different participants in the stories--Jesus, His followers, those He helps, and His enemies. It is important in studying the text to note to which of these the speeches of Jesus are directed, and then in turn to whom the whole event is directed. The words may be a corrective teaching or a rebuke to those who opposed Him, but they and the whole incident are intended to convince people of His authority. So when we come to making applications from the lesson, it is easy for us to think in these groups for points of reference, that is, how we should respond to Jesus and how we should not, based on the representative characters in the story.
And as always we have to see these things against the backdrop of the Old Testament, for Jesus came to fulfill it. The subject matter in this passage, the forgiveness of sin, is an enormous issue in that regard, for the Old Testament made it very clear that only God could forgive sins. This will help us understand the response of the teachers of the Law, and the reason for the authenticating miracle.
Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
3 At this, some of the teachers of the Law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sin . . . .” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”
7 And the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe, and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.
The event is recorded in Mark 2:1-12. Mark tells us that when people heard that Jesus was coming into Capernaum that they packed into the house so that there was no room left, not even outside. And Jesus preached to them. Four men brought the paralytic, but since they could not get in, they went up on the roof, made an opening in the roof, and lowered the man to Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Mark has more of what the teachers were thinking as well, explaining the blaspheming in view of the belief that only God can forgive sins.
Mark concludes the passage very much the way Matthew does, with Jesus’ words and then the miracle. Mark closes with the people’s amazement over this miracle, but he does not include the words of Matthew’s explanation that God had given such authority to men.
They both have the same teaching of Jesus and the same point to the story. Mark focuses a good deal on the persistence of the faith of those who brought the man to Jesus; Matthew focuses primarily on the demonstration of Jesus’ authority.
The story is also in Luke 5:17-26. Luke explains that not just teachers of the Law but also Pharisees had come from all over Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem and were sitting there. Why were they there? Well, obviously to see for themselves what had been going on in Galilee. How did they hear as far away as Jerusalem? Well, if you look at a chronology of the life of Christ you will discover that what actually took place just before this was the cleansing of the leper (Matt. 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; and Luke 5:12-16) where Jesus instructed the healed leper according to the Law of Leviticus to go to Jerusalem and show himself clean to the priest. That would be a public announcement by Jesus that He could cleanse the leper and thus fulfill the requirements of the Law. The effect of that would have been like a personalized invitation--and so they came to check Him out.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law usually were together in their efforts. The Pharisees were devout people. They were largely what we would call blue collar workers, ordinary people in society; but they were passionate for the faith, especially for the rules on purification, washing, sabbath observance, and tithes. They loved God, believed in miracles and angels and the resurrection, and tried to follow Scripture in their tradition. They were completely at odds with the Sadducees and much of the Temple hierarchy. But it was the teachers of the Law (some of whom would have been members of the Pharisees) who were the authorities in these matters; and so Matthew is more interested in noting that they were there.
Once again the structure of the passage follows a clear pattern. There is the meeting with the paralytic, the response of the teachers, the teaching-reply of Jesus, and the completion of the miracle. In the first part Jesus speaks to the paralytic. In the second part the teachers speak to themselves. In the third part Jesus speaks to the teachers. And in the last part Jesus speaks to the paralytic. We can chart it this way:
Paralytic is brought to Jesus Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven
Teachers are upset by this They say, This fellow blasphemes
Jesus rebukes their thinking Jesus says, Son of Man has authority
Jesus heals the man Jesus says, Take up your mat
If you get in the habit of charting or diagraming the flow of a story, you can see more clearly how it is put together. In this case, it is a story within a story. The main event is Jesus’ speaking to the paralytic and healing him. But in the middle of that event there is the response to the evil thinking of these opponents in order to explain the point of the miracle. Jesus used the miracle, and their accusation of blasphemy, to declare that He has authority to forgive sins. And He did this to show the primary need was forgiveness of sins, not the healing.
And this, of course, is the central theme or message of the passage, that Jesus has authority to forgive sin. How do we know that? Part of the answer, and the answer given here, is that He has the power to heal.
Now this will raise a fundamental theological issue that will have to be dealt with somewhere in the study, probably when Jesus is speaking to the teachers of the Law. What is the connection between healing and forgiving, or, more basically, what is the connection between sickness, disease, and death, and sin? This could become a rather involved study, but one that you need to do sometime. Good biblical theologies will provide you with basic discussions on the subject.
In sum, the Bible teaches that all sickness, disease, pain, contamination, pollution, and death is the result of the presence of sin in the world. In the beginning when sin entered the world and the curse was announced as the natural result of rebellion against the living God, the world and the human race was from that point contaminated. Death and dying now reign where life was created. And all sickness and disease, physical or mental, is part of this dying. The human existence is characterized by pain, conflict, disease and death.
Now that does not mean necessarily that one person who is a cripple is a bigger sinner than those who are not. No, it does not work that way, as the Book of Job demonstrated. It is a simple fact of life that we all suffer with illnesses, that we all have pain of one sort or another, some major and chronic, and that we all die eventually. None of this would have been present if sin had not ruined the race. But it has. And Jesus came into the world to solve this problem by becoming the curse for us and taking all of our sins and infirmities on Himself. This was prophesied by Isaiah in the important 53rd chapter. He would give His life an offering for sins, and in the process as the sins of us all were to be laid on Him, He also took our infirmities (Isa. 53:4).
The point is that if Jesus can take care of the effects of sin--by healing a paralytic or a leper, or by raising a dead person--He can therefore also take care of the cause of the illness--by forgiving the sin. For Jesus the forgiving of sins and the healing of diseases are two sides of His mission, with the forgiveness of sins being the most important.
There are different ways that the passage could be divided and outlined. I have chosen to divide it into three sections, putting the above middle story all together as one point--their accusation and Jesus’ explanation.
I. Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic (Matt. 9:1-2). Matthew begins the narrative by stating that Jesus took the boat across the lake and stepped out at his home town--Capernaum (as Mark and Luke remind us). That is all the detail Matthew gives.
If you want to bring in the background of the other gospels to picture this, it was in a very crowded house. We are not told what house that would be, but since Jesus was not a homeowner, there is every good reason to believe it was Peter’s house. Jesus may well have lived with Peter when in Capernaum. But wherever it was, these houses usually had roofs made of logs and branches packed with earth. Repairing the roof was a regular task for the homeowner, as rain and wind would wash the dirt away and water would in time leak into the houses. If that is the case here, and we cannot be completely certain, but if it was it is easy to see how the men would have gone up onto the flat roof and begun to pull up branches and logs to make an opening in the roof.2 It is also easy to imagine some of this debris falling down on the assembled crowd in the room of the house before the man was lowered to Jesus. But these men were determined to get the paralytic to Jesus, believing that if they did he could be healed. Jesus marveled at their faith. But this is a point that Mark makes.
Matthew simply tells us that some men brought the paralytic on a mat, and that Jesus saw their faith in bringing him to Him. Their act of belief is evident in the fact that they laid this man at Jesus’ feet. The implication is that the four men and the paralytic had the faith that Jesus could heal him.
The response of Jesus to their faith is in His words: “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” There are two things here that have to be probed. The first is the initial greeting: “Take heart, son,” or as the older translations had it, “Be of good cheer, son.” One might say just at the look of things that he had nothing to be of good cheer about. But more significantly, no Pharisee or teacher of the Law would have said that to a paralytic. They would have simply considered him as a “sinner” because of his malady. In their thoughts they would have concluded that had he been righteous, or a man of faith (as they were) he would not be like that. And they probably would have been very put out that these men ruined the lecture.
But before we come down to hard on the teachers and Pharisees, it is worth thinking that we are so often the same as they in our thinking. We are so religious, that had we been there that day we might have responded the way they did. Even today we often see someone suffering and think in terms of their lack of faith or sin that has caused their misfortune. And “Be of good cheer” would not be the thing we would think of saying.
But Jesus followed it with, “Your sins are forgiven.” What a statement! What a dramatic moment in which to make it! No one in the room would have imagined that Jesus would have said this. If it were true, then of course there was plenty of reason for the young man to take heart, or be of good cheer. But the words were designed not only to bless and encourage the paralytic, but to render all opinions about his condition void. If they thought he was a paralytic because he was a sinner--well, he was now forgiven.
In the Old Testament a priest in the sanctuary could communicate God’s forgiveness when the atoning sacrifice was made. But Leviticus simply says that when the worshiper confessed the sin and made the sacrifice, the sin was forgiven (4:26). It was God who forgave (see also Psalm 32); the priest could only communicate that good word to the genuine penitent after he saw the contrition, the sacrifice, or the restoration to health. At other times a prophet would come and announce to the sinner that God had put away the sin (see 2 Sam. 12:13). But here Jesus, seeing their faith, announces that the man’s sins are forgiven--before he was healed, before he offered a sacrifice in the Temple, and before he even said anything, if we can assume that in the account he did not say anything else. The basis for the forgiveness from the paralytic’s side was faith. It was his faith that saved him; it was his faith that made him whole. He believed in Jesus and wanted to be set before Him. And yet the text says that Jesus saw “their faith”; it is possible for people to show faith as they help another man’s faith, for that is what has happened here.
But we cannot miss the dramatic significance of this. At that precise moment Jesus chose to do something that everyone in the room knew only God could do--declare the forgiveness of sin.
II. Jesus defends His authority to forgive sins (Matt. 9:3-5). First, we have the report of what the teachers were saying to themselves--”This fellow blasphemes.” It will be helpful for you to read up on the range of meanings for “blasphemy,” which you can do in any good word study book. The word basically means to speak or represent God in an evil or irreverent way. One way this is done, and this is what is meant here, is to appropriate or claim to appropriate the position and prerogative of God. Here Jesus was claiming to be able to forgive sins--to be divine. They thought that He was saying something easy, a word that was not capable of demonstration, a divine claim that no one could challenge, and so not true. To them this was blasphemy since only God could forgive sins. To them Jesus was claiming something that He should not have claimed, and certainly could not have done--so they thought.
Second, we have Jesus’ rebuke of their thoughts and defense of His actions. His rebuke was straightforward, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?” That would have been sufficient to make them pause--He knew what they were thinking. It probably would not have been too hard to guess what they were thinking since He knew their teachings and the reason for their presence. But by this question, a rhetorical question meant to say that they had no reason to think evil of Him, Jesus put them off balance.
And then He posed the question: “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up and walk’?” The question immediately made them realize that there was a connection between sin and suffering. Matthew (8:17) has already reminded the reader of the famous passage in Isaiah 53, that Messiah would pay for sins and infirmities by His death. But as Isaiah 53 makes so clear, the mission of the Messiah was to deal first with the cause of suffering, sin, and then secondly, the healing of disease.
What Jesus was doing in healing people was not simply performing miracles, which is usually defined as violating or nullifying natural laws, but rather He was showing by these healing miracles that He was restoring a lost order. Disease and death were not natural to God’s creation, they were violations of it. The natural order was what God had created but had been ruined. Jesus was able to get behind the problem and deal with sin first, and then its effects. And as we said before, these individual miracles that He performed in His earthly ministry were signs of what He would do at the second coming when He restores the lost order of creation in full.
So how should the question be answered? Well, Jesus asked many questions that were meant to reveal truth, and this is another one. In the practical and obvious sense it would be easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” Who would know? Almost anyone could say that, and yet nothing else would have to be done to prove that the sins were forgiven. And in the theological sense it was easier to say that as well, for it would take care of both the cause for the illness and the illness itself. But if someone said “Take up your mat and walk,” then the paralytic better do it or the one speaking would be seen to be a fraud.
But on the other hand, the teachers of the Law and Pharisees would have seen the statement that the sins were forgiven as a very hard saying. They stumbled over it, for no mortal would dare say that. It would be easier for them if Jesus simply healed the man, even though it would demonstrate that He had the power of God.
But Jesus was not catering to their unbelief; He was responding to the faith of the paralytic. It was easier for Jesus to say “Your sins are forgiven” because He has the authority to forgive sins--as the miracle would immediately show.
III. Jesus demonstrates His authority to forgive sins (Matt. 9:6-8). Jesus said to them, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . .” then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” The statement is in contrast to the question of which was easier. It was easier to say He was forgiven, but that these people might know that Jesus has this authority, He told the man to get up and take his mat and go home. It is clear that the miracle of healing was designed to show them that He has the authority to forgive sins.
Interestingly, Jesus uses the title “Son of Man” to refer to Himself. Rather than deal with this later we may simply say at this point that this is a Messianic title that Jesus used for Himself (check this title out in the biblical theology books, for there is a lot of material on it). The title comes from Daniel 7:13,14. In that passage Daniel saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days, God the Father in the vision, and was given absolute authority over all creation, so that all people would worship Him. Now these details are significant in this description. He is clearly deity if the whole world is going to worship Him. And as deity He can do the works of deity, including forgive sins. But according to the vision of Daniel He is coming in the clouds, which in the Bible is evidence of divine judgment. If He is coming with judgment to establish the kingdom of righteousness, He has the authority as Judge of the whole world to pardon or to condemn. So on both counts the prophecy of the Son of Man shows that Messiah has the authority to forgive sins.
Interestingly along these lines we shall see at the end of the Gospel of Matthew that the high priest put Jesus under oath to tell them whether or not He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus answered, “Yes, it is as you say. But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64). At this the high priest tore his clothes and they charged Him with blasphemy. Jesus was affirming that He was indeed the Messiah, the divine One from the prophecy of Daniel. But, taking it a step further, if we can paraphrase it, He was saying, “You may be my judge today, but when I come with the clouds I will be your judge.” All judgment has been given to the Son (John 5:22). It is the prerogative of divinity. And as Judge, He has the authority and the power to forgive sins.
So Jesus healed this man to show that He, the Son of Man, has the authority to forgive sins. If He could heal the disease, He could also heal the cause of the disease, the sin. If He had simply forgiven the sin, people would not have known if the man was forgiven or not. Now they knew.
And Matthew reports that the man got up and went home. At this everyone was filled with awe and praised God who had given such authority to men. They still did not know that Jesus was divine; they still thought of Him as a man, which is certainly understandable. But He clearly demonstrated that He had this authority. The man was made whole. And for that they praised God. We do not know if the teachers and Pharisees joined the praise, or left disgruntled. The latter is more characteristic of them, although some, like Nicodemus (John 3), would have pondered these things carefully.
I will just repeat here the key passages that have been discussed above. The mission of the Messiah recorded in Isaiah 53 must be studied fully to see that the Messiah was to offer His life for the sins of the world--and for the infirmities as well. The death of Jesus not only paid for sin but made it possible to remove all the effects of sin from the world. He took care of the sin question at His first coming; He will take care of the curse at His second coming.
Daniel 7 is also important for an understanding of the Son of Man vision. This can be connected other Messianic passages such as Daniel 9:24,25 which link the divine plan of making atonement for wickedness and bringing in everlasting righteousness with the cutting off of the Messiah, and certainly Isaiah 9 which gives the titles of the Messiah, including “Mighty God, Everlasting Father.”
For New Testament connections we would also want to look at other passages that record the claims of Jesus to be divine, passages like John 10:30 (for which they tried to stone Him), and John 8:58, one of the “I Am” claims of Jesus (for which they also tried to stone Him). But one of the clearest evidences that Jesus claimed to be divine is the crucifixion itself, for the charge was blasphemy.
We can also look in the New Testament for passages for forgiveness of sin in Christ Jesus to correlate them to this account. The whole New Testament is filled with passages that teach how in Christ we have forgiveness and salvation and the hope of glory. Standard places to begin would be in passages like 1 John 1:9 and Romans 3:22-26 and 1 Peter 2:22-25.
And for teachings on healing we can look at passages that instruct us to pray for healing, such as James 5:13-18, and for passages that tell us how the full benefit of the atonement will be experienced in the resurrection, such as 1 Corinthians 15:35--58, 1 John 3:1-3, and Romans 8:22,23.
Once the key teachings of a passage are identified, then there will be a whole string of related passages in the Bible that can be studied to fill out the doctrines that are introduced in the narrative. You can actually continue in this step of the process as long as you wish, for there is so much to study.
The point of the story is clear: Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. The implication of that point is also clear: because He is the divine Son, He is God in the flesh, Immanuel. The teachers of the Law knew that is what it meant, so they knew full well what He was claiming. If they did not believe in Him, then they had to go with their judgment that He was blaspheming. But, if He is the divine Son of God, then their accusations against Him, here and later, are blasphemy.
A related point that the story establishes is the relationship between sin and suffering. I have already dealt with this and so only need at this point to mention it in passing.
And finally, the way to avail oneself of full healing (spiritual forgiveness and physical healing, whether now or in the life to come) is faith. These men believed in Jesus and His power to make whole. They knew if they could get the paralytic to Jesus all would be well.
On the application level we would certainly have to identify with the men and the paralytic who came to Jesus by faith. The application is that for the forgiveness of sins one must come to Jesus by faith, believing that He will forgive and make things well. And, for the restoration to health and wholeness, spiritual and physical, one must also pray in the name of Jesus. He may answer our requests and heal us and our loved ones for whom we pray in this life; but the ultimate healing comes with the resurrection. Jesus did these miracles as evidence of His power and as a pledge of things to come. We who believe in Christ Jesus and have had our sins forgiven through Him know that in the age to come He will indeed restore the order of creation by removing the curse and making whole all who are in Him. That is the full effect of the atonement; that is the hope of glory.
1 The word “evangelist” is related to the word for “gospel” and so in biblical studies of the gospels is used to refer to the writers of the gospels. It means one who presents the good news, and so also is used later for the spiritual ministry of evangelism.
2 Mark simply says that they “unroofed the roof,” but Luke says that they lowered him through the “tiles.” The house may have had a more complex structure than most simple houses, unless Luke is simply using terms that his gentile audience would readily understand.
The Gospel of Matthew now continues its development of the theme of Jesus’ authority with the report of two incidents that show His authority over death: He healed a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years and then He raised a little girl from the dead. In both cases He was restoring life to them.
18 While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 Jesus got up and went with him, and so did His disciples.
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of His cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If only I touch His cloak, I will be healed.” 22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” He said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.
23 When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, 24 He said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at Him. 25 After the crowd had been put outside, He went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26 News of this spread through all that region.
This material is also found in Mark 5:22-43, where the passage is a good deal longer than Matthew’s report. There are some interesting additions to think about. First, Mark tells us that the ruler was a synagogue ruler, whose name was Jairus. The word that Matthew used for “ruler” in this Jewish town would harmonize with that. Second, Mark reports that Jairus first said that his daughter was dying, but then when they were getting ready to go to his home the messengers came and said that the little girl was dead. Matthew has simply condensed the account and went immediately to the conclusion that the girl had died. Third, Mark adds a good bit of case history to the woman who met Jesus on the way, that she had suffered a good deal under the care of many doctors but had only gotten worse. Mark also includes the little exchange where Jesus asked who touched Him, and where the woman came and fell at His feet. Matthew’s account is abbreviated; he only puts in what is of interest to his point. Then, fourth, Mark says that Jesus took Peter, James and John to Jairus’s house, and with them and the girl’s parents in the room performed the miracle by saying “Little girl, arise” (in Aramaic, Talitha koumi). Matthew simply said that Jesus took her by the hand and she got up. Mark gives final details that she was twelve years old, and that Jesus gave strict orders not to tell anyone about this--and to give her something to eat.
Luke 8:40-56 runs fairly closely to Mark’s account, only varying slightly in the wording or in the inclusion of the details.
You will discover in your study of the Bible that sometimes the English translation can give the impression of a mistake in the text. This section in Matthew seems clearly to begin while Jesus is still in Matthew’s house answering questions. But if you look at Mark 5:21, 22 it is translated and arranged in the NIV to indicate that this took place while He was by the lake. In fact, Mark 5:21 should be the conclusion of the preceding section, telling us that Jesus returned from the other side of the lake. Then, Mark 5:22 simply starts the new section--which harmonizes with Matthew’s indication that He was in Matthew’s house.
Likewise the translation of the NIV in Luke needs clarification. Luke 8:40 should be the completion of the account of the healing of the demon possessed man. The translation “then” that begins Luke 8:41, giving the impression that Jairus came immediately, is a stronger translation than the construction (kai idou) requires. The construction simply suggests a new or surprising thing (see further on this kind of material the commentaries, especially Carson, Matthew, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, edited by Gaebelein (Zondervan Publishing Company). So there is no reason to conclude that Mark and Luke have this passage begin on the shore of the lake in contrast to Matthew’s placing it in the house.
My point is simply that when there seems to be a discrepancy you need to compare translations to see how the lines have been translated, and do not simply assume that there is a discrepancy until you see if there are other ways to translate it. Here the commentaries may offer some explanation of how the lines could be translated and interpreted. I know this can get a little technical; but it has to be done.
So, what do we have with Matthew, then? Matthew does not tell us that after Jesus healed the demoniac He crossed back to the other side of the lake--the other two gospels do. It begins in 9:9-13 with Jesus’ calling of Matthew as a disciple, and then His having dinner in Matthew’s house, something for which He was criticized. Then, John’s disciples came and asked Him about fasting (9:14-17). He was still in the house. Then, while He was answering John’s disciples, Jairus came and asked Him to come. At that point Matthew offers his abbreviated version of the events.
The passage is dealing with life and death issues. In both the case of the woman and the case of the little girl, life had ceased (in different ways). The miracles in both cases show that Jesus has the authority to restore life. This is the main point of the passage.
But now we are dealing with women specifically. A woman has been suffering with bleeding for twelve years. We are not told what kind of bleeding this is. We assume, and it is only an assumption, that it is connected to her womb. If it is then she would be unclean according to Leviticus 15:25-33, meaning that she could not go to the temple to worship, could not participate in normal marital relationships, and should not even touch someone else. But when Jesus healed her He was showing that He could solve such uncleanness--He could meet the demands of the Law and make clean what was unclean. He would not be defiled by her touch, but she would be made whole by His power. So this very special emphasis in the gospel narratives shows that Jesus cared for the suffering of women in this plight. And it was not simply a difficulty she had to live with from time to time. It was hopeless--Jesus was her last hope.
Then we have a sick girl who died, and Jesus came and raised her from the dead. She was twelve--the same age as the length of time that the woman had been afflicted with the flow of blood (and prevented from having a child). The woman had missed out on twelve years, perhaps on having a twelve year old daughter; the parents were about to lose their twelve year old daughter to death. The first represents the effect of the curse at the source of life with pain and bleeding; the second represents the effect of the curse on life with actual death. Jesus gave the life of the girl back to Jairus and his wife; and He gave health and the ability to produce life back to the woman. In both cases it was a provision of life for women over the effects of the curse.
In both cases touching was an important part of the narrative. Jairus wanted Jesus to lay His hand on the daughter and she would be healed. The woman wanted to touch the hem of His cloak and be healed. (And in the other gospels Jesus is recorded as questioning who touched Him). But it was the faith behind the woman’s desire to touch the cloak that made her whole. And it was Jairus’ faith that brought him to seek Jesus. (And, according to the parallel gospel’s Jesus told Jairus not to be afraid, only believe).
And one other observation: all of this began to unfold while Jesus was answering the question about fasting. While the bridegroom is with them, Jesus said, why should the guests of the bridegroom mourn. The time would come for mourning later. So here was Jesus enjoying a meal in Matthew’s house because He did not come to spend time with the healthy, but with the sick. Then, while He was explaining this, Jairus came with news of a sick girl. Then, while He was going to the house He met a sick woman. And in both cases He reversed the sickness and made them whole. But at the house of Jairus the people were lamenting and mourning. But why should they be mourning when Jesus was still there. So He put them out of the house and raised the little girl.
Here again we have a story within a story. In verses 18, 19 we have the request of the ruler for Jesus to come heal his daughter. In verses 20-22 we have the healing of the woman along the way. Then in verses 23-26 we have the raising of the little girl.
In the synoptic gospels the delay to heal the woman is used to show that during that time the girl died. Matthew is not interested in developing that sequence, only in showing that Jesus healed a sick woman on the way to raising a dead girl. The two are connected in Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ authority over death.
The quotations also are interesting in this structure. The first is the request of the ruler for Jesus to come and lay His hand on the girl. The second is the thinking of the woman that if only she could touch His cloak she would be healed. The third is Jesus’ response to the woman that she was made whole. And the fourth is Jesus’ declaration that the little girl was just asleep. The first two are statements of faith in Jesus’ power. The last two are declarations of His power--to restore life.
I. Jesus responds to the request of the ruler to heal his daughter (18-19). This first part of the narrative does not need much further explanation, other than to explain how Matthew abbreviated the material. In Mark, for example, Jairus came and said his girl was dying, and that if Jesus came and put his hand on her she would live. It is clear that he was expecting her to die when he asked for help. Then, after the delay, messengers came and told Jairus not to bother the teacher any more because the girl had died. But Jesus said to Jairus not to fear, only believe. Jairus did not initially say come and raise her from the dead. But after he heard that she had died, and after his servants told him not to bother the teacher any more, he obviously still wanted Jesus to come and lay His hand on the girl and (now) raise her from the dead. He did believe as Jesus had told him to because they continued to the house. So Jairus ultimately did wanted Jesus to lay His hand on the girl and raise her from the dead--he believed Jesus could do that, and knew Jesus would have to do that because she had died. This is why Matthew has simply abbreviated the story and used the last desire of the ruler to express his request that Jesus restore his daughter’s life.
The faith of this Jewish ruler (of the synagogue) is interesting and should be probed a little bit, because faith is only as great as the object of that faith. He had to know something about Jesus, because he believed that Jesus could raise his daughter by laying His hand on her. If you break it down the way Mark and Luke have done in greater detail, he believed that Jesus could make his daughter well, and then even after he heard that she died he believed that Jesus could raise her to life. No doubt he had seen the miracles of Jesus in and around the city of Capernaum where he lived--in fact the connection with the Centurion in Matthew 8 may be interesting to study, for that man had built the synagogue for the city--and Jesus had healed his servant. The Centurion, being a Gentile, did not want Jesus to come to his house; but Jairus, being a Jew, welcomed Jesus to his house--and yet Jairus had to go into Matthew’s house, the house of a “sinner,” to find Jesus, as if he himself had to humble himself in coming by faith to Jesus. At any rate, there were sufficient witnesses in the region to the power of Jesus so that this ruler came believing that if Jesus touched his little girl she would be well.
And so Jesus got up from the dinner at Matthew’s house and went with this man towards his house where the girl was. He immediately went in response to this man’s faith in Him.
II. Jesus restored life to a woman afflicted with bleeding (20-22). It is interesting how Matthew can summarize blocks of material in his narrating of the events, and then pay such attention to the smallest detail. The woman came and touched the “edge” of His cloak. This is a reference to the fringe, or perhaps the tassel (Matt. 23:5) of His cloak, which was a sign to remind the Jews to pray. Her touching that portion of the garment was an appeal to His spiritual inclinations; but her touching that portion of the garment of Jesus was an act of faith in His power to heal.
Normally under Israelite Law if her bleeding was from the womb--and that would be the most logical assumption here--then anyone she touched would have been made ceremonially unclean. Anyone but the holy one, that is. She believed that He could heal her, so He would not be contaminated by her.
As already mentioned, the other gospels note how crowded it was, and how He knew someone had touched Him because power had gone out of Him. He was able to discern that in her touch faith was at work; other people touched Him in the crowded street, and perhaps even bumped into Him--but no power went out from Him. Her touch was from faith.
Matthew cuts right to the core of the issue: he picks up where Jesus identified the woman and said to her, “Your faith has healed you.” The text uses the perfect tense, “has healed.” This assumes what the other synoptics explain, that He saw her after she had touched Him. There was no superstition or magic in touching the garment; the healing was because she had the faith to do it. The woman was healed from the hour (hora) of that encounter.
It would be enjoyable to think for a few moments what this would have meant for this woman--even though we know nothing more about her. First, her illness was gone, after years with suffering and with doctors who could not help. All of us have been ill in some way, and know the delight of being well again, not having pain, infections, incapacitating illnesses--to be able to move freely and comfortably in life. Second, she was able to live the normal life of a woman. We do not know if she was married or not, but in any case, she would now be able to have a normal relation with a man, to enjoy a marriage, to have children. For a woman in Israel this was a sign of God’s blessing. But third, she could now enter the temple for the first time in twelve years, to be among the ceremonially clean, to hear the Levitical choirs, to offer her praise to God at the altar, and to eat from the holy flesh of the peace offering in the presence of God.
All of this was because Jesus touched her, and reversed the reign of disease and death in her live.
III. Jesus raised the little girl from death’s sleep (23-26). Now the narrative returns to the ruler’s little girl. When they came to the house they encountered the professional mourners. Matthew alone mentions the flute players and the noisy crowd (Jewish custom prescribed two flutes and one mourning woman). Matthew mentions these because he is showing that Jesus put away the mourning, that He reversed the symbolism of the funeral. Recall that Isaiah had said Messiah would turn the mourning into dancing (Isa. 61:1-3); and Jesus had said back in Matthew’s house that while the bridegroom--He Himself--was there, there was no reason for such fasting and mourning. In fact, in Matthew 11 Jesus will say that people criticized Him because He did not mourn when they sang the dirge; rather, He came eating and drinking. Well, here He encountered mourners and ran them off; He then raised the girl and told them to give her something to eat. It was a time for living, because Jesus was there.
Jesus said that she was just asleep. But they laughed at Him. His use of the word “sleep” for death introduced for all who believe a different way of looking at death. It was a comparison of death with sleeping--for with Jesus the awakening from either is possible through His simple command. One of the best examples is in the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11). Jesus said to His disciples that Lazarus was asleep and they had to awaken him. The disciples did not understand; so Jesus had to say plainly that Lazarus was dead. This little girl was dead; everyone knew it. But Jesus said she was asleep, because He could awaken her.
They mocked Him. The point is that a word from Jesus was laughed at. It all sounded too incredible to them (and a good deal of what Jesus said does sound incredible). They laughed because this great healer did not get there in time, and then He seemed to have gone too far to want to try His skills on a corpse. He would surely make a fool of Himself. But in such situations Jesus’ words became even more profound.
When Jesus raised the little girl from the dead, He was not simply bringing a corpse to life--He was demonstrating that He has authority over death. And in doing so He was also showing that faith in Him would change despair into hope. His miracle of raising the little girl did not in and of itself prove that Jesus was more than a prophet, for other prophets had raised the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:17-37; and Acts 9:36-42). But those prophets and apostles never claimed to be more than prophets or apostles. Jesus constantly made much greater claims than they ever thought to make; and so when He did these kinds of miracles He was authenticating His claim to be the giver of life, the Messiah, the one who holds the keys of life and death (see also Rev. 1:18).
The corpse of a person also could make someone unclean by contact. People who had to bury a corpse would be unclean til sundown, then would have to wash in purification water, and then go through the re-entry into the sanctuary. But Jesus took her by the hand--and she was made clean, whole, alive. He was not defiled.
Interestingly, in the other gospels Jesus told them not to tell anyone about this, probably because He knew what He needed to do before the issue of His deity was to be challenged by the religious leaders--it was not the time for that confrontation yet. But Matthew reports that news of this spread throughout all the region--understandably so.
As far as Old Testament passages are concerned, I have already mentioned the Messianic passages of the kind of things that the Messiah was to do, especially for those who mourn. And there are also the comparisons with the prophets who raised the dead.
But a major area that you might need to study is the issue of the laws of uncleanness in Leviticus. This is a huge topic, and so you will need to do some reading on it. But in my forthcoming commentary on Leviticus, Holiness to the Lord (Baker Book House), I have a fairly substantial discussion of it. To be ceremonially unclean simply meant that the unclean person could not enter into the Temple, the place where God dwelt among His people. This was not a punishment, for to be unclean did not necessarily mean the person was a sinner (it could, because one with unconfessed sin in the life was also called unclean). A person who was sick, defiled by contact with death or disease, menstruating, giving birth, had mildew in his or her house, and so forth, was “unclean.” (The word “unclean” is unfortunate, since it gives the wrong impression; but we do not have much to use instead). Unclean simply meant there was a barrier between clean and unclean, between God and what was unclean in particular. The law was teaching people that all contamination, corruption, disease, and death was earthly and physical, and therefore incompatible with the holy Lord of life. And so while in a state of uncleanness the individual could not go to the sanctuary and could not contact others or it would render them unclean.
In this passage the woman was unclean, and yet she touched Jesus believing that the contact would heal her. Her faith healed her, and He was not defiled by her uncleanness. Then, the death of the little girl would normally render someone unclean who came in contact with the corpse; but Jesus took her by the hand. He was not rendered unclean because she came to life. Jesus is the Holy One. He could not become unclean. And through His death on the cross He solved the problem of the curse. In fact, the Book of Revelation concludes by stating that nothing unclean will enter into heaven. It cannot, for God is there. Everything unclean will be changed, made perfectly whole--as these miracles of Jesus anticipate and preview.
In the New Testament we would correlate other healing passages, of course, to see how Jesus demonstrated again and again His power to make whole, to make alive. The raising from the dead, though, would have to be correlated with John 11 as I already mentioned, for there Lazarus is called forth from the grave and Jesus teaches on His authority to raise the dead. 1 Corinthians 15 is the great passage on the resurrection of Jesus and what it means to our hope of resurrection. But in the chapter some familiar language is used: “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” For the believer to die is but to fall asleep. This is what Jesus said of the little girl.
As an interesting sideline, note that the verb in Greek is koimao, “to sleep.” In the language certain suffixes and prefixes can add meaning to the verbal root. An ending -terion usually means “a place” where the action or state exists. So we derive koimeterion meaning “sleeping place,” or in Christian tradition, “cemetery.” This is the faith that overcomes even the grave.
The passage, then, teaches that Jesus has authority over death. He is able to reverse the effects of the curse to the restored order of creation, to turn dying and death into life, and to turn the affliction of death into the ability to produce life. This power authenticates the claims of Christ to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, as Peter will later put it.
As far as application goes we should see here the same kinds of lessons we have seen in this part of the book. First, the passage calls for a response of faith, praise and thanksgiving for Christ and the promise of life that He brings. The passage should renew our faith in Him; it should remind us how He is the one who will remove the curse and bring about a whole new creation for those who have faith in Him. The promises of Christ are not to be laughed at, but to be heard and believed.
Second, those who deal with illness and afflictions may still approach the Lord in faith, asking Him to heal them, or restore them to the fullness of life. They know that He will do this in the resurrection; but they may seek His grace to do it in this life and bring greater glory to God now.
Third, as a minor application, we may think in terms of our view of death. We are not to mourn as the world mourns (and you can get into mourning customs if you wish). Death and dying is certainly not a time for levity or frivolity because it is a time of sorrow. And yet for the Christian death may simply be seen as a time when the body falls asleep in Jesus, until He returns with a shout, and all the dead in Christ will rise to new and everlasting life.1 This is the Christian hope. And the raising of this little girl was Jesus’ declaration to all of us that death is no obstacle in God’s program.
1 The way that the New Testament puts this all together is that when a Christian dies the body returns to the dust and the spirit goes to be with the Lord, being given a temporary “house” (=body) for the spirit. Then, at the resurrection, the body is raised incorruptible and glorified to be reunited with the spirit, so that the redeemed person may be completely whole (see 2 Cor. 5 and 1 Cor. 15 and 1 Thess. 4).
The next passage in the chapter records the healing of the blind men. While this is a relatively short narrative and seemingly not as significant as some of the longer ones, it is worth taking some time with it because of the importance in the Bible of the theme of blindness, both physical blindness and spiritual blindness.
In this chapter in Matthew the miracle of causing the blind to see shows yet another realm of the authority of Jesus the Messiah--the authority to give sight.
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When He had gone indoors, the blind men came to Him, and He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. 29 Then He touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” 30 And their sight was restored.
Jesus warned them sternly: “See that no one knows about this.” 31 But they went out and spread the news about Him all over the region.
This little account is really too short to suggest that it parallels other accounts in the gospels, of which there are several dealing with the healing of the blind. Some commentaries suggest that this account in Matthew 9 is another telling of the story of the healing of the blind man Barthimaeus, recorded in Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, and Luke 18:35-43. Matthew then would have been using the event twice in his gospel, if that were the case.
But there is very little to support this extreme position. The two stories are similar in that the blind are healed, although in our passage there are two blind men. But no doubt Jesus healed many blind people in His ministry, as the closure to Matthew 9 suggests (v. 35; see also 4:23 and 8:16-17). The fact that the blind say essentially the same thing in both passages does not mean they are the same event; the same thing is said elsewhere, such as in Matthew 15:22, which has nothing to do with blindness. And, in Matthew 20 the healing of Barthimaeus takes place as Jesus the King is beginning to make His way to Jerusalem; in Matthew 9 the incident is part of the demonstration of the authority of Jesus and occurs earlier. So the obvious conclusion is that Matthew 9:27-31 is a separate event in which Jesus healed two blind men. The event took place as Jesus left the home of Jairus after raising the little girl and returned to the place He was staying, perhaps in Peter’s house.
This narrative is really straightforward. Verse 27 records their cry to Jesus for help. Verses 28-30a records Jesus’ healing of them. And then verses 30b, 31 record the aftermath when Jesus instructed the men. The central core of the story, the healing itself, is the significant part, because there we have the words of Jesus about their faith. This points to the message that Jesus clearly has the power and the authority to give sight to the blind, but He requires that they believe He can do it. So while the point of the story is that Jesus has this authority to give sight, the sub-theme of the story is the requirement of faith to be able to see.
It is probably worth studying this topic at the start since it is what the passage is all about. Apparently, for some reason, blindness was fairly common in the days of Jesus. We do not know if the cases were all the same, whether they were blind from birth, or were blinded in some way. But to be blind then, as at any time, was a terrible handicap. The self-righteous leaders in the days of Jesus would have added to the problem by accusing such handicapped people of being sinners whom God had punished. And, it is true, that there are cases in the Bible where blindness was a punishment from God; but it is also true that that was not the automatic explanation for Christ (see John 9:1-5).
Blindness also was symbolic of spiritual ignorance, just as sight was symbolic of understanding. When God announced judgment on the nation of Israel through the prophet Isaiah, part of the judgment was that they would not understand the truth and not believe the message. In a word, they would be frozen in their ignorance and unbelief. God said, “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (6:9-10).
Jesus used this same symbolism in some of His teachings. In John 9 Jesus healed the blind man, and found a good deal of opposition for it from the spiritual leadership. So Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind” (9:39). The Pharisees knew He was speaking about them, and so they said, “What?--are we blind too?”(v. 40). And He said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim that you see, your guilt remains” (v. 41).
In other words, some who have their physical sight are blind to the truth--they are spiritually blind. If they continue to refuse to believe, then like ancient Israel they would remain in their blindness. He has the authority to seal up their spiritual blindness as a judgment if they persist in it--let the blind remain blind still.
But there were those who were physically blind, and they wanted to see, and so they were healed by Jesus who gave them sight. Because faith was required of those who were blind and wanted to see, those blind people were interpreted by the evangelists to be symbolic or at least representative of those in the nation of Israel, spiritually blind and ignorant of the truth, who through faith received their “sight.” In other words, these men might have been blind, but because of their faith they could see better than others.
I. The blind may receive their sight from Jesus the Messiah (9:27). The first section (verse actually) of the narrative is the cry for mercy from the blind men. They followed Jesus, probably aware of His presence in the crowd because of the news that spread from the healing of Jairus’ daughter. They cried, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”
The cry for mercy is understandable, for it is one of the most basic cries for divine help in Scripture. “Mercy” in the Bible, sometimes translated with the idea of “grace” or “favor,” describes some act of compassion that is undeserved--a free gift, a kind act. It is usually reserved for prayers to God, such as in seeking forgiveness for sin, protection from enemies, healing from disease, or any other number of needs. In the human arena it can be used from an inferior or subordinate person to a superior or a master to request for pardon, favor, or general benefit. They clearly knew that this Jesus had supernatural power and authority, and so they persisted in following Him and seeking His mercy.
But they called Him the “Son of David.” Why? Well, the title itself should indicate to the reader that kingship is being stressed. After all, David was the king, and a son of David is the heir to the throne. It is another, and more direct reference to the Messiahship of Jesus. But why should the blind men call Him “Son of David”? The answer to that will call for some study on the prevailing understanding of what the King, the promised Messiah, would be doing. Here you will need to go back into the Old Testament to look us some Messianic prophecies; to find them you may need to look in your dictionaries or theology books under “Messiah” or the like to see this. A good commentary on the Bible would also direct you to the appropriate passages.
Two Old Testament passages come to the fore. In Isaiah 35 we have a song of the joy of the redeemed when the LORD finally redeems Israel and brings in the reign of the Messiah:
1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
2 Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
The passage goes on to declare that there will be a highway in the land, on which the redeemed may walk. The ransomed of the LORD will return to Zion with singing, and everlasting joy will crown their heads. The song is clearly for the Messianic age that the nation was anticipating.
It is interesting to note that in Matthew 9:32 immediately after the healing of the blind man Jesus healed a man who was mute. He who had been mute, spoke.
The connection of these miraculous events of the so-called Messianic or golden age to come with the personal Messiah was prophesied in Isaiah 61:
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 To proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God.
In this listing of the things that the Messiah will do, we have the phrase “release (or opening) from the darkness for the prisoners.” The poetic expression is somewhat ambiguous, although in the context it probably has the primary meaning of setting prisoners free from the bondage. But the expression “opening from darkness” was translated by the Greek Old Testament this way: “opening from darkness for the blind.” This would have the sense, perhaps, of prisoners kept in darkness being set free were in fact like the blind given their sight.
When Jesus read the Scripture lesson from the prophets in the synagogue, Luke tells us He read this passage (Luke 4); and Luke simply records the Greek translation of what He read: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.”
Regardless of the deliberate ambiguity in the original Hebrew oracle, by the first century this passage and others were taken to mean that the Messiah would restore sight when He set them free from bondage--and no doubt in Jesus’ mind there was a double meaning here. Jesus desired to give them spiritual sight when He set them free from the bondage of sin before He would bring in the great Messianic age. This sequence troubled John the Baptist a little, for in Matthew 11 we read how he sent and asked Jesus if He was the Messiah or not. Jesus’ answer was: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The bind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt. 11:4,5). These are the works that the Messiah was expected to do, and Jesus was doing them. Therefore, Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah of Israel--and in the land in the days of Jesus there was an intense Messianic expectation.
The two blind men were not simply interested in Jesus’ lineage from David and His right to be a king. They used “son of David” in the sense of “the Son of David,” par excellence. Every legitimate king was a son of David; but one Son of David would be the great One whom they longed for with great longing. Since Jesus had been doing the miracles, these blind men believed that He was the one, and they pleaded for mercy from Him. If Jesus was Messiah, He would heal them.
II. Faith in Jesus the Messiah is the requirement for receiving sight (9:28-30a). It does not matter whether we are talking about receiving physical sight or spiritual understanding, faith is the prerequisite.
The faith of these two men is stressed in the story. First, they cried out to Jesus for help. They had to have formed an opinion about Jesus in order to do that; they had to have believed that He was able to heal them. Then, second, they followed Him indoors. This is an indication of their perseverence. It is rather bold, to be sure. We probably should not think, though, of modern housing when reading this account. The houses of the first century would have a number of add-on rooms to the central building, and often an inner courtyard for them. We do not know exactly where the blind men were, but the text makes the note that they followed Jesus away from the crowds and the public streets into the private area. And Jesus probably waited til they followed Him indoors to test their faith further (and to let the crowds calm down).
Third, their answer to Jesus’ question affirms their strong faith. Jesus asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Jesus was not trying to make it difficult for them; rather, He often gave people the opportunity to pour out their whole heart, to express their full faith and show their earnestness, before He answered. When He questioned them here indoors, they responded convincingly, “Yes, Lord.” Then Jesus touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” This does not mean that the amount of healing depends on the amount of faith; rather, it simply means that because they had faith they would receive their sight. And so because of their steadfast faith their sight was restored.
What is so impressive to the reader is the ease of His might in doing these things. We simply see His quiet majesty in response to those who come to Him by faith. It should also be noted that His question focused their faith in Him, and not just to God in general.
The Lord was fully able to give them sight, but He waited until He was able to draw from them a statement of their faith. They had come to the point of faith based on what they knew the Scripture predicted and what they had heard Jesus was doing. And that is usually the way faith develops. People have the clear word from God of how the Messiah will release us from the dark prison of sin and grant us spiritual understanding, and they can see how Jesus fulfilled Scripture again and again in meeting the needs of people in the gospel records, and down through history in the life of the church, and so they can cry with confidence to Him for mercy. It is the way for the blind men to be healed. It is the way for anyone to be healed, physically. But most importantly, it is the way to be healed spiritually, to have the spiritual blindness removed and spiritual sight given. Christ Jesus has the authority to give sight.
III. Jesus warns those He healed about publicizing the event (9:30b,31). Here is a good example of a part of the passage that was given for that specific time alone and that is not now applicable. We learn this by probing why Jesus gave the instruction. When Jesus healed the men, He sternly warned them not to let anyone know about this. Why would He do this? Jesus here was doing a “Messianic” work, another one on the same day, but He did not want the word to get out. In fact, He waited to do this indoors, out of the sight of the public eye.
The answer probably concerns the timing and the circumstance. Jesus certainly was revealing Himself as the Messiah, but in the proper way the Messiah should be understood. The crowds were enthusiastically following Him for healing and for food; but His mission was first to deal with the problem of sin, and that would not come through enthronement but through His sacrificial death. He had to control the crowd’s response and understanding of His mission. So in these several incidents where He warned people not to publish the news, or where He retreated from the crowds into the hills or out in the boat, or where He began to explain His death when the people were eager to make Him king, Jesus was trying to avoid a premature king movement that was falsely based and ill-conceived.
Today we do not have a binding word like this not to publish what the Lord has done--because the purpose of the binding word to the blind men was temporary in view of the circumstances. Instead, we are to go throughout all the world telling of Jesus’ Messiahship, and of His miraculous power.
If there is an application from this part of the story for today, it would be a warning against telling about Jesus in a falsely based or ill-conceived way. For example, publishing the news about the power of Jesus to heal without the primary focus on the spiritual healing through His death on the cross would be close to what Jesus was trying to prevent. People love to throng to one who has the power to heal; but they are not eager to come to one whose death reveals their sin and their need of salvation. Spiritual sight is more important than physical sight.
I have already discussed the themes of blindness and Messianic healing of the blind from the Old Testament and so do not need to repeat those here.
In the New Testament the theme of spiritual blindness is used by the apostle Paul--as one might expect since he when able to see was spiritually blind and persecuting Christians with a vengeance, but when confronted by Christ was made blind temporarily so that he could see. So he wrote to the Corinthians to say, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. . . . God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
In other words, unbelief is blindness; and salvation is illumination. Salvation begins with God’s causing light to shine in the darkness. Like Paul, people may be well versed in the knowledge of theology and Scripture, but until God shines in their hearts, they cannot see. It is the task of believers to present clearly to the unbeliever the truth of God’s word, to sow the seed as Jesus put it; but unless and until God causes them to see, it will not be understood and received. This should remind us that salvation is a miraculous work of God from the beginning to the end.
I think enough has been said already on the main point of the passage and the significance of it that I do not need to belabor that here. But in brief I can restate the points.
The passage teaches that Jesus has the authority to give sight. He can certainly restore physical sight to people who are blind, and did that frequently enough to show He has that power. This is why people today can pray for healing, although they must allow that the answer to their prayer may come now, or in the resurrection, for God has His timetable and His purposes.
But behind the healing of the blind men is the deeper meaning of the healing of their souls. Jesus was more concerned with the spiritual blindness in Israel that the physical blindness, which was often a symbol of the former. And the fact that these men came by faith to be healed physically shows that Jesus had already begun to reveal Himself to their souls, that they already had been enabled to see spiritually.
The second main point, then, of the passage is that faith is required to gain sight, both physically and spiritually. Whoever comes to Christ must believe that He is the promised Messiah and that He has the power and the authority to give sight.
The task of the church is therefore to take this message to a world that is blinded by the god of this world, the evil one, the deceiver. The people the church reaches out to may be educated, brilliant, clever, and even concerned with moral and ethical matters--much like Paul was! But if they do not believe in Christ Jesus as the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, the Savior or the world, they are spiritually blind. We who have received our sight, who have come to faith, should then be characterized by (1) praise and thanksgiving, (2) devotion to Christ, (3) a growing spiritual discernment in all things, and (4) public witness of the glories of the Lord.
The next section we will study will be Matthew 11:1-19, which is the account of John’s question from prison and Jesus’ response to it. I have passed over Matthew 10, not because it is not important, but because I wish to focus on a wider variety of kinds of passages in this series.
Matthew 10 records Jesus’ sending the disciples out to preach the message of the kingdom to the people of Israel. It is part of His presentation of the message to His own people first before turning to the Gentiles. The chapter is filled with the instructions that Jesus gave them as they went out, most of which are fairly easy to understand. That commission for the disciples was their first testing in ministry, a field assignment after the teaching, as it were. It certainly required them to make a total commitment to Christ and to rely totally on God’s protection and provision. The passage has provided Christian workers over the years with spiritual guidelines for their work. The only difficulties in dealing with that chapter are the specific instructions that could only apply to the disciples in their situation (such as being sent only to Israelites). Any application of them has to find corresponding situations in the modern setting (we are sent to the whole world now).
But Matthew 11 is a totally different section. It begins with an incident and leads to a teaching, a teaching that first honors John and then explains his question. The explanation that Christ gave for the question serves Matthew’s treatment of the turning point in the ministry of Jesus. His year of popularity has changed to a time of opposition by the leaders and those whom they influenced. So in Matthew 11 and 12 we will see the dramatic change in subject matter from Jesus’ revealing His authority to the nation to Jesus’ refutation of the attacks made on Him. Matthew 11 starts the tracking of that opposition with word of John’s imprisonment.
1 After Jesus had finished instructing His twelve disciples, He went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.
2 When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples 3 to ask Him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. 6 Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”
7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by in the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in king’s palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.”
11 I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to receive it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15 He who has ears, let him hear.
16 To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others,
17 “We played the flute for you,
but you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
but you did not mourn.”
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon.” 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and ‘sinners’.” But wisdom is proved right by her actions.
There are really three sections of this passage if we think about the progression of ideas. The first is the question from John and Jesus’ answer (1-6). The second is Jesus’ comments about John--some have said it was Jesus’ eulogy of John who was about to be beheaded in prison (7-15). This section was necessary because Jesus needed to remove any doubts in the people’s mind about John’s faith in view of his question. And then we have a third section in which Jesus gives the reason for the question John asked--the fickle nation had rejected John and Jesus (16-19). Had the nation received the message of John and the message of Jesus, John might not have been imprisoned at all. But the rejection brought all kinds of questions about the plan of God.
It is interesting that in each section there are quotations to answer the questions. The first question was John’s about Jesus, and Jesus answered it with a collection of quotations from the Book of Isaiah about what the Messiah should be doing. In the second part Jesus asks a number of questions about John and answers them with the support of the prophecy in the Book of Malachi. In the last section Jesus asks the question about the current generation of people, and then answers it, not with a quotation from the Bible but with a quotation about what children say in their play. It seems appropriate that Scripture is used to comfort John in prison and to confirm his greatness as the prophet who would be the forerunner; and it seems appropriate that a silly ditty would be used to explain the unbelief of the fickle, self-willed people.
Each of the three sections is closed with a wisdom saying. At the end of the first section Jesus says, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” John may have had questions, as indeed others probably did, but he was satisfied that Jesus was the Messiah. At the end of the second section Jesus said, “He who has ears let him hear.” This kind of a statement calls for a faith response to what has been said. And then at the end of the last section Jesus says, “Wisdom is proved right by her actions.” The results of the ministries of John and Jesus will validate what they were doing.
There is throughout this section a number of questions. They are not rhetorical questions, questions used to make a point but without the expectation of an answer. Rather, they are very effective teaching devices because the answers are either self-evident or answered by Jesus.
It will be easier to deal with the meanings of the words and expressions and with the citations from the Old Testament within the analysis of the sections rather than separately. But once again our method will be the same, even though in slightly different order: determine the meanings of the words in their context, explain the meaning and relevance of the Old Testament quotation in the passage, and decide what the main point of all these statements would be.
1. In response to John’s question Jesus affirms that He is the Messiah (11:1-6). In this first section we can probably skip over verse 1 as a transition verse connecting this event to the preceding instruction of the twelve. The chapter does actually continue their training, for here they will see one, John, who was arrested and killed eventually for Jesus’ sake. John then lived and died what Jesus taught in Matthew 10. This could be a fascinating way to study the last chapter.
But the immediate narrative begins with the question from John. We know that John the Baptist was put into prison by Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) because he had preached against the king for taking his brother’s wife. John’s ministry, then, was a short one of a couple of years. He had had the privilege, though, of introducing Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And that prophetic message he was given to proclaim was confirmed to him when he baptized Jesus and witnessed the divine approval from heaven. And still, those events, compelling as they were, lost some of their effect on him when he was in prison.
And so when John heard the things that Jesus was doing, he sent his disciples to ask, “Are you the Messiah or should we expect someone else?” This is not such a surprising question for an Israelite. Every king who came to the throne in Jerusalem was “anointed,” was a “messiah.” And each of them knew that God was going to bring in the golden age with His anointed one. Each of the believing kings who came to the throne may have wondered if it might happen in his reign--until there was a war, or he sinned and was denounced by the prophet. And so they would look for another, maybe the next king. John had certainly been convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but things had not been going as he thought they might if Jesus was the promised one.
In considering John’s question you need to think through the Messianic expectations of the people a little bit--it will figure prominently in this chapter. Most people expected a Messiah who would expel the Gentile oppressors from the land and establish a kingdom of righteousness and peace. They did not expect, and did not understand, that Jesus would not do that but would die at their hands. It actually took the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost before the disciple were able to put together what the plan was--even though Jesus tried to explain it to them again and again.
Part of the explanation of John’s question can be learned from Jesus’ answer. He simply told John’s disciples to go and tell John what they heard and saw.1 And then what Jesus listed was a number of works that the prophet Isaiah had said would be done by Messiah or in the Messianic Age. Most of these come from Isaiah 35 and Isaiah 61. Messiah was expected to do the miraculous--give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and the ability to walk to the lame. Messiah was also going to heal lepers because they were barred by the Law from the presence of God in the Temple.2 And Messiah would also do away with death according to Isaiah’s prophecies. So good news--the gospel as we call it--was being preached to the poor. These were works that Jesus was doing that would be recognized as works the Messiah was to do, works that only the Messiah could do.
But interestingly Jesus left one significant work out: Messiah would set the prisoner free and loose the captives. John was in prison. Now we begin to see John’s problem. He had heard what Jesus was doing--the works of the Messiah. But why then was he in prison? His question was probably not so much of doubt, but rather a mild prod for Jesus to do the work of Messiah. But Jesus’ answer to John only confirmed that He was the Messiah; the silence about the prison indicated that John was to stay in prison.
Before going on it is helpful I think to make a theological observation here. God has His plan and His timetable for His plan. He knew, as we now do, that Jesus had to suffer and die before entering into His kingdom. Otherwise there would be no redemption. So John, and many others, would have to suffer with Christ and His rejection by the nation. In one sense Jesus’ answer to John was that He was doing the Messianic works, but not all of them yet. He first had to suffer and die to rescue people from the prison of sin, and then He would establish His reign. In another sense Jesus was simply telling John that He was the Messiah but John would have to trust Him because He knew what He was doing. No doubt this was enough for John. If it was part of the Messiah’s plan for John to die in prison, that was fine as long as He received the word from the Lord.
2. Jesus appraised the ministry of John and confirmed His own Messiahship (11:7-15). As the disciples of John were leaving Jesus felt compelled to defend John’s integrity. The crowds may have been shocked or amazed at what John was asking. And so Jesus begins a series of questions to affirm that John was firm in the faith, not swaying in the breeze like the reeds by the river, and that John was a prophet who opposed the finery of the corrupt palaces. John was not fickle, tossed to and fro by public opinion. And John did not have undisciplined weakness--he was not living the fine life with soft (or even effeminate) clothing like the king who was keeping John in prison, but the rugged life of a prophet. So Jesus wanted to disarm their questions and suspicions.
John was a prophet in every sense of the word. He was more than a prophet, because he also was prophesied about in the Old Testament as the one who would announce the inauguration of the “Day of Yahweh.”3 So Jesus reminds the people of the words of the last prophet, Malachi: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” This is Malachi 3:1. Now to get the full impact of what is being said here, you really need to go back and look at the context of Malachi 3. There we read:
See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you desire, He will come.”
There are a couple of things worth noting here that inform the New Testament use of the passage. First, Jesus changed the pronoun from “me” to “you.” In the oracle in Malachi if you read the whole paragraph, verses 1-5, you will see that the speaker is Yahweh--God Himself. He is sending the messenger before Himself, because according to verse 5 He will come in judgment. The great event was the coming of the Yahweh; and the announcement of it would be through the messenger. Jesus wanted His audience to be clear on that point, and so by changing the pronoun in His use of the verse He affirms that if John the Baptist was the messenger preparing the way for the Yahweh, then He, Jesus, is Yahweh in the flesh, the God of Israel who was coming into the world.
The second thing is to observe that in Malachi the messenger of the covenant--Jesus the Lord--will come to “His temple.” Here too we have a subtle indication of the deity of Christ. All through the Old Testament the temple is called “the house of Yahweh” (the house of the LORD). Malachi prophesied that the messenger of the covenant would come to “His” temple--He is the LORD.
Now in the next few verses the sayings of Jesus get more difficult. When you run into a section like this, you can read it and study it and try to capture what the sense of it is, but you may need to go to a commentary or two in order to see what some of the options are for interpretation. The first difficult saying is that John was greater than all born of women, and yet the least in the kingdom will be greater than he (v. 11). On the one hand John is acclaimed as the greatest human being because he was a prophet, he was prophesied about, and he was the one who introduced the Messiah and the Day of the LORD to the world. But who is the least in the kingdom and in what sense is he greater than John? One view takes the “least” to be the “younger,” referring to Jesus Himself--he is the younger one and greater than John. No one would argue that he is greater, but “younger” is forced. Another view takes “the least in the kingdom” to refer to the future phase of the kingdom, in all its glory. John only got to announce it, but others will see it in all its glory. But that view would suggest John will not be in the kingdom. The third and better view has to do with “greater” in the sense of ministry or witness. John was great because he could point unambiguously to Jesus as the Messiah. But now that the New Covenant has been inaugurated in the Upper Room, and Christ has died, risen and ascended to heaven, the least in the kingdom has a greater witness than John. And this fits the context which is about John’s ministry, and the previous chapter which focused on the disciples’ task of acknowledging who Jesus is to the world. The most humble Christian has greater knowledge and greater opportunity than John the Baptist had. Of course, if they do nothing with that, then the description does not fit. But potentially they are greater.
The second difficulty in this section is the idea of the kingdom being taken by force (v. 12). Here too there are a lot of suggestions and interpretations. It is worth noting that the interpretation of the whole passage is not greatly affected by the decision of interpretation of this one verse. Nevertheless, we may come to our ideas and present them with the caution that other good interpreters disagree. The work would involve word studies here to see the range of uses for “force” and “lay hold of.” The text says that the kingdom has been forcefully advancing from the time of John until now, as Jesus was speaking. That has to be in either a good sense (the Gospel is working) or in a bad sense (the zealots are trying to force the issue with Rome). The good sense works better. If it meant that the kingdom was under attack or being pushed by the zealots, that did not start in the days of John. But with John and then immediately Jesus, the message of the Kingdom and the Gospel was being proclaimed and was being received by multitudes. John heard about this in prison.
The next clause then states “and forceful men take hold of it.” One view is that if the kingdom is steadily advancing, those who join in its cause must be courageous and openly promoting it. But this verb “lay hold of” almost always has a negative or evil sense. The violent or forceful4 “men” here could be zealots, Pharisees, Herod, or even spirits. This would then mean that the two clauses are different: the verse would then say that from the time of John the Kingdom preached by Jesus has been making great inroads, but at the same time wicked men have been trying to plunder it for their purposes--such as by beheading John. The point would be that the kingdom has been advancing, but it has not swept aside all opposition as John had expected. As the kingdom advances, the attacks on it by violent men increase. Jesus will later explain why this is the case; but for now it explains why John is in prison and wondering.
Then the third difficulty is verse 14: “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come.” Now you have to go back to Malachi to get the background for this. Malachi 4:5 announces that the LORD is sending Elijah before the great and terrible Day of the LORD (you might want to read Malachi 3 and 4 through to see his vision. There is some ambiguity in Malachi, because he does not say the “messenger” of 3:1 is “Elijah” of 4:5. They are separated by a description of the judgment to be poured out on the earth. If you only had Malachi, you could conclude they are different, and you could conclude they are one and the same. In the New Testament John was asked if he was Elijah, and he said he was not (John 1:21). But Jesus here says, “If you receive it” he is Elijah.
Most commentators say that John (in John 1:21) was wrong. He saw himself as the voice crying in the wilderness but did not see himself as fulfilling Malachi’s prophecy. This is possible, for in our passage we have already seen that John may have been perplexed on how things were working out. But if this view is correct, then Jesus was saying that John fulfilled the prediction of an Elijah who would prepare for the great and terrible Day of the LORD. Obviously, John was not literally Elijah, for that would involve something phenomenal, akin to re-incarnation, since John was born of natural means. But it would mean that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, an Elijah figure.
Others are not satisfied with this view and suggest the key is in the contingency clause, “If you receive it.” This would not be interpreted as “if you like” or “if you are willing to accept this saying” but “if you receive the whole message of the kingdom.” It would be understood in the sense of “He came to His own, and His own received Him not.” If they had received Him and His message, John would have fit all the conditions of the promise of Elijah. But they did not, and so the prophecy of an Elijah still stands and may be fulfilled literally before the second coming. And some even point to the appearance of Elijah with Moses at the Transfiguration as a preview of this.
There are many other views offered, but these are the more plausible in my estimation. The whole Elijah prophecy deserves a thorough study before you make up your mind. The solution does not change the interpretation of the whole passage, which essentially is acclaiming the greatness of John the Baptist.
3. Jesus explains the problem of John (11:16-19). Obviously something has happened that led to John’s question, something hinted at already with the men of violence plundering the kingdom--the king and the kingdom is being opposed and rejected. So Jesus offered this explanation with a simile: He compared that generation to children playing in the marketplace. What is so helpful in Bible study here is that not only did Jesus give the figure but then explained it. So He said that generation was a fickle generation, fickle like children, who want things to go their way. But John, and then Jesus, did not play their game.
First he takes the line of the little song, “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.” If John was the forerunner announcing the Day of the LORD, and if Jesus was the Messiah he introduced, then there should have been celebration and rejoicing. But John did not dance. He did not even come eating normally or drinking wine. He came turning his back on the society and demanding that it repent. He announced that the axe was at the base of the tree and judgment was coming if they did not repent. The people said he had a demon.
They also sang, “We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” If Jesus was their Messiah, He should have taken up their cause as an oppressed people. He should have lamented with them over their suffering at the hands of the Romans. But instead, He came eating and drinking, as if celebrating life as it was. He ate with sinners, even with Romans and tax-collectors. And so of Him they were saying that He was a glutton and drunkard.
All that generation did was demand that John and Jesus conform to their way of thinking, and when they did not they criticized--or killed them. They hated the message of repentance and of the proclamation of the Gospel, and so they played their control game while Rome burned (as it were). But if they had understood John and had come to repentance, then they would have understood Jesus. So once again the issue seems to be that the unbelief and opposition of people not only criticized and attacked the messenger and the Messiah, but by doing so raised all kinds of questions about the Messiah. And Jesus, in answering the questions, affirmed that John was the messenger and He the Messiah.
The last statement, which is difficult to interpret, was designed to say that wisdom, which throughout the Bible is concerned with right living, has been vindicated by her actions. Or, both the lifestyles of John and of Jesus must be acknowledged as authentically what wisdom produces. John had a mission to call the nation to repentance, and his lifestyle harmonized with that mission. Jesus presented the message of the kingdom to all who would receive it, and his lifestyle harmonized with that part of His mission. And through the ministries of John and Jesus, the kingdom made steady advances, even though men of violence like Herod tried to subvert it.
I did not do a great deal with synoptic comparisons because there is not a great need to do so with this passage. The ongoing discussion of the sequence of events and whether or not Matthew has rearranged the speeches of Jesus will be of interest to some students of the Bible, but will not change the meaning of what Jesus said about John and about the Kingdom.
Other New Testament passages will undoubtedly come up when studying this passage with its many themes. Most importantly will be the distinction between the present form of the Kingdom, the advance of it through the Gospel, and the fulfillment of it at the second coming. Many passages address these things, and a good article or discussion on the Kingdom or on the Gospel will open them up to you.
The nature of the ministry of the prophet to prepare the way for the Lord is an interesting theme that the church has picked up on for its prophetic ministry. Believers today have the task of preparing the way for the Lord at his second coming. And that involves calling people to repentance.
The Old Testament passages to be connected with this passage were discussed in the preceding section.
The meaning of the passage should now be pretty clear, in the whole if not in every part. The passage is really about John the Baptist, his concerns, his vindication and his appraisal. But in dealing with John the passage affirms that Jesus is the Messiah, that the Kingdom of God had come and was beginning to take hold, and that the Day of the LORD was beginning. But these great events would not fully come until the second coming, as the rest of Scripture will affirm again and again.
The lessons that can be drawn from a passage like this are many. You should first try to capture the main point of the whole passage if you can. In this chapter that may be that God’s kingdom program is on course in spite of opposition and confusion. The passage makes it clear that John was the forerunner, and Jesus the divine Messiah. With those truths in mind we can build our faith in Him. We know that He does what the Messiah was to do, and so like others we can avail ourselves of His wonderful provisions of meeting all our needs. This was the vision Isaiah presented of what the Messiah would do; and it has always made steady growth throughout the world.
Those who oppose it, unbelievers all, are those who in their pride think they know how the faith should be developed, and it usually is in harmony with their own will. But repentance involves submitting to the will of God.
But we must acknowledge that the kingdom is already here but it has not yet come. That means that some aspects of it are working out, but some are not. John died in prison. And if the Lord tarries we may die before His return. We still are in the faith phase of the program, not the sight or the completion. There will be many things that happen in opposition to the program of God that will make us wonder if He really is the Coming One, or at least why these things happen. But Jesus’ words to John help us here: Trust me, I am the Divine Messiah. There is opposition, and until that opposition is put down, things will at times seem to go awry.
Another lesson would be that the least in the kingdom is greater than John. Every believer, no matter of what rank in the church pecking order, knows more than John knew, and therefore has the greater opportunity to tell the world about Jesus the Messiah. Most of the world will be like the marketplace children, because they want the religion to conform to their own way of thinking. But others will hear and repent and enter the kingdom by faith. We like John should be focused on our mission, not wavering like the reeds, and not seduced by the finery of a comfortable life that can deaden the zeal and commitment. And we like John may find opposition when we stand up and tell the world the truth. But greatness with God is determined by faithfulness.
There are many other observations and lessons that could be drawn from this passage. With this study in mind, though, the framework for thinking about those smaller points is set. We can think about the present ministry of Jesus in meeting the needs of people, the hard heartedness of unbelief that will not submit to Christ, the criticism of the world that does not understand because it has not received the wisdom of God, the reality of the nature of Jesus as the LORD who comes to His temple, and the predictions about John, Jesus, and how their fulfillment conform the truth of God’s word.
1 The Bible does not say where John was held in prison, but Josephus the Jewish historian says it was in Macharius, a fortress Herod the Great had built across the Dead Sea in the hills. That makes some sense because Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and that section on the other side of the Dead Sea. He had no jurisdiction over Jerusalem and Judea, and so John would not be held there. If this is correct, the journey of John’s disciples would have taken a few days.
2 We are probably not to think here of actual leprosy, Hanson’s Disease, which was rare, but all kinds of skin diseases, because in Leviticus such “leprosy” would in time and with proper care and quarantine clear up. That would not happen with true leprosy. But there would have been some cases of true leprosy, and it is hard to say if that is what the word refers to or not in some of those passages where Jesus healed the lepers.
3 If you do some reading on the “Day of the LORD” you will see it is a rather involved concept but essentially describes the intervention of the LORD in this world for redemption and judgment. It often is limited to the Messianic Age.
4 We should note here an important figure of speech called antanclasis, a figure of speech in which the same word is repeated in a different and contrary sense. The verb “advancing forcefully” was used in a positive sense; then its derived noun :forceful men” was used in an evil and negative sense.
It will become clear as we continue to make our way through Matthew that the passages get more and more involved in their theological ideas. It is helpful for us to remind ourselves that these gospels are not simply narratives about the life of Jesus, although they are that; rather, they are theological works that are presenting the message about the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. And as John tells us, if everything about Jesus and what He did were written down, no book could contain the vast amount of material. So we have to read Matthew this way. He is selecting many events from the life of Christ, putting them generally in a chronological order unless he rearranges slightly to fit his theological order, and using them to develop an argument or thesis.
We are now coming to the turning point of the book. Matthew has been presenting Jesus as the King of Israel, the promised Messiah. He has reported Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom, and he has described Jesus’ miracles to show that He has all the authority and all the power that Scriptures said Messiah would have. But in chapter 11 the tide begins to turn. John the Baptist is in prison, and that seems to detract from the steady growth of the popular appeal Jesus had. But the reason John was in prison was because the nation, especially under the influence of the leaders, rejected John’s call for repentance, and rejected Jesus’ appeal to sinners to enter the kingdom. Now in the last part of Matthew 11 we have Jesus’ announcement of woe on these unrepentant people, and His clear invitation for them to follow Him. As we shall see, this is met by further rejection in chapter 12 where they accuse Him of having a demon. And so we can see the idea unfolding, that He came to His own, but His own received Him not, and so to as many as would receive Him He gave the authority to be the children of God. Then, in chapter 13, He began using parables to teach.
Our passage for this lesson is very rich for theological as well as practical considerations--rich to the point of almost being dense with profound details.
20 Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the skies? No, you will go down to Hades. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
28 “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Well, there are probably a number of lines in this passage that the reader has heard again and again in Christian circles. It truly is a cardinal passage for the Gospel presentation of Christ. And interestingly, almost the entire passage is made of the words that Jesus said (apart from a couple of lead-in lines to the quotes).
We can see three separate topics developing here, and the three developing in a logical argument. The first is the announcement of impending doom on the people who did not repent (verses 20-24); the second is the disclosure that all revelation comes through Jesus Christ (verses 25-27); and the third is the invitation to come to Jesus to find spiritual and eternal rest (verses 28-30). There is the word of condemnation, the word of revelation, and the word of invitation. This is a good pattern to follow in any presentation of the Gospel: all have sinned and will face judgment, God has sent His Son so that we might escape the judgment, but we have to come to Christ and by faith follow Him.
The most striking thing to me is the note of authority in these words. These are not the words of an ordinary teacher, but of one who is Lord. In the first section He can easily declare what would have happened to the ancient people if they had received this revelation. And with the authority of the judge of the whole world, He declares that it will be easier for them in the judgment than these who had the revelation and refused it. Then, in the second section He can easily declare that no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. The people of that day thought they knew God; but now that the Messiah had come, they would learn that if they rejected the Messiah they did not know God at all. The wise in all their learning did not know; the weak and weary would come to know by faith. And then in the third section He demonstrates that He has the keys to heaven. He does not tell people that if they follow His teachings they will learn the truth, or that if they follow Him He will show them how to get to God--He tells them He Himself will give them salvation! He also tells them, though, that they have to abandon their former religious alliances and become His disciples. These are the words of one who has authority. These are the words of one who calls for people to make a major decision.
The emphasis on miracles in the passage must be noted. Jesus came proclaiming to the world that He was the Messiah. And He did many miracles to authenticate His claims. So the people had His words, and His works--two witnesses. If they were not convinced by His words, then they had the works. If they did not believe the words of Jesus, and denied the works (see chapter 12), then there were no other witnesses for them. They were in grave danger.
In a passage that has so many specific ideas (judgment, revelation, miracles, rest and the like), it is a little more difficult to get the main idea clear. But I think if you see the flow of the passage toward the invitation the idea will emerge. The passage culminates in the clear teaching that the way to find spiritual rest for the soul is to believe in Christ Jesus. The reason people can believe in Him is because He alone reveals the Father. And the reason that they can know that He reveals the Father is because He did the miracles. Or to put it in the order Matthew has it: The miracles of Jesus revealed that He was the Lord, and as the Lord He alone could reveal the Father, and so if people place their spiritual lives in His care by faith they would find eternal rest.
The dark side of this is that those who do not repent of their sins miss the meaning of the miracles, do not know the Father, and will not find rest for their souls.
This is a very “exclusive” idea, but if we think about it for a while it can be no other way. If there is only one God, and that God has visited this world in the person of Jesus Christ, then how can people reject Jesus Christ and still claim to know the one true God?1 The fundamental issue in religion for the world is what to think about Jesus Christ. Reading the Gospel of Matthew clearly shows how one should think about Him. No one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
The passage does not directly quote from any Old Testament prophecy, and this is unusual for Matthew’s account. But it makes allusions to some Old Testament places. What will be more helpful in studying this passage is to gain some insight for it from the Jewish culture of the first century--how they thought and the language they used. We will note some of this in passing.
1. The Word of Condemnation: Jesus denounces those who rejected the revelation and would not repent (vv. 20-25). The passage begins with Jesus’ denouncing the cities where He did so many miracles. Of course the word “cities” means the people in the cities (so the figure of speech is a metonymy). These cities are Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Korazin (pronounced kora-zeen) is a small town up in the hills to the northwest of the Sea of Galilee by a couple of miles. We visit the ruins of this town when we make trips to Israel, because one can still see the remains of the ancient synagogue, the ritual bath, and houses--not from the days of Jesus, but from a later period of the city (in which any rebuilding would have been on the same foundations and in much the same manner). Bethsaida (pronounced bate-sigh-da) is a fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, to the east of Korazin and down on the plain. This was the place where Jesus called some of His disciples. It is not on the tour list currently because archaeologists are working on it. The third city named is Capernaum (in Hebrew kafer-nahum, the village of Nahum [not the Old Testament prophet Nahum]). This was the home of Jesus and Peter. It was a fishing village on the main road that ran along the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. So all these three towns were within a few miles of each other on the north and northwest side of the lake.
Jesus spent a good deal of His time preaching in these and other towns, and doing most of His mighty works in this area. The people were glad to listen to Jesus, they were delighted that He healed so many of them, and they were pleased to be fed when He multiplied the food. Biblical scholars often refer to the first year of Jesus in this region of the Galilee as the year of His popularity. The people wanted to make Him king.
So why was Jesus denouncing the people now? Because they would not repent. He had not been doing the miracles to meet their physical needs alone. He had not been teaching them about the kingdom to gain political support. He had been ministering among them to bring them to salvation, and that began with their repentance. People like the idea of religion if it gives them what they want, or if it makes them feel comfortable in their lives. But, when it calls for repentance . . . .
What Jesus does in this section is make a contrast with these people and the people of ancient Tyre and Sidon. Those were two Phoenician cities just over on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Jesus said that if they had been given these miracles they would have repented. This is a very interesting statement for a number of reasons. The ancient Phoenicians were idolaters, worshipers of Baal and other deities. They received some revelation through their contacts with Israel and the prophets of Israel.2 And in Matthew 15 when Jesus visited Tyre and Sidon and met the Canaanite woman, she seemed to reflect a long historical tradition of knowing about the promised Messiah of Israel (we shall look at this in a later lesson). So they had a chance to know the true God through contacts with Israel, but they did not have much information because Israel failed as a kingdom of priests and a light to the nations. But Jesus says here that if they had had this much clear revelation, if the message would have been peached to them for a year or two and authenticated by this many miracles, they would have repented.
The reason for the difference may have something to do with religious orientation. The people of Tyre and Sidon were idolaters; idolaters may be confused and blind in their pagan practices--but at least they know that they have a spiritual need. They just do not know how to meet it. But the Jews in Jesus day were not idolaters--that had been knocked out of them at the Babylonian captivity. They were strict monotheists, and with that, legalistic and self-righteous. People who believe they have the truth will not be open to more revelation; people who are self-righteous do not think they need to repent; and people who have come to their own strict, monotheistic perception of God have a hard time accepting who Jesus is.3
Jesus adds the comparison with Sodom. Sodom was the Canaanite city to the south of the Dead Sea where Lot went and became a judge. But it was such a perverted and corrupt city that God had destroyed it 2,000 years earlier (Gen. 19). (Modern writers like to think that the sin of Sodom was inhospitality. But that is just foolish, and no doubt done to divert the attention from the sexual perversion that the Bible said was there. God will not wipe out a city because some of its folks were inhospitable.) But Jesus says that if they had had this revelation that Capernaum had, they would have remained to this day, meaning, they would have repented and God would not have destroyed them. We could say too that if these Galilean cities had repented and followed Christ they might have remained to this day as thriving cities, some 2,000 years later. But they are all gone, and only the foundations and loose stones remain for the archaeologists to ponder.
The people around Galilee had been given a great amount of revelation--but they would not repent. And so Jesus announces impending doom with “Woe!” (Hebrew ‘oy). This is the same expression Isaiah used when he saw the revelation of the glory of the Lord: “Woe is me, I am undone! I am a man of unclean lips . . . “ (Isa. 6). That is the proper response to divine revelation, a repentance that laments sinfulness and seeks forgiveness. Jesus did not get that very often in the Galilee, and so now He announces the “woe” on them. It is the announcement of impending doom because of sin.
What is interesting in this section is that Jesus hints that there will be degrees of punishment in the judgment based on the amount of “light” or revelation people had. People like the Sodomites may have been wicked and idolaters, but it will go easier on them in the judgment because they did not have the amount of light Capernaum did. Capernaum had a lot of revelation, and since they rejected it, the judgment will be severe on them. This shows us that God is very much aware of how much information people had of the truth and will take that into account. Judgment will be fair. But it will be the most severe on those who had the most information and refused it. People who live in a region which is filled with churches and religious communications will have no excuse if they choose not to respond to the message.
2. The Word of Revelation: Jesus declares that He alone knows and reveals the Father (25-27). There are two parts to this section, the first is Jesus’ prayer of thanksgiving to the Father (25, 26), and the second is His teaching about God (27). Jesus praised the Father because these things had been hidden from the wise and the learned and revealed to little children. He addresses God as Father, stressing the intimate and personal relationship He has with the first person of the Godhead--Father and Son share the divine nature and are in essence one. But He also refers to the Father’s sovereignty as Lord of heaven and earth. These motifs are critical in leading up to the point of His prayer of praise, for the fact that some people believe and some do not can now be explained by the fact that God hides the truth from some and reveals it to others. This is part of the mystery of God.
What does He mean by “these things”? The passage does not say, but the reference must be to the words and the works of Jesus as divine revelation. They were hidden from the wise and learned, because the wise and learned are most often characterized by pride in their ability to know the answers, and their refusal to admit they do not know and need someone to tell them the truth. “Little children,” though, are open and trusting. Of course, Jesus is not talking literally about little children, but about people who are open and trusting. He has just compared His generation to children playing in the market place. It was to the unpretentious, the open, the trusting--people with genuine needs, that the truth was revealed.
People in their wisdom cannot find God; it must come by revelation. And people cannot please God without faith. So it was the Father’s good pleasure to reveal the Son to those who would be willing to receive Him. In Matthew, one must think of the Pharisees and the scribes as the wise and the learned. And they become for us the patterns of self-righteous pride that claims to have the spiritual insight. And while they can formulate sophisticated religious systems, they cannot truly know without divine revelation.
In verse 27 what Jesus actually does is explain the need for the incarnation, that is, His coming into the world in human flesh. The Father has committed all things to Him, and among those things committed to Him is the work of revealing the Father. John in his prologue tells us that while no one has ever seen God the father, the Son has declared Him. Jesus is the full revelation of who God is. And since we cannot understand the trinity, that is, how God could be one in three persons, we have to work with the language of the text before us. Only Jesus truly knows the Father, because He is one with the Father, and no one truly knows the Son except the Father. Mortals know a little bit about God, but never having been in heaven in the glorious presence of the Godhead, their knowledge is fragmentary--and all they really have is what was told to them in Scripture. But when the Son came into the world, He came to reveal the Father. He did that through His teachings, His miracles, and His death and resurrection. In this context, we learn that by His miracles that authenticated His teachings, Jesus had been revealing the Father to the people. But when they refused to receive the revelation, He announced doom on them.
In a strange and mystical way Jesus presented the message of the kingdom to all those people, but He “revealed” it only to some of them--meaning, some of them repented and believed. We cannot know the inner workings of God. But when we see people repent and believe, in addition to saying that they repented and believed we must also say that God revealed the truth to them through His Son, and that is why they repented and believed. Jesus also said that no one can come to the Father unless the Spirit draws him (John 6:44). He also said that those that all who the Father gives Him will come to Him, and will not be cast aside (John 6:37). So there is a sovereign side of the process of salvation that must never be forgotten. Jesus makes it very clear--no one knows the Father apart from the special revelation of the Son.
In the first century the Israelites prided themselves on the idea that they were the people of God, the holy nation. They were convinced they knew who God was, this Yahweh, the God of their Fathers. But they may have known about Him, but they could not have known Him experientially apart from faith in Jesus the Son of God. This is clearly the claim that Jesus makes. And it is still true. Many in the world have an idea or a perception abut God. They think they know God. But if Jesus is the final and full revelation of God, they cannot truly know God and have nothing to do with Christ.
And what is it that Christ reveals about the Father? Among many things is the central idea of the grace and love of God that provides redemption through the Son. Without the renewal of mind and spirit through redemption people cannot know God, not in the way that brings eternal life.
And if they refuse to repent of their sins, they do not know God at all. For God is holy and righteous, and will judge all sin. If the Israelites of that generation knew God as they claimed, they would have repented at the preaching of John and Jesus. And if they had repented they would have received Christ.
3. The Word of Invitation: Jesus calls people to faith in Him and promises them eternal rest (28-30). Here is one of the most profound examples of Jesus’ calling people to believe in Him. The words in these verses record the essence of the call to faith, and whoever understands them has found the way to the heart of Christianity. The chapter began with John asking if Jesus was the Messiah, to which Jesus responded that He is. It then included Jesus’ explanation of the problem of John with the rejection of the people. And because they refused to repent and believe, He denounced them and warned them of judgment. This judgment would come because they refused to accept the revelation He was providing in His teachings and His miracles. And so at the end of this section He repeats His offer--they do not need to be judged, they can find spiritual rest, if they come to Him.
Since revelation was not given to the wise and the learned, the invitation now given must have been intended for the weak and the weary. Jesus makes His appeal to people who have spiritual needs, not to the learned religious teachers who did not think they had any spiritual needs. Jesus’ double designation “weary and burdened” covers both sides of human misery, those who have undertaken burdens themselves and are weary (the active sense) and those who have had burdens laid upon them (the passive sense). Based on other teachings of Jesus we may say that this burden included the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees: “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matt. 23:4). It was hard enough to try to keep the Law; but the Pharisaical regulations made it a complete burden.
His invitation was with promise: “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest.” When rest is rest for the soul, burdens become light. In all probability Jesus was referring to the promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah that the LORD would refresh the people (31:25); for those who followed Jesus by faith the rest would be both a present reality through the forgiveness of sin and relief of the burden of guilt, and a future guarantee of complete redemption. The important thing to note is that He, Jesus, and not the Father, gives this rest. He is claiming to be the LORD, Yahweh, of Jeremiah 31. His words are emphatic, “I Myself,” and they underscore the previous declarations (vv. 25, 27) and affirms that He can and most assuredly will give this rest.
The call is for people to come to Him. This is ultimately a figure of speech, comparing believing in Him to the act of coming to Him. It indicates that one must believe in Jesus and seek forgiveness and salvation from Him. The act of faith would not be a momentary response, but it would be a whole new orientation to the spiritual life. Genuine faith will find expression in learning from Jesus, or taking His yoke.
In Israel the study and observance of the Law was often referred to as “the yoke of the law.”4 When Israelites repeated Deuteronomy 6:4 (the Great Shema’--”Hear O Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD is One”) they were said to be taking the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, and by adding Deuteronomy 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41 they were taking the yoke of the commandments. An old saying of the sages taught that whoever took the yoke of the Law was released from the cares of government and from the ordinary means of procuring subsistence (Mishnah: The Sayings of the Fathers, 3:5). So “yoke” was a well-known figure of speech for yielding to authority.5
Therefore, the call of Jesus was a more involved call for faith than a simple acceptance of Him. It was a call for people to exchange yokes. In those days to take Christ’s yoke would have meant to submit to Him as the religious authority in the place of the current Jewish leaders. To accept Jesus meant to turn away from the current religious authorities who were not meeting their spiritual needs. The yoke of Pharisaism was a heavy obligation; but the yoke of Jesus was light. Jewish piety often made the yoke heavy by taking on as many obligations as possible (an approach some Christian groups have followed by making their many additional rulings binding laws). But Jesus offered a yoke that was “easy,” meaning, good, comfortable or well-suited. Just as a yoke had to be tailor-made for oxen, the Lord’s yoke fits well the needs and abilities His people. Essentially, Christ would bear the burden, and those who took His yoke by faith would find rest for their souls.
This can be illustrated from the imagery of the animals. If a man wants to train a young oxen to do the work, he yokes it or joins it with a yoke to an older, experienced animal. Which of these two animals do you think will work the hardest? Of course, the older one. When people accept Christ and enter the spiritual life, it is the power of God through the teachings of the word that enable them to live according to the Christian faith.
This whole promise of finding rest for the soul by following the right way is drawn from Jeremiah 6:16, which indicates that following the “ancient paths” and the “good way” is the life that is learned when the yoke of Christ is taken. But by using the language He does, Jesus is telling people that He is the one to whom the Scriptures point as fulfilling their needs.
So Christ’s invitation called for a radical change and made staggering promises. The choice was between the burden of submission to the Law as enforced by Pharisaical regulations and the rest in coming under the authority of Jesus, the one who not only reveals the Father but guarantees access to Him. Robinson says, “How different the yoke of Messiah--the lowly Jesus! He imposes only the royal law of liberty, the law of love as exemplified in his own perfect life,--imparting both strength and motives for its observance, covering our short-comings with his atoning blood, and procuring acceptance for us and our imperfect service by his spotless obedience.”
The means of finding rest was expressed in the words, “Learn of me.” Jesus was saying, “Let me teach you what you need to know, trust in my words, learn from the revelation that I alone impart.” Such was the amazing claim to authority over their lives; and yet this teacher described Himself as gentle and humble. But the authority and humility of Jesus are not incompatible: His majestic authority is true because only He knows the Father, and His humility is genuine because as the revealer of the Father He is the Servant.
The people were going to have to decide. If they chose to remain as disciples of the Pharisees, they had only dismay and despair ahead of them; but if they submitted to the authority of Christ and became His disciples, they would come to know the Father and enter into everlasting rest. They would have to unlearn a lot of what they had been taught about religion from the teachers if Israel, for they would be throwing off that burdensome yoke of trying to keep the Law to be saved. And they would have to begin this new spiritual journey with repentance, the very thing that many people in the cities of Galilee did not want to do.
This is the call to faith that has gone out to the whole world, namely, that whoever would find rest for their weary souls must trust in Jesus Christ and not in their religious efforts or works of righteousness, for only He can give spiritual rest and well-being to the troubled soul. Some religions can give temporary rest for a time in this life through various spiritual disciplines. But the rest that Jesus promises last for eternity. It is a re-entry into the Sabbath Rest that was begun at Creation. And such a commitment to Christ, will not only bring rest but will inevitably lead to righteousness because those who follow Him will learn from Him.
For the basic message of this little section the full exposition of it is to be read in the first few chapters of Romans. In the first two chapters Paul explains that all have sinned and are separated from God--that is what makes the soul weary and life a burden. And even though the have the Law, they cannot keep it to earn salvation, for the Law keeps revealing their sins. But then, in chapter 3 he announces that God made Christ a sacrifice for sins, so that there is redemption in Him. In other words, there is a righteousness available for people, a gift from God, provided for in Christ Jesus. And this gift of righteousness can be received by faith in Christ (chapter 4), just as righteousness had been given to Abraham who believed in the Lord. And once faith receives the provision of God in Jesus, there is freedom from judgment and peace with God (chapter 5:1).
In the Old Testament it would be helpful to study a bit on the promise of the New Covenant. The cardinal passage is Jeremiah 31 (the whole chapter, but especially verses 31-37), but in addition you need to study Isaiah 54 (especially verses 10-17), and Ezekiel 36:22-38. The promises of the New Covenant include the restoration of the people to the land, the removal of their sins, the giving of a new heart to them, the provision of the Holy Spirit, the writing of the Law in their hearts, the provision of rest and refreshment for their souls, changes in the world so that there will be a kingdom of peace and righteousness and a world of prosperity and abundance, in which everyone will know the Lord. All of this will be centered on the Messiah who will reign in their midst. Some of these promises began to unfold when the Israelites came back from the captivity in 536 B.C. But they quickly realized that the promises of the New Covenant fully awaited another time. When Jesus came into the world the most important piece of it was in place, the Messiah. And He began to heal and minister to show that He could make these changes; and He called on people to believe in Him so they would have rest for their souls. And when He returned to Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to begin to work in our hearts. The salvation we have in Christ, and the Spirit of God we have received from Christ, are also parts of the picture, but not fully worked out yet. The full measure of those promises, and the fulfillment of the promises not yet provided, await the Second Coming.
You may also embark on a detailed study of how Christ is the revelation of the Father, but this will take you into a much larger study of theology than this passage covers. You would do well to obtain a good general theology, one that surveys Bible doctrines briefly so that the basic ideas could be understood and Scripture passages located easily. There are many of these available. You may want a general volume such as Christian Theology by Millard J. Erickson (Baker Book House), which is easy to read. About the same amount of material, but in three fairly small volumes, is Essentials of Evangelical Theology by Donald G. Bloesch (Prince Press, a division of Hendrickson).
Here we have to make sure that our application fits the passage. Too often preachers and teachers will make the application that the passage requires, but they might make it to the wrong crowd. Jesus is clearly appealing to unbelievers to repent and to come to Him by faith so that they could find rest for their souls. And so the primary application is to people who do not know the Lord. They may have started to hear about the teachings of Jesus, or about the miracles He did, and they be starting to realize some of the claims that He made or the promises He made. If not, other Christians have the wonderful opportunity to tell them about Christ. But the appeal is to them to trust their whole spiritual life to Christ, meaning, believe in Him (that He is the Son of God, the Savior of the world), repent of sins and accept the forgiveness that He has promised based on His shed blood, and begin a life of discipleship in His teachings.
Now if the Bible study or message of this passage is being given to a group who are already believers, then we have to make a secondary application. This can be done in one or two ways, or both. One, Christians should be encouraged to do exactly what Matthew is doing in this chapter, telling people who Jesus is (the Son who reveals the Father), what He said (that He will bring them to God because He alone knows the way) , what He has promised (rest for their souls, now and in the world to come), and how they should respond (repent of their sins and find rest for their souls by placing their trust in Him and following no other way).
Christians can also be encouraged in their faith be this solid reminder of who Christ is and what He provides. Building up their faith and confidence will also encourage them to get on with their learning of Him. A list could be drawn up of the dozens of things that Jesus taught His disciples to do (love one another, be reconciled to one another, forgive one another, serve one another, etc.) As a test to see just how we are doing in learning from Christ what it means to be spiritual.
1 This is why people who want to say all religions are saying the same thing and everyone is on the right track must dethrone Jesus, or in some way strip Him of His rightful place as God Incarnate.
2 You can look in a dictionary under Phoenicians and see what contacts they had. Most notable is the fact that their king provided so much material for Solomon to build the Temple.
3 You can see the difficulty even today when looking at the rigid nature of Judaism, and or Islam, and how hard it is for them to understand Christ--until the Holy Spirit breaks through and illumines their hearts.
4 You can learn about Jewish ideas of the first century from a number of sources. One of the easiest to use if you can get a copy (out of print) is Thomas Robinson, The Evangelists and the Mishna (London: Nisbet and Co., 1859). There are a number of resources for locating out of print (such as www.abebooks.com). You can also learn a good deal from Alfred Edersheim, e Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans reprint). For this section see Volume 2, page 144.
5 The image is from the animal world. The yoke was the harness put around the necks and shoulders of the animals who were going to be used in the work of pulling plows or turning at the mill. Being yoked put the animal under the authority and control of the master.
After the arrest of John the Baptist, the tide begins to turn against Jesus. The opposition, that is, the leaders of the Jews, step up their criticisms and their plans to destroy Him. And so in chapter 12 we discover first the accusation that Jesus and His disciples were violating the Sabbath (1-14), and then the accusation that Jesus did His miracles by the power of Satan (22-37), and then the demand for a sign from Jesus to prove who He was (38-45). In the first case Jesus refutes their accusation rather easily, but then withdraws to escape their plans to kill Him (15-21). In the second case Jesus powerfully destroys their argument and declares that they are condemning themselves. And then after they demand a sign, Jesus refuses, except for the sign of Jonah, which will be too late for what they want, for by then they will already be guilty of putting Him to death. The chapter ends with a strange episode in which Jesus appears to be rejecting His family (46-49); actually, He uses their visit to show that He is turning to people who believe in Him instead of the Jews who are His people. He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him; and so to those who would receive Him He gave power to become the children of God.
You should read through chapter 12 to get the flow of where these episodes are going. But this study will focus on the first 14 verses of the chapter.
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as the other.
14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
First it will be helpful to lay out the structure of the material. We basically have two incidents, the grain field and the synagogue, verses 1-8 and 9-13 respectively. Verse 14 is the Pharisees’ response to both. In the first incident we have the report of the issue with the accusation (1,2), followed by Jesus’ lengthy answer (3-8). In the second incident we have the report of the issue and the challenging question (9,10), followed by Jesus’ answer and miracle (11-13). In both incidents the Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus in a violation of the Law in order to discredit Him. But in both cases Jesus demonstrated His superior knowledge of Scripture and His power. They could not argue with these, and so they sought to kill Him—legally of course.
Second, we should note that again the speeches are central to the meaning of the passage. The Pharisees speak twice, first in verse 2 to accuse Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Law, and again in verse 10 to challenge Jesus’ view of the Sabbath laws. They were put down by Jesus’ answer in the first case, and so they were cautious about confronting Him again and instead set Him up and asked what He would do.
Jesus’ speeches are, of course, the heart of this passage’s revelation. His first reply to the accusation is with questions, designed to show their failure to understand the Law. He then rebukes them for not understanding what Scripture meant about showing mercy. And finally he claimed to be LORD of the Sabbath. The way these different sayings build on one another shows that as LORD of the Sabbath He alone understands the laws about the Sabbath.
In Jesus’ second reply Jesus does not appeal to Scripture, but to their own customs which were written in their teachings. He uses a common Jewish way of reasoning, from the lesser to the greater—if it is true of the lesser, it is certainly true of the greater. The argument is worded with “How much more . . . .” We will look at this more, but for now it is worth noting that He uses their own “laws” against them.
Jesus final speech is the simple command to the man to stretch out his hand. Here Jesus shows His authority as the Creator, and if the Creator, then the LORD of the Sabbath.
Third, the contrasts in the use of the Law are interesting. In the first place the disciples are hungry and so eat from the wheat fields. The legalists want them condemned for violating a law. In the end of the passage Jesus restores full life to the man, and the legalists want to put Him to death. In both cases the enemies of Christ show that they do not desire mercy, and that they have missed the spirit of the Law which is life. They are spiritual frauds who seek power over the people—and over Christ.
And fourth, we should not miss the fact that these events followed on the end of chapter 11 pretty closely. Jesus had just then called on people to abandon the teaching authority of the scribes and Pharisees and follow His teachings, because He alone could give them rest for their souls. His charge would continue to be that the Pharisees laid burdens on people that they could not handle. So in this chapter the Pharisees are challenging His authority as a teacher in Israel. If they can show that He violates the Law, then He is discredited. But in the process, they are discredited. But this chapter shows the disciples how they should learn of Christ, and not from the Pharisees.
There are other things that may be observed as well, such as Jesus’ use of the Old Testament, and of their laws. But these we will discuss in the analysis of the text.
The study of a passage like this also calls for a bit of study of the Sabbath day laws. You can read about this in a good Bible dictionary, or in a good biblical theology. The Law simply said that Israel was to remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy (set apart to God and His service). They could do their ordinary labor for six days, but on the Sabbath they were to stop. In fact, the Hebrew word shabat means “to cease” more than it does “to rest.” The idea of “rest” is more like coming to rest, stopping. The observance was for Israel the sign of the covenant made at Sinai with the LORD the Creator. Since He worked for six days and “rested” the seventh, they were to pattern their life after that. Obviously, God did not “rest” in the sense of needing to restore His strength; it was a celebration of all His work of creation.
As an aside, it is important for Christians to know that the Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant, not the New Covenant (or Testaments as we call them). The covenants are very different, and the signs indicate that. The Old Covenant was the Law, and it was based on the Creator. The sign looked back to creation’s Sabbath. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, and it looks forward to eternal redemption. Its sign is the cup of the New Covenant which Jesus institutionalized in the upper room. Because Jesus fulfilled the Law in His life and His death, all Old Testament laws have to be interpreted through His fulfillment. Sacrifices and ritual and holy days--all change with Christ. So believers today are not bound to keep the Sabbath Day because we have a New Covenant. The Sabbath for us is interpreted through the Christ event--when we believe in Jesus, we enter into the rest He promised (Matt. 11:28), which is the eternal Sabbath. Every day is to be sanctified to the Lord as a day of spiritual rest; the whole life is a Sabbath fulfillment. And in the age to come there will be a restoration of the whole Sabbath with the removal of the curse. Paul teaches that the Christian is not to observe holy days in a legalistic way. They are helpful for instruction and meditation, but not legally binding. But the Christian is to live out the spirit of the Law, what those regulations were intended to convey. And so a sanctified life given to the Lord and lived out in salvation’s rest from anxious toil and spiritual works is what should characterize the believer who has entered into the Sabbath rest (see Hebrews 3, 4). A simplistic and legalistic observance of a “Christian Sabbath” is not the way to sanctification.
I. In response to legalistic criticism, Jesus declares that He is LORD of the Sabbath (1-8). This is the essence of the first incident in the chapter, and the main point of the whole section.
First, there is the incident (1,2). The act that triggered the whole discussion was a simple one--they were walking through the field and the disciples snacked on some of the heads of grain because they were hungry. On the surface it would appear no more a work than sitting at a table and eating.
But the legalistic Pharisees were bent on discrediting Jesus, and so they accused them of violating the Sabbath day. How was this a violation of the Sabbath Law? If you look at the Ten Commandments, this hardly seems like the labor they were to cease to set the day apart for God. Well, the only way it could be considered a violation is that the Jewish teachers had made lists of things that would be helpful in determining what the works were that should stop. Whenever the text of Scripture seems unclear, it may be for a purpose, that God expects people to act by faith and determine the application. But there are always religious teachers who cannot abide by that, and they make the detailed applications. That would be fine, expect those applications often get elevated to the status of authoritative Scripture. For the Sabbath the religious teachers had come up with a list of things that should not be done on the holy days; they were later recorded in the Mishnah (tractate “Shabbath”) as thirty-eight forbidden works. One of them was reaping the harvest. So apparently taking the heads of the grain off the stocks was considered a work, and so a violation of the Law.
But it was only a violation of the law as they interpreted it—not as God had written it. Jesus’ answer will get to the spirit of the Law, which they had completely missed in their effort to make legal clarifications. To be fair, not all religious leaders in Jesus’ day would have agreed with the interpretation of these Pharisees, but they held the leadership and so spoke for the group. Later, this particular activity was allowed on the Sabbath, but that was much later, and perhaps influenced by Christianity.
So second, we have Jesus’ response (3-8). In this response there are several different arguments being used. The immediate one is the case of David’s eating the bread in the sanctuary. You will have to go back and read the story in all its details. The story is in 1 Samuel 21:1-6; and the references for the bread in the tabernacle are in Exodus 25:30 and Leviticus 24:5-9. The twelve loaves of bread were placed on the table inside the tent of the tabernacle, in the holy place, and were only to be eaten by the sanctified priests. But David and his men, running from Saul, stopped at the sanctuary when it was in Nob and ate the bread, perhaps reasoning that they were on a holy mission, or that it was a matter of life and death.
In referring to this incident Jesus is not trying to argue the case for or against David by saying there were rules but David was permitted to break the rules. His point is that Scripture nowhere condemns David for doing this. If David could break the laws of holiness and eat from the holy food in the sanctuary and Scripture not condemn him, then why should His disciples not be allowed to eat from the grain on a Saturday?
Jesus is not justifying the disciples’ act, for it is not obvious that they broke any law in the Law. Rather, Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees interpretation of the Law in general, showing that He is the more knowledgeable teacher and that people should come to Him.
In the story in Samuel, the regulations of the Law were set aside for David and his companions. Jesus is building the case that He is greater than David, and so regulations (legitimate or not) can be set aside for Him and His companions too.
Jesus’ second argument is from the Law in general (Num. 28:9-10); technically, the priests violated the Law every Sabbath by the work that they did. Of course the priests were not guilty, because the same Law that ruled on the Sabbath made them priests. Since the Law established their duties, the Law established the right of the priests to break the Law and to do some pretty hard work at the altar.
Jesus uses this to argue from the lesser to the greater by analogy: if that was permitted for the priests, how much more for someone greater than the priests, or the temple itself. His analogy works only because He actually is greater than the temple and the priests. And the argument of the gospel is that Jesus and His kingdom are greater than the temple and all the priests and prophets and kings of the past. The point that Jesus makes then, is that in the Old Testament the laws of Sabbath were superceded by the duties of the priests, and so in His day the laws of the Sabbath were superceded by His duties as the Messiah and Redeemer. It shows there is a greater authority present than the ordinary leaders. Because the Son of Man was present, the Law would be superceded. He temple represented the presence of God with His people; but the presence of Jesus meant that God was with them in mortal flesh.
And so Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for missing the point of the Law, which is mercy (see Hos. 6:6). The spirit of the Law was life and peace with God, and at the heart of that was mercy. But they were so worked up over the cultic ritual laws that they missed the spirit of the Law. They really did not understand the Law because they were so busy looking at details, mostly prohibitions in this case. But now as accusers they stood accused. And the accused, the disciples, were declared innocent because the one greater than the Temple was there.
To refer to Himself as the LORD of the Sabbath means that He can handle the Sabbath laws any way that He wants, or can supercede them in the same way that the temple service of priests superceded Sabbath observance. As LORD of the Sabbath Jesus is the Son of Man, the divine Creator, the covenant God. And as LORD of the Sabbath Jesus the Messiah has authority over the temple too.
II. In response to the challenge from the Pharisees, Jesus healed on the Sabbath and demonstrated the importance of mercy (9-13). The second part could be taken as a separate Bible study, but since it overlaps so much the two can be taken together. Luke 6:6-11 indicates it was on another Sabbath; but Matthew has combined the two to make his point.
First, the incident (9, 10). Jesus went into the synagogue and there was a man there with a shriveled hand. Matthew says that the leaders were looking for a way to accuse Jesus, and so they asked Him if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. The focus now will be on Him and not the disciples; on something He would actually do, and in some detail on the enemies’ opposition.
Second, we have Jesus’ answer (11-13) The early Jews discussed at great length the question that they asked Jesus now. In general, it was fine to cure on the Sabbath Day if it was not an emergency. Their question was whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath; and Jesus argued that it was lawful, not that it was required. According to Jewish teaching while healing was permitted in some cases on the Sabbath, the patient had to be dying, or the situation life threatening. And that does not seem to be the case here, unless one were to argue that it was a matter of life and death, and that by healing him Jesus was rescuing his soul as well. But Jesus makes the analogy that if they had a sheep that fell into a pit they would lift it out on a Sabbath day--how much more a human in trouble. Neither the man with the withered hand, nor the sheep in the pit, were in danger of losing their life. So it was a matter of doing a good deed on the holy day. He knew that in principle they practiced that, but now were simply trying to accuse Him of violating their law.
Then Jesus healed the man. The healing comes after Jesus’ bold words about Himself and about His authority over the Sabbath day. But the miracle authenticates His powerful words, and in Matthew’s presentation of the order it also authenticates His prior claim of being LORD of the Sabbath.
III. The Pharisees plot to kill Jesus (14). Finally, the outcome of the exchange is that the Pharisees wanted to put Jesus to death (14). A lot of scholars do not think the Pharisees would have done this over a different interpretation of legal teaching, and that instead of “kill” it meant banish from the synagogue. But the point, of course, is that it is not merely a dispute over interpretation, but over the identity and authority of who Jesus is. The text is clear that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and claimed to have authority, and demonstrated it by His powerful works. And in the process He showed that He cared not for the numerous, detailed rulings that the Jewish teachings put in place--they were an added burden to what the Law had originally had in place. The disagreement over the Sabbath did not cause them to plot His death; it was the occasion for it based on His claims to be the Lord of the Sabbath. They were opposed to Him personally.
The point that the passage is making is best expressed by Jesus’ own claim that He is the LORD of the Sabbath. That means that He is the one who instituted it and He is the one who rules over it. He of all people would then know what the intent of the Sabbath day was--mercy, and not simply a day to avoid work. He never intended it to be subjected to a myriad of legalistic rulings. It was a day for celebration and refreshment and communion with the LORD.
But as LORD of the Sabbath Jesus had authority over all creation, including al people. He demonstrated that authority with His claims, and authenticated it with His mighty works, here the healing of the man with the withered hand. They understand His claim; they saw His mighty works. They either had to submit to His authority, or try to get rid of Him. Unfortunately for them they pursued the latter.
We have already noted the passages in Samuel, and Exodus and Hosea that were brought into the discussion.
There are a number of other passages in the Gospels which record Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders over the Sabbath day. It looks very much like He is pushing them on the matter, choosing to do things on the holy day that violated their rulings, but not the Law of God. These passages should be read and compared to get the whole picture of Christ is doing.
Perhaps the best New Testament passage that captures this passage’s message, and those other conflicts as well, is the one that comes in Jesus’ rebuke of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In Matthew 23:23 he tells how legalistic they were in the way they tithed meticulously, but in so doing they had neglected the weightier matters of the Law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. It is one thing for people to try to live obediently to the word of God, but it is quite another if they pour all their energy into that and fail to do positive acts of justice, mercy and faithfulness. Jesus said that God desired mercy, and not sacrifice. Actually, He wants both, but the ritual without mercy misses the whole point.
And if the Sabbath day was designed as a day of mercy from God, a time of rest and restoration, of celebration and service for God, then feeding the hungry, rescuing a sheep, healing a man would all be harmonious with that day.
There are probably a number of applications that have begun to form in your mind already. Here are a few major ones to consider:
1. Commitment to the authority of Christ. These passages are all designed to reveal the person and work of Jesus, here as Lord of Sabbath, i.e., the sovereign creator and sustainer of life. When studying these kinds of passages the believer should renew his or her own faith in Christ. It should be an inspiration to greater allegiance and greater faith, that is, to praise and adoration of Him, and to obedience and prayer to Him.
2. Avoidance of legalism. Legalism is not simply keeping laws, but is a self-righteous attitude. The legalist thinks he is righteous, and so anyone who does not conform with his idea of what righteousness is must be a guilty sinner. Legalism usually plays out with interpretations of Scripture, not actual Scripture. For example, some legalists today define what worldliness is, although they list things that the Bible does not mention; and whoever does not abide by their understanding is in sin.
Now be careful here, because where the Bible is clear on a sin or particular sins the Christian is to try to avoid such things and is to warn others with love and concern. Obeying Scripture is not legalism. God demands it. But there will always be some libertarians who will call you a legalist if you remind them what Scripture says. But that is not what we mean here by self-righteous legalism (of course, that warning can be given with a self-righteous spirit, so be careful).
Here the Pharisees had a whole list of “laws” they had made based generally on Scripture. And those became the test or righteousness. Paul deals with this in a lot of his epistles--judging others with respect to holy days, eating various foods, and other practices. Christians are to try to live obediently to Christ; if they find others who are doing the same but take a different application from some Scripture, they must be careful to acknowledge their faith and convictions (again, I am not talking about another interpretation of Scripture that seeks to do away with a passage or redefine it in order to license sin--that is not the same).
3. Doing acts of mercy. What a contrast: the Pharisees are there criticizing and challenging Jesus, and eventually plotting to kill Him. That is obviously a terrible religious state to be in, for it opposes what is good and merciful. The point that Jesus makes is that that attitude nullifies any sacrifice or ritual they had made. His instruction is from Hosea: God desires mercy. People should be looking for objects of mercy, not objects to criticize. If they were busy with that, the Church would be a much better place.
And if there is a doubtful thing, and you are not sure if you should or should not do something (it is a matter of personal conviction), say, for example, like helping someone move on a Sunday (which would be offensive to a lot of Christians), the guideline here seems to say it would be better to “err” (if that is what it looks like) on the side of mercy, not self-righteous legalism.
In this section of Matthew we see the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of His day intensify to the point of their complete rejection of Him, and His warning to them of what that would mean. In many ways this portion of Matthew provides the turning point for the emphasis of the book. It is one thing to oppose Jesus’ apparent violations of the current rules made by religious leaders, but to say that He is empowered by Satan is another matter altogether.
This section begins with a miracle by Jesus and the blasphemous accusation by the Pharisees. There follows a lengthy response by Jesus about the source of power in His miracles, and the accountability for words that reveal what is in the heart.
In the next section (study 18) the leaders will demand a sign from Jesus, but He responds with a different kind of sign than they had sought, as well as a stinging rebuke of their wicked unbelief. So this study 17 and the next one, 18, provide the major material for the rejection of Jesus, and turning in the book of His ministry.
22 Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and the mute man both saw and spoke. 23 And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” 24 Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
25 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.
29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.
30 He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad. 31 Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven people. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word people may speak, they will give account for it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
The passage just before this event is a lengthy citation from the prophet Isaiah declaring that Jesus is the prophesied Servant who would come to heal and to restore. That passage also contrasts the peacefulness and tranquility of Jesus the suffering servant with the malicious hatred of the Pharisees in this passage, preparing the way for the material to follow.
Our passage is essentially some teaching of Jesus based on an incident--although that is the immediate cause, the tension toward the teaching has been building for some time. But in the analysis of the structure we have the event (v. 22) and the twofold response of amazement (23) and blasphemy (24). Then the rest of the section is Jesus’ response to the blasphemy of the Pharisees. That teaching first analyzes their response from the perspective of simple logic--the divided kingdom (25-28), then the analysis of the strong man’s house (29), then the warning of blasphemy against the Spirit (30-32), and finally the principle of nature and fruit (33-37).
This lengthy discussion is paralleled in Luke, but in several places (6:43-45; 11:17-23; and 12:10), prompting a number of scholars to assume that Matthew has taken several separate teachings and put them together here to address the issue of the blasphemous charge. While that is possible, it is also possible that Luke broke up the discourse and used part of it for a topical purpose (6:43-45), had another part simply in a parallel event (12:10), and the retains a part (11:17-23) as his summary of this discourse at this time. Whatever is the explanation of the synoptic connections, the discourse in Matthew makes a unified and coherent argument.
So the study of this passage will primarily deal with the points of argument that Jesus made in response to the accusation. There are no difficult words to deal with apart from identifying Beelzebub in passing, or defining “blasphemy.” I will give a brief explanation in passing, but these can be studied in any theological dictionary or word book.
There is rhetorical and figurative language in the passage, as in all of Jesus’ teachings. Since these things are so bound up with the teachings they are best discussed in the analyses of the verses in context.
There are no Old Testament quotations in this section either, and so that part of the study does not apply. But the reader should become familiar with the lengthy quotation from Isaiah just before this event, for that is the foundation Matthew uses to report this event and teaching. But for the study we are really left with the analysis of Jesus’ teachings.
1. The Healing and the Accusation (12:22-24). This section of the passage is pretty straightforward and will require less attention than what follows. But it must be understood, nonetheless.
The Healing. A man who was demon possessed was brought to Jesus; the effect of the demon possession was that he was blind and mute. I suspect that in your study of Matthew you have had sufficient time now to learn a little about demon possession. Most of Christianity would affirm that true believers cannot be demon-possessed, because they have the Holy Spirit indwelling. But they can be attacked and afflicted by forces in this world, for the spiritual war is against such powers, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians.
Jesus healed him, so that he could see and talk once again. That is it--a brief report. This shows that the real point of interest is in the teaching to follow.
And the people who saw this were amazed, wondering if this could be the “Son of David.” The way the Greek text words the question indicates that the people were not sure of the answer: “This couldn’t be the Son of David, could it?” Messiah was expected to perform miracles (see v. 38), and so the exorcism was an indication that Jesus might be the Messiah. But the people could not yet see past the situation (as we can with the full revelation), and Jesus did not look the part of the Messiah, even though He was doing these things. Matthew’s readers, however, would read the passage from Isaiah just quoted, and look at the whole ministry of Jesus and understand it better.
The Accusation. The Pharisees, however, said that He cast out demons by Beelzebub (you will want to look this up in a good Bible Dictionary and see the full discussion). This Beelzebub is identified here as the prince of demons, or Satan. The name appears to come from the Old Testament world, from either ba’alzebub, “lord of the flies,” or from a take-off on ba’al zebul, “prince Baal.” The Greek text has it Beelzeboul, suggesting perhaps “lord of dung,” or “lord of heights”--however the people referred to Satan in those days. One plausible suggestion by MacLaurin (NovTest 20 [1978]:156-160) is that it meant “lord of the house,” meaning the head of the house of demons. This would explain why Jesus presents Himself here as the head of a house, the household of God that cannot be divided. At any rate, the leaders were therefore trying to turn the people against Jesus by claiming His miracles were diabolic, empowered by Satan.
2. The Reply of Jesus (12:25-37). The rest of the passage records Jesus’ response to this ridiculous charge.
The Logic of the Undivided Kingdom (25-28). Jesus’ argument here is very clear: any kingdom, city, or house (Matthew does not mention the house, but see Mark 3:20,23) that is divided against itself will fall. This would be true of Satan’s kingdom: for the prince of demons to be casting out his demons would be folly because they were there doing his work. So, if Jesus is casting out demons, he cannot be working for Satan.
Jesus turns the argument back on them. If this work is empowered by Satan, then Satan must also be empowering their own disciples (their “sons”) who do the same kind of ministry on occasion.
On the contrary, if Jesus is doing these miracles by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom is coming to them. The miracle had to be by Satan or by the Spirit of God--and it is illogical to think it would be by Satan. And Jesus knows full well that He has done these things by the Spirit of God, and if the Spirit of God is at work, then the Kingdom of God has dawned on them--the King is present.
Luke 11:20 has “the finger of God” instead of the “Spirit of God.” The allusion is clearly to Exodus 8:19, the miracle that Moses performed that the magicians could not do, proving it was of God. It is hard to know which was the phrase Jesus used and which evangelist substituted a parallel phrase. The “Spirit of God” may be the original expression in this event, since it forms such a contrast with the prince of demons idea. But the meaning is the same in either case--God alone was at work here, and the evidence that it was God is indisputable.
The Strong Man’s House (12:29). Now Jesus offers another argument, as if to say, “Look at it another way” (= “or”). The point now is that if Jesus’ casting out demons cannot be explained by the power of Satan, then it all reflects an authority that is greater than Satan’s. By this point, then, the analogy can be understood. Jesus is the one who is binding the strong man, Satan, and plundering his house. The little image provides an implied comparison. The people were expecting the Messiah to come and bind Satan in the Messianic Age; and so here Jesus shows He has the power and the authority to do just that. Jesus came with the authority of heaven to defeat and destroy the works of Satan, and to rescue valuable things--people--from his house.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (30-32). Jesus next announces a very basic principle: in our relationship to Jesus there is no neutrality (30). Jesus has made such clear claims and demands that it is impossible to be neutral or indifferent. His claim to be Messiah draws on the Messianic imagery of the harvest: the Messiah will at the end of the age gather in the harvest, so to speak--a work that is attributed to God in the Old Testament. The language of the harvest is figurative, then, an implied comparison. The statement would serve as a warning to the crowd not to treat Jesus with indifference, and a rebuke to the Pharisees not to accuse Him of Satanic powers--because He is the judge of the world. Gathering in the harvest is the work of the kingdom; scattering and driving people away from the kingdom is the work of Satan. To be indifferent or apathetic is to be opposed to Christ, because it is not doing the work of the kingdom.
After making this announcement, Jesus turns to the question of forgiveness (31). Every sin can be forgiven, even blasphemy against the Son of Man. But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Critical to this passage, then, is the meaning of “blasphemy.” The word refers to speaking wickedly or slanderously against God or His nature. It is not a minor offense, but a major one. Sometimes people use “blaspheme” to refer to people using the holy name in anger. That is an application of the idea; but it is not what is intended here. In this passage, consciously arguing that the miracles of Jesus were done by the power of Satan is the primary meaning of blasphemy.
To blaspheme the Son of Man would be to speak evil of Him, to discredit Him and His message in some way. Within the context of the argument at this point, this would refer to the rejection of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus. But if someone considered it further and repented, that one could be forgiven.
But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be the rejection of the same truth in the full awareness that that is what is happening--it is the thoughtful, willful rejection of the work of the Spirit of God even though there can be no other explanation of the healings of Jesus. Blasphemy against the Son and against the Spirit then means the complete and willful rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and the crediting of His works to Satan. Thus, this is not a sin that a true believer can commit, for the true believer has already accepted Jesus as the Messiah.
In Jewish law there must be two witnesses to establish any point. Here Jesus is showing that there are two witnesses to His being Messiah--His words and His works. If a person rejects His words, there is another witness that will authenticate His person--His works. But if someone rejects that too, completely, by blaspheming, then there is no other witness.
Or to put it the other way around--there are two witnesses that will condemn a person: the rejection of the truth of the Gospel of Christ, and the attributing of his miracles to Satan. This adds up to complete and conscious rejection of Jesus. For those who maintain that opposition to Christ throughout their lives and never recant and turn, there is no forgiveness.
That Jesus is dealing in first century Jewish thought is evident from the fact that He clarifies there is no forgiveness in this world or the world to come. Jewish leaders were often great literalists. If the text of Scripture said something like “there is no forgiveness”--only saying it once--they would conclude that meant in this life, but not the life to come. If a passage said “there is no mercy, there is no forgiveness”--parallel or double expressions--then that meant in this life and in the life to come. Jesus clarifies what He meant so they would not play such games with the words.
Nature and Its Fruit (33-37). The point that Jesus now makes is that conduct, especially speech, reveals character. The section is similar to 7:16-19, but there the point was to test character by conduct, a little different.
Jesus tells his hearers to make the tree good or bad, knowing then that its fruit will be good or bad. The metaphor is rather easy to understand. The tree is the character, or the heart--so if you want to produce good things (fruit), you have to have a radical change of heart.
He then calls His enemies a “brood of vipers.” This is an implied comparison, probably addressed to the Pharisees, of whom in John 8 He said were of their father the devil--i.e., the seed of the Serpent in Genesis 3. The point of the comparison is that they are evil and dangerous at heart, but sly and deceptive at first sight. They have an evil heart, and so cannot bring forth good things out of their mouths. The mouth simply utters what “overflows” from the heart.
And so in verses 36 and 37 Jesus warns them that they will have to give an account of themselves on judgment day. These lines may be a proverb, or a popular saying of Jesus, or of Jesus’ day, for the language shifts to the second person. A person will be held accountable for every “careless” word--words that might seem to be insignificant, but are not. In this context the point is clear--if you recall the beginning of this passage: what one says about Jesus and His miracles reveals what is in one’s heart. Some said, “Could this be the Son of David?”--they are on their way to the kingdom; other said, “he blasphemes”--they are not even near the kingdom.
Jesus then took the response of the Pharisees to His miracle as the occasion to teach about belief and unbelief expressed by the words that people say, especially what they say about the person and works of Jesus. The passage affirms again that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who can do the miracles and help the poor and the needy. But the passage goes beyond this to warn those who oppose and reject Jesus that they will not be forgiven but will be condemned for their words, which reflect an evil heart.
The theological application for such folks is to have a radical change of heart, to receive a new heart, we would say, and find forgiveness. The way to do that is to believe in Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This will mean a change from blaspheming the Lord and the Spirit, to expressing faith and adoration.
The message is primarily addressed to folks who oppose Christ and blaspheme the Spirit concerning His miracles--in other words, unbelievers. To make an application to believers, we would have to formulate secondary applications, applications derived from the implications here. We could say things like:
1. Believers should be encouraged in their faith by passages like this because Jesus demonstrates again that He truly is the divine Son of God.
2. Believers can take comfort in the grace of God that Christ has been judged for them, in their place. They may have to give an account of their works at the Bema Seat of Christ, but not at the last judgment where there will be condemnation for unbelief and unrighteousness, and where there will be no forgiveness. Believers have been forgiven, and so there is no condemnation for them.
3. But believers should also guard their words, because what they say reflects who they are, and those words should reflect a heart of faith and a life of righteousness.
4. And, believers should do what Matthew is doing here, and proclaim who Christ is to people and tell them that in Christ there is forgiveness of sin, but there is no neutrality--only by being in Christ can people “gather” with Christ.
As mentioned above, Jesus in several places in the Gospels spoke of evil being in the heart, or that what proceeds from the heart is evil. So we can correlate those passages in His teachings to show the importance of being born again, or repenting, or coming to faith in Jesus.
The passage naturally correlates to Gospel teachings throughout the Scripture. There is salvation and forgiveness only in the LORD God--and by His claims and by His mighty works, Jesus reveals that He is this LORD God. And so passages that center on faith in Jesus Christ as the guarantee of salvation and deliverance from the judgment would be useful. And Paul reminds us in Romans that we are to confess the Lord Jesus with our mouth.
Likewise James focuses on speech, showing that good things should come from a good heart. Our difficulty is that we do not always show by thoughts, words, or deeds, that our hearts have been cleansed and created anew. We who know that Jesus is the Messiah, who know that He did His works by the power of the Spirit, who know that He is coming to judge the world, ought to make sure that our words and works harmonize with that faith.
In Matthew 12 the confrontation between the Jewish leaders and Jesus has come to a head with their accusing Jesus of doing His works by Satan’s power, and His warning them of the unpardonable sin. The point that Jesus was making was that the Kingdom of Heaven had come and that they were going to be excluded if they persisted in their rejection of Him. This warning troubled them, but they were still not convinced that He was the Messiah--far from it. So they demanded a sign from Him. And that is the occasion of this short section in which Jesus rebukes them for asking for a sign instead of believing, assesses their spiritual condition, and pronounces sentence on them.
After our passage ends there is a very brief incident in which Jesus’ mother and brothers were outside wanting to speak to Him. Jesus used their visit to make a point about the change in the direction of His ministry. He said that “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” He was not being cruel to His family--no doubt He then went out to see them. What He was saying was that since the nation was now rejecting Him, since His own people were rejecting Him, He was turning to those who would believe. The true “family” of Christ was not unbelieving Israel, but believers of all races. If the “physical seed of Israel” rejected Him, He would build a “spiritual seed of Israel.” And this is true of the kingdom of God in general: people who are our relatives here may not be in the kingdom and so not our true and eternal brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus simply used the incident of the visit of His family to make this point.
Then, beginning with Matthew 13, Jesus began to teach with parables, which are designed to hide things about the Kingdom from the ones who rejected and opposed Him, but to reveal things about the Kingdom to His disciples. So Matthew 12 marks a real turning point in the life of Christ, and therefore also in the message of the book: He came to His own, but His own received Him not; and so to as many as received Him He gave the authority to become the children of God. The family of God is made up of true believers, and not natural blood ties.
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. 42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
43 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house empty, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Once again the teaching of Jesus in the passage begins with an incident, here a demand from the Pharisees and teachers of the Law for a miraculous sign (v. 38).
The immediate answer of Jesus was that there would be no sign as they wished, because the request came from unbelieving hearts (v. 39). There would be a sign, though, the sign of Jonah, which would confirm that Christ was who He said He was. But that sign would only be recognized after they crucified the Christ (as we shall see below). Nevertheless, it would give them one last opportunity to believe.
Then Jesus provides two warnings of unbelief based on history: the belief of the people of Nineveh and the belief of the Queen of Sheba. Here were Gentiles, not Jews, who believed the revelation from God, and therefore who would condemn these unbelievers. This means that their believing would show that unbelieving Israel should have believed, and could have believed, and so have no excuse. They had believed the word of Jonah, or the wisdom of Solomon; but now the Messiah was present and they should have believed.
Then is added a rather mystical teaching of Jesus about the future hardening in unbelief of this wicked generation. To realize the power of Christ to cleanse the heart but still refuse to receive Him will lead to a much worse condition.
So we have:
The Request for the Sign (38)
The Refusal of a Sign (39) with
An Evaluation of the People (39)
A Warning of Judgment for Unbelief 40-42)
A Sentence of Greater Hardening
if unbelief is persisted in (43-45).
The passage then follows a chain reaction from the request for a sign; and even that request flows from the accusations made against Jesus in the preceding passages.
This study will then focus on the nature of their request first, and then the rest of the study will be a study of the teaching of Jesus based on that issue. The study of the teaching by Jesus will require an understanding of why He called them an adulterous generation, then the two historical incidents to which He was referring and the spiritual lesson He was drawing from them, and finally the mystical illustration of the evil spirit that leaves a man and returns.
Once again the context of the teachings will be a great help in understanding these things. This material must be related to what has happened earlier in the chapter.
There are several words and figurative expressions in the passage that require clarification: “sign,” “wicked and adulterous generation,” “three days and three nights” and the “evil spirits” and the “swept house.” These will be classified and explained as we study the text.
There are two historical stories that have to be re-thought: Jonah and Sheba. People are familiar with those stories, but here we have to see exactly how Jesus was using them to make His point.
The point of the passage focuses on unbelief and belief, unbelief by these Jews, and belief by those Gentiles. Jesus’ teaching then first declares that they are wicked, then announces condemnation in the judgment in contrast to those who believe, and finally announces that they will be hardened in unbelief if they do not receive Him.
The final illustration using one evil spirit and then seven evil spirits probably was intended to pick up the earlier motif of casting out demons. They had accused Him of doing it by the power of Satan. Jesus is saying that if He defeats Satan and they do not accept Him, then Satan’s power will have a greater hold on them in the future.
The theology of the passage is the clear announcement of judgment on those who do not believe the word of the Lord and receive Jesus as their King. If we turn this around to state it positively, we would say that the passage is teaching the necessity of belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Those who do not believe will have no excuse, for people with far less information than they believed--and now a greater than Israel’s prophets and kings was present. The idea is not that one needs a lot of information in order to believe; rather, the response of faith to the amount of revelation given will determine acceptance with God. Without faith it is impossible to please God; and so when He sends His word, He expects people to trust Him.
Now, if we work through the passage with this theology in mind we will see how the argument unfolds. One of our tasks in Bible Study is to uncover the unity in the passage, even if there are seemingly diverse sections. The parts all fit together in some way. Some passages are obvious units--no difficulty in seeing it; but some, like this one, have several different sections that do not at first glance seem to work together. That is why “context” is so important in Bible studies like this. With the basic theme in the chapter in mind (which we might re-state somewhat after working through the passage and seeing what exact emphases are present in the section) we can study section by section and see how the interpretation works out. There is a delicate balance in this--we work with an estimated idea of the overview (sometimes with the help of people who have studied it much) and this guides us, but we never let a pre-conceived idea force the interpretation where the words and text won’t go. But for the most part, in passages like this where we have a strange and mysterious story at the end, the flow of the passage will be most helpful. If someone studied only the last story illustration without fitting it into the context, there is no telling what interpretation might be given to it.
I. Those who do not believe in Jesus call for a miraculous sign (38). The Pharisees and teachers basically demanded a sign from Jesus. What were they looking for in a sign, and why would Jesus not give them one?
Well, this calls for a word study on signs. A good word study book or full commentary on the text will help you to understand that they were looking for some amazing event or miracle that would convince them that He was Messiah. Of course, He had been doing miracles right and left--but they seemed to want some other big thing that would be irrefutable. But Jesus would not give one to them because they had already rejected Him out of unbelief.
A sign in the Bible is some event or activity, supernatural or not, that would authenticate the person and claims of Jesus. A sign was usually a miracle with a clear meaning; it was a miracle designed to reveal something specific. However, in the Bible there are two ways that signs are used, to convince and to confirm. For example, when Moses was sent back to the Israelites to lead them out of bondage, he was given some signs to do--his staff turning to a snake, his hand turning leprous, and the water turning to blood. These were done in order to convince the people that they should believe Moses and follow him. But Moses was given another sign--when he and the people returned to Mount Sinai after the exodus they would worship at the mountain. That was a sign that would confirm that God had done it, but it was not a sign to convince them to go to the mountain to worship. Once they got there they would be assured that God had done just as He had promised.
These Pharisees and teachers clearly wanted the former type, a sign to convince them to believe. But they were dishonest and Jesus saw right through them. They had just seen a spectacular sign, the casting out of the demon so that the man regained his abilities, and instead of believing they accused Him of doing it by Beelzebub. They were not interested in a sign, only in trying to discredit Jesus. If He could not do a sign for them, they could expose Him; if He did one, they could discredit Him. They were an evil lot. And to call Him “Teacher”! They despised Him and were determined not to listen to His teachings.
Moreover, wanting a sign runs contrary to the nature of faith, which does not rely on a sign to convince people to believe. And if Jesus did a sign like that, it is unlikely that these people would have believed. They were merely challenging Jesus, and if He did a sign they would likely have rejected it. After all, they had frequently explained away some of the great miracles He had been performing.
We should digress for a moment because there are places in the Bible where it seems appropriate to seek a sign from God. We have already seen how God gave Moses signs to do to authenticate His plan. The people needed to be sure that this man off the desert was truly sent by God. When they saw the signs, that was enough--they accepted him as their leader. It was not a question of coming to faith in God, but rather of testing the authenticity of a man who wanted to lead them out of bondage.
Or, for another example, God through Isaiah told the king to ask a sign from the LORD, anything whatsoever (Isa. 7). The king refused, being a wicked unbeliever. So God gave a sign anyway: a virgin would conceive and give birth to a son known as Immanuel. The supernatural birth of Jesus would be a sign that the Davidic Covenant would still be fulfilled. The point in Isaiah 7:9 is that if Ahaz had believed, he would have been confirmed. So asking a sign in faith is different than challenging God to convince us to believe.
Or, Gideon put out the fleece for a sign that God would go with him to battle. The text never condemns Gideon for this, because he was a devout believer, but more importantly, he had already decided to go, and what he wanted was a sign that God would be with him. So again faith was already operative.
II. Jesus refuses to give His opponents a sign and instead warns them of judgment to come (39-45). The rest of the passage is Jesus’ response to the “request,” and so it naturally forms the second main outline point, the second half of the material. But the response can be subdivided into several points: a rejection of a sign now but a future sign to give them another opportunity to believe; a verdict on their wickedness and a warning of judgment, and a sentence on them for their unbelief.
A. He rebukes the people for their unbelief (39, 40). In His response Jesus simply identified these folks as a wicked and adulterous generation. No sign would be given to them--not the kind they wanted anyway.
So the next thing you will have to sort out why their request for a sign made them a wicked and adulterous generation. The word “generation” is often used in the Bible for any group of people who share beliefs and traits. So this group of opponents was “wicked” and “adulterous”; “wicked” speaks of their nature and dealings with other people, and “adulterous” speaks of their relationship with God. In looking into the biblical usage of this language you will eventually connect with the Book of Hosea. That book was written to a generation of Israelites in the 8th century B.C. who were unfaithful to God. That does not mean that they simply did not measure up to His standards; rather, it means that they deliberately chose to reject the LORD and go after other religious forms, usually false gods. Hosea described the covenant of the LORD in terms of a marriage; to break the covenant with God was to be unfaithful to the covenant, especially if they followed other gods instead of God. And so they were fornicators and adulterers according to Hosea (spiritually--although in Hosea’s day false worship did involve temple prostitution). The principle is that people who should be believers (they had the Scriptures, the temple, the priests, the prophets) and who rejected the prophets and the Messiah were unfaithful to God, as one would be unfaithful to a marriage. Jesus describes these people in the same terms that Hosea used because they refused to believe in Him and chose rather to follow their own religious ideas. By doing so they were proving to be unfaithful to God and His covenant program. They were spiritual adulterers.
So His point is that a wilful and rebellious people do not really believe, but they do demand a spectacular sign. They have made up their minds about Jesus, and it would take something really big to change their minds. In another place Jesus made it clear that such people who do not believe in God’s revelation would not believe even if one came back from the dead (Luke 16:31). Their refusal to believe made them an adulterous generation, like their ancestors who killed the prophets.
But a sign would be given to them later, albeit a confirming sign. Jesus was telling them that they would have one more opportunity to be convinced--the sign of His resurrection would prove who He is and what His death was all about. They had rejected every other sign that Jesus had given them, so there was one more, but they would have to wait for it.
This was the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so the Messiah would be in the grave three days and three nights before rising from the dead (Jonah was not dead, but was as good as dead if God had not intervened). This sign--the death and resurrection--would confirm that Jesus indeed is the Messiah, the Son of God. That is truly a miraculous sign. However, it would come later for these opponents of Jesus, for they were the ones who were plotting to kill Him. And they would succeed (they would think) in their opposition to Jesus by seeing Him crucified. Thus, the “sign” that they wanted would come from their own crime against Him. They would be guilty of His death. But it was an opportunity that would come later; they might then believe.
Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 develops this dilemma they would face He declared that the evidence (tongues) was that God was at work in their midst in Christ and then in the Holy Spirit, just as the prophecy of Joel said. If that was the case, then they needed to turn to the LORD for salvation, as Joel said. However, Peter points out that they are in a dilemma because they just killed the Lord who could save them. That is why they all shouted, “What shall we do.” Of course the answer was repent.
So the sign, the evidence, that these people wanted concerning Jesus would come with His resurrection, giving them far more to be guilty of than they now had.
One additional explanation is important here. The expression “three days and three nights” is an idiom. Any part of a day and of a night was considered a day and a night. The same is true for reckoning years. For example, if a king came to the throne in the tenth month of the year and died in the sixth month of the next year, He would have reigned for two years. So with Jesus’ chronology, if He died on Friday and was laid in the tomb, that would be the first “day and a night”; His being in the tomb Saturday would count the second day and a night, and rising on Sunday would cover the third “day and a night.” It is idiomatic, and not intended to be calculated to the precision of 72 hours.
B. Jesus announces the certainty of judgment on His opponents (41, 42). The mention of Jonah brings the story of Jonah to mind, and so Jesus makes a point of the heart of that account. If you are not familiar with the story of Jonah, you need to read it through--it is only 44 verses long. The people of Israel were both affluent and indifferent to the call of God on their lives to be a light to the nation. So God called the reluctant prophet to go and preach to the hated enemies of Israel, the Assyrians who lived in Nineveh (modern Iraq--so you can see the kind of tension Jonah had about this). But the point of the story is that those people repented at the preaching of Jonah, and God spared that generation the judgment.
Jesus says that those people of Nineveh will “stand up” at the judgment and “condemn” these unbelievers. Well, it will be God who condemns unbelieving sinners — so what does this line mean? I think the point that Jesus was making was that here were people from other nations who had far less revelation than Jesus’ opponents, but they believed the word of the LORD. The fact that they will “rise up” (meaning stand, i.e., not fall, not be condemned) in the judgment will be evidence that people of Jesus’ day could have believed without all this convincing. In other words, their conversion will be a condemnation for unbelieving Israel. If they could believe, why could not the Jews?
The second story is the visit of the Queen of the South (Sheba) who came to challenge Solomon’s wisdom. Of course, he made a believer out of her by answering all her questions. Here was a queen from another land, not an Israelite, who had very little information other than that the wisdom of God was in this king, and she came, she heard, and she was convinced. Her presence in the kingdom will also condemn Israel, for if she could believe what she heard about God’s wisdom in Solomon after a brief visit, if she could believe with what she had, they should have believed with all that they had. For Christ is far greater than Solomon.
So Jesus made this striking point that the stakes are now much higher. Pagans believed in the Lord at the preaching of Jonah--but Jesus is much greater than Jonah. He preached far more profound things, and did amazing miracles to authenticate His words. They should have believed. And a pagan queen believed because she heard wise sayings from the king of Israel--but Jesus is far greater than Solomon. His wisdom and His knowledge surpasses them all. They should have believed.
And so in the judgment they will be condemned for their unbelief very convincingly because people like this with little or no information believed, whereas they with the presence of the Lord in their very midst refused to believe.
C. The Lord pronounces a sentence on those who refuse to accept Him (43-45). The last point of Jesus’ reply is an illustration taken from an individual experience in the matter of demon possession. The point of the story cannot be missed: “even so shall it be to this evil generation.”
The illustration begins at the point of dispossession. The unclean spirit was cast out, but that spirit needed some place through which it can act, and so it was restless until it could find some place it sought. That in itself is a remarkable revelation, showing us that these spirits must have some material body as a medium. But in Jesus’ story the spirit returns to the man and finds the place “empty, swept, and put in order.” The key word is “empty” or “unoccupied.” The man was improved in some ways, swept and put in order. But he was not possessed--he was empty. So the result was that the improvement was of no avail. Seeing that there was no in-dweller possessing and holding the man in the right way, the unclean spirit re-entered and took other spirits in with him. So all the improvement was lost, and the man was far worse in the end than he had been in the beginning. The point of the story is this: to cast out the unclean spirit is of no lasting value unless there follows a new possession by the clean Spirit.
Now how does this story fit the passage? Recall that the chapter had earlier focused on a case of casting out an unclean spirit and the wicked accusation that Jesus was doing this by the power of Satan. But in that section Jesus made it clear that He was casting out Satan. The point Jesus was making here and elsewhere is that His presence and mission had broken the power of evil, and His casting out demons was evidence that He was sweeping the house and putting it in order so Satan could not break in (the house is the implied metaphor for the soul). While Jesus was present, the whole underworld of evil spirits was under His power and He was able to drive it out and control it so that He could offer to people much better things. But once Jesus had driven the evil powers away, it was up to the people to respond to Him and His power. He had cast out the evil spirits, swept the house and put it in order--meaning, their lives and their world. Now the King, Jesus the Messiah, was able to possess the swept and ordered houses so that they should no longer be empty, but possessed by goodness and purity. If they received Christ into their lives, they would be protected from evil by one who was far greater than Satan or his forces. But since they had refused to believe in Jesus and did not receive Him or allow Him to control their lives, they would soon see that the house that was swept clean would be inhabited again by more evil forces, and they would sink to a far lower level of life. They would be hardened in unbelief, comfortable with corruption and vice, and living in a world controlled by wickedness and violence.
This is a solemn sentence, but it is true nonetheless. People may try to clean up their lives or reform in some way. But unless they are possessed and controlled by the Holy Spirit as they turn their lives over to the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be worse off than before because they will only be available for greater attacks from Satan’s devices. The Bible warns people to seek the Lord while He may be found, and not to refuse the convicting work of the Spirit. Resisting brings a hardening, thanks to the strengthening of the influence that evil spiritual forces have on people without Christ.
The Gospel message is not simply that Jesus Christ has the power to defeat Satan and cast out unclean spirits, but that He does this in order that He might take possession of peoples’ lives and defeat opposing forces through them. But without Christ within, there can be no victory. This is why it is dangerous for people to be nominal but unbelieving “Christians,” present in Christian events but not in Christ by faith. Christ’s presence always loosens the bonds of evil, whether people confess it or not, or whether they are even conscious of it. People will “feel better” for being in church, and may even clean up some things in their lives. But we must be aware that “swept and orderly ‘houses’” are attractive to unclean spirits, who are ready to take possession if the Holy Spirit has not. Unless people are possessed and controlled by Christ, the last state of such church-goers (or “moral” non church-goers) may be worse than before, as they find themselves hardened in self-righteousness and unbelief. It happened with those in Jesus’ day who liked to hear Jesus talk, but rejected Him as Savior and Lord.
I think enough has been said about the thrust of the passage and its theological ideas, so that does not have to be gone over again here. And the theme of judgment is so common in the Bible that it is not necessary at this point to list dozens of passages. It will be helpful to reiterate at this point something that the Bible teaches, namely, that judgment will be according to opportunity. People who have received a good amount of light, or knowledge, about Christ Jesus will be held more accountable than those who had little to go on. Jesus has already said this in Matthew 11. Here He praises those non-Israelites who believed with so little information. Genuine faith will believe the word of God, no matter how much or how little of it is given to them.
The primary application would be to unbelievers who know a good deal about Christianity, perhaps even tithing members of a church. They should be warned that morality and goodness without a commitment to Christ in regeneration will leave an emptiness in the soul for evil spiritual forces to occupy. And evil spirits do not always cause people to do evil things; they often get people to “have the form of godliness without the power.” Being good, cleaning up the act, making new resolutions--all of it is dangerous unless Christ is dwelling enthroned within.
There is perhaps a secondary application to be made, a warning here for Christians as well--not a warning that they might be condemned in the judgment, for if they have received Christ they will not be so judged. But it is a warning not to act like unbelievers, refusing to follow Christ faithfully unless He shows a sign. There is a growing desire in Christianity today for miraculous signs, which if kept in the proper place in the faith can be useful to be sure. But if people have a hard time believing (that is, following ad serving Christ wholeheartedly) without them, then something is wrong in their spiritual growth. God may do miraculous signs, and when He does it should fill us with praise and thanksgiving. But our faith, saving faith, is based in the Word of God--that is what the apostles say redeems us. And that Word reveals to us the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. People who have come to faith in Christ through the Scriptures should set about to grow spiritually and to serve faithfully. The miraculous “signs” they should see would be answers to prayer and people coming to faith or lives being changed through their witness. These will be confirming signs, authenticating signs, but not signs to compel them to believe in Christ. It is a fine distinction, I know; but God expects us to walk by faith whether the signs are present or not. This topic should lead any study group into a healthy and useful discussion, and so I can leave it here for them to pursue.
In the last chapter of the book we saw how strong the opposition to Jesus had grown, and how Jesus warned the people of the danger they were in if they rejected Him, their Messiah. Now that their rejection has been officially recorded, Jesus began to teach the people with parables. We shall have to learn why this different style of teaching was now used by Jesus, as well as how such parables should be studied. This is a large subject, as you could probably guess (some seminaries have courses on the parables), but we shall work with the basic principles to follow.
On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 2 And great multitudes were gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat down; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
and seeing you will see and not perceive; 15
for the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
so that I should heal them.’
16 But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; 17
or assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
18 Therefore, hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful, 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Matthew 13 is filled with teachings about the progress of the kingdom of heaven in this age. The chapter is a set discourse of Jesus, and not a collection of truths taken from the Lord’s ministry at different times and set out by Matthew as a sequence of teachings. Verse 53 of the chapter makes it clear that these seven parables were delivered on one and the same occasion by Jesus. Accordingly, they develop a unified theme.
Jesus, the King, was approaching a crisis in His presentation of Himself when it would be necessary to challenge peoples’ faith concerning His mission and indeed His identity. In view of this He chose to use parables to begin to uncover the faith of true disciples, and to demonstrate judgment on those who refused to see and hear..
In verses 1-3a we find they when the multitudes gathered around Him, He spoke to them in parables. In verses 10-16, after the first parable, Jesus explained to His disciples why He spoke in parables to the people. In verses 34 and 35, after the parables, Matthew explained why Jesus spoke in parables. Then in verse 53 we have the summation of the discourse.
So why does Jesus turn now to use parables? He had used some parables in His teaching so far, but now it becomes the supreme method used. The disciples noticed the changed and asked the reason. To answer it we have to note the circumstances of the chapter.
We are not left to speculate about these things, for the text records Jesus’ answer. But first, what exactly is a parable? The Greek word literally means a throwing or placing things along side of each other, for the purpose of comparison. The technical definition of a parable is that it is an extended simile. The comparison is expressed clearly (“the kingdom of heaven is like . . .”), but the comparison is a story or a prolonged comparison, not a simple simile. Some times it might be an extended metaphor, or, an allegory, since it might not use “like” or “as.” The Hebrew word for it is masal [mah-shal]), which means “to be like.”
The parable is a story or an illustration placed along side of a truth with the intention of explaining the one by the other. An old definition says a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning--some familiar thing of life on earth is placed alongside of some mystery of heaven, that our understanding of the one may help us understand the other. Jesus drew from the common life of the people to explain some principle or teaching about the kingdom of heaven. In following this method a point of similarity is communicated, as well as a disparity between this life and the life in the kingdom.
If Jesus were here teaching with parables today, they would all be different because the culture is different. So to understand parables the student of the Bible has to get into the ancient culture a good deal. A good reference work, or a book on the culture, or on customs and manners would be most helpful.
The purpose of using a parable is revelation by illustration. Parables are designed to communicate truth in every day terms. But the text says that they also conceal the truth from those who refuse to believe. So how do we explain these things?
There is one common view that has trouble with the idea that Jesus did something so that people could not understand the truth. After all, He came to reveal the truth. And so they emphasize that the parable was a clear attempt by Jesus to reach those who did not believe or understand. To them, parables are aids to understanding truth, not hindrances. They reason that Jesus explained in this passage, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” Then He went on to say that “whoever has, to him shall be given.” The disciples had something, and because they possessed it, the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom was given to them. But then He added, “whosoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that which he has.” It was not given to the people to know the mysteries of the kingdom because they did not possess something, there was something they lacked. They lacked what the disciples possessed, the possession of which created within them the capacity for receiving the mysteries of the kingdom. So what was it that the disciples possessed and the others did not? It was their faith in Christ. The disciples had received Jesus as the Messiah, and because of their faith in Him as their King they were able to receive and understand the mysteries of the kingdom. They may not have understood everything Jesus did, but they trusted Him as their King.
The people up to this point had by and large rejected Jesus as the Messiah, and so he could not give to them the mysteries of the kingdom — they would not have understood. They were unable to see, or enter into the kingdom. And because they did not receive Christ, they were in danger of losing all that they did possess, their religious heritage and preparation.
So, as the argument continues, with these people who were incapable of grasping the secrets of the kingdom, Jesus adopted a new approach. He would give them pictures to draw them to the kingdom. So in a sense the parable would provide an even wider door for people to enter if they had any faith at all. Using parables, then, reveals the patience and pity of the Lord on a deeper level. They had rejected Him out of hand, and He tried to reach them a different way, through parables. Even for a while Jesus had to use parables for His disciples, and explain them to them, for they had not quite developed in their faith and understanding of the message of the kingdom.
That is one view of parables. But there are two difficulties with it. First, it does not do justice to what the text says, especially the citation from Isaiah; and second, if people failed to believe when Jesus said things plainly, it would be hard to see how they would suddenly understand when He spoke in parables.
So the second view is that the parables had as part of their purpose concealing the truth from unbelievers, as Isaiah’s message had in its day. And this view does justice to the text.
Jesus delivered this discourse to the crowds, not the disciples, but He explained things to the disciples. The crowds are “this generation” that Jesus has already denounced; here they are not given the secrets of the kingdom.
Matthew records two rationales for parables, one for outsiders and one for disciples. Jesus explains the parable to the disciples because revelation is given to some and not to others. Jesus’ explanation of the reason for parables cannot be softened, because part of His answer to the disciples is that one of the functions of parables is to conceal the truth, or at least present it in a veiled way. In biblical usage the “mysteries” to which Jesus refers are plans or decrees often presented in veiled language and made known to the elect. They usually refer to eschatological events. What is being revealed to the disciples is not the person of Jesus or the nature of God, but the coming of the kingdom into history in advance of its glorious manifestation (Ladd, Presence, pp. 218-242). It was commonly known that God was going to bring in His glorious kingdom by supernatural manifestations and judgments. But the mystery of the kingdom is what no one was expecting, that the kingdom which is ultimately to come in great power has already begun to enter the world in advance in a hidden form to work secretly within people. All of the parables deal with this present form of the kingdom, which Jesus explained to the disciples, but did not explain to the crowds expecting some dramatic deliverance. Even the parables that are teaching some ethical truth have to be understood in the light of the present form of the kingdom.
Matthew is showing that what is taking place on the one hand is the fulfillment of prophecy and the decreed will of God, and on the other hand a gross rebellion of unbelief and spiritual ignorance by the crowds. The responsibility for their unbelief is their own entirely, because mortals always do as they choose. And the fact that God foreknew they would do this does not in any way diminish their culpability.
So the use of parables fits into the midst of this issue. It would be too easy to say that the only reason Jesus used parables was to conceal the truth, for parables are a means of communication. If that were His sole desire, all He had to do was stop teaching entirely. But He came with a mission to call people into the kingdom. So using parables is a way of teaching the truth or preaching about the kingdom without casting His pearls before swine. The parables will harden those who are already hardened against Him, and enlightened His disciples about the kingdom. Parables challenge the hearers in matters of the faith. The parables do not contain esoteric truths that only the initiated or enlightened could understand--they seem pretty clear. No, the parables present the claims of the present form of the kingdom in such a way that only those who trust Jesus will understand the new direction in the plan of God. After all, He was announcing a different form of the kingdom than they had expected. The parables challenge the hearers to respond with faith. The parable of the sower would require the hearers to see the truth that the kingdom is slowly progressing, and if that be so, to determine what kind of soil they were. For those who are hardened like the rocky soil, the parable is a message of judgment; for those who are open to the words of Jesus, their “soil” will respond to the “seed” or message of the kingdom. Like Isaiah before Him, Jesus’ proclamation of the word will succeed in dulling the spiritual sense of those who are already self-righteous or calloused to the word, because they do not want to repent or change--they want the reward of a glorious kingdom, but it will also succeed in “producing fruit” among those submissive to the will of God.
Jesus does not explain why the kingdom is not now coming in power and glory, only that there are certain characteristics of the kingdom that need to be accepted. There are several things to keep in mind when reading and interpreting a parable.
1. Preference should be given for the simplicity of interpretation. To discover the intent of the parable the simple, straightforward meaning is most likely to be the correct one. There is a tendency to study these parables in order to find hidden meanings that have never been seen before. There is no doubt that this can be done, for anything Jesus said would have eternal truth behind it and in it. But these were meant to illustrate truth, to reveal truth to the multitudes. A meaning that no one ever would have gotten is out of the question.
2. One should restrict the application of these pictures to the limits set out by Christ in the narrative. A parable is designed to focus on one aspect of the kingdom, in one period of the development of the kingdom. To press every detail of the story into service for all the incidentals about the kingdom is going to far.
3. One should have a consistent use of the figures employed, both within the context and the general use of Scripture, except where specifically otherwise stated. Figures that Jesus used in the parables are used consistently. They all work together to capture the reader and draw him into the story as a participant.
4. There will be a primary point and often secondary points made in a parable. To say a parable is a simple allegory that only makes on point does not do justice to the literary type. Jesus on occasion made more than one point out of parables. But having said that, it is not always easy to determine in a proverb what is a point being made and what is merely part of the story structure.
5. Not all the parables in the Bible work the same way. There is diversity in the parables, and so each one has to be studied as a literary unit in its context.
6. Parables are designed to call the listener into participation, to identify with someone or something in the story. They divide the audience into the believer and the self-righteous unbeliever. They call for a commitment of faith and obedience that will indicate whether one is in the kingdom or not.
The passage, then, provides us with an introduction (1-3a), then the parable itself (3b-9). This is followed by the explanation of the reason for using parables by Jesus (10-17). Finally, Jesus explained the meaning of the first of His parables, the sower and the seed (18-23). The passage is almost entirely the teaching Jesus, except for the introduction to the passage, the question by the disciples, and the citation from Isaiah.
I. The Setting of the Discourse (13:1-3a). Matthew begins the section with “That same day,” clearly linking these parables with the events covered in chapter 12, the opposition arguments. The reference to the house connects the material to the event at the end of the chapter. So, in view of the conflicts, Jesus now begins to use parables more fully. This is one of the few discourses that is addressed to the crowds in general, and not specifically to the disciples (and by disciples we would mean the people who believed in Jesus and followed Him, numbering far more than the twelve).
The posture of Jesus sitting, first by the lake, and then in the boat because of the crowds, is one of a teacher. He was a teacher, here teaching people about the kingdom. The usual posture of a teacher was to sit, while the people stood and listened, or sat all around and listened. Matthew tells us that Jesus taught them many things in parables.
II. The Parable of the Soils (13:3b-9). This is one of the most familiar parables in the Bible, and probably will not need so much explanation, especially since it is one that Jesus interprets clearly for His disciples. This section is most helpful then, because not only does it explain why parables were being used, but gives the meaning of the parable itself.
The parable is about the ground more than the sower. A sower goes out to the field to sow seed, and he finds that as he scatters the seed it falls on different kinds of ground. There were paths that ran through the unfenced field, and in those places the ground was beaten down so that it was too hard to receive seed, and the birds ate it. There were rocky places where the limestone bedrock was just beneath the topsoil, or where the rocks had worked through, and the seed could not take root because of the rocks. Any seed that started to grow in the shallow soil soon withered in the intense heat and died because it could not sink roots. Other seed fell under the thorns of hedgerows which took the moisture and grew up, choking the seed that had fallen among the thorns. Anyone who has visited the holy land can appreciate the rocky soil, the beaten paths, the thorn bushes—the fields are in this condition and the farmers must sow in spite of it.
And a good bit of seed falls on good soil and eventually produces crops of various yields. So the same seed produces no crop, or some crop, or a great crop. And so Jesus warns his listeners that the parable needs careful interpretation — “He who has ears, let him hear.” Of course, everyone has ears. But Jesus is indicating this will take more than ordinary listening to understand.
A good number of commentators will try to interpret this parable without reference to the next section, Jesus’ explanation as to why He used parables (largely because they think verses 18-23 are not authentic, that they were added later). But the text has recorded Jesus’ explanation, both of parables and of this one, and the meaning Jesus gives is far more compelling than what some of these commentators settle for in their discussion.
III. The Explanation of Parables (13:10-17). We have already discussed a good deal of this material in the introduction. But a few things need to be clarified now in the verses in context. The situation is the question that the disciples ask, to which Jesus gives this full answer. Matthew’s account is longer than Marks (4:10-12) and Luke’s (8:9-10; 10:23-24) and preserves more of the use of Isaiah than they do. Jesus first gives a basic answer (13) which is then applied to “them” (14, 15) and then to the disciples (16,17).
K. Bailey (Poet and Peasant, pp. 61f.) has observed the pattern in this answer is easily laid out in a chiasm, a typical Hebrew way of ordering stories and materials. It is named after the Greek letter chi, which is “X” shaped. In other words, motifs and expressions in the first half have a corresponding motif or expression in the second half, and at the center of the story is a turning point. It shows the balance of the story, but also the heart of it.
Therefore I speak to them in parables,
1 Because seeing they see not and hearing they hear not, nor understand
2 And it is fulfilled to them the prophecy of Isaiah which says
3 Hearing you shall hear and shall not understand
4 And seeing you shall see and not perceive.
5 For this people’s heart has become dull
6 and the ears are dull of hearing
7 and their eyes they have closed
7’ lest they should perceive with their eyes
6’ and hear with the ear
5’ and understand with the heart, and should turn again and I should heal them.
4’ But blessed are your eyes, for they see
3’ and your ears, for they hear
2’ For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men
1’ desired to see what you see, and did not see, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear.
This ordered arrangement of Jesus’ answer emphasizes the judgment aspect of the parable at the center, but also the mercy aspect of the climax of the explanation with the disciples.
Jesus makes a distinction between the crowds and the disciples. The emphasis is not so much on the disciples’ ability to understand, which they have in part but not completely, but on the fact that revelation has been given to them.
This is the way that judicial hardening works. The disciples followed Jesus by faith. They did not understand everything, but asked. The crowds did not, on the whole, follow by faith, but demanded a compelling sign. Further revelation was not given to them. They are like the crowd that Isaiah dealt with.
Isaiah lived about 700 years earlier than this. He announced the judgment of God on the nation for its unbelief. That judgment would take the form of judicial hardening--they would hear but not understand, the preaching would make their spirits dull. In other words, the message would only harden their resistance to God. This judgment may seem harsh, until one realizes that the nation of Israel in 700 B.C. had had the sanctuary, the priesthood, the prophets, the scriptures for centuries. And yet in their sin and rebellion they had moved farther away from God than the people of the earlier centuries. Finally God gave them up, meaning He ceased to work in their hearts by His Spirit to reveal His truth to them. Rather, He let them alone to have their own way. And their natural way was to reject the words of the prophet. This gives us a good idea of what the psalmists and prophets meant when they said to seek the Lord while He may be found. While the prophet will be there proclaiming the message, if God is not causing it to take seed in their hearts, there will be no response of faith. And God will stop doing that if people persist in rebelling against Him.
In the days of Jesus this prophetic message of Isaiah found its fullest meaning. The people had been listening to Jesus preach and teach, had seen the authenticating miracles, and yet accused Him of Satanic works and rejected His word. Some of those people would be hardened in their unbelief; and the simple theological truth is that the revelation of the mystery of the kingdom was not given to them. They might intellectually hear the parable and make something of it — but it would not make sense to them because of their hardened unbelief, rejection of Jesus, and pre-conceived idea of what the kingdom should be. The Savior was still among them, and they could still follow Him and trust Him. But God knew the hearts of the people, and if they did not believe the words and the works of Jesus in their midst, no further revelation would be given to them.
But the disciples believed in the person and the work of Jesus, and so further revelation came to them, not just in the immediate explanation of the parable, or in the constant teaching of Jesus, but in the fact that the Spirit open their “eyes” and their “hearts” to understand. He had already said that revelation was necessary for people to know Him and to know the Father (Matt. 11:25-27) and He would say to Peter later, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Matt. 16:17).
How long would the hardening continue? Isaiah said in his day “until the cities lie in ruins.” This means, until God judged the nation for unbelief and scattered them abroad. That happened in Isaiah’s case with the exile. In Jesus’ day the pattern would be repeated: they were looking for Messiah to build them a glorious kingdom, but the city would be ruined and they would be scattered. The failure of most of the Jews to discern the spiritual things would lead to judgment. And part of the judgment was their being hardened in unbelief. This hardening was a subject Paul picked up in Romans 11, a hardening which God used to turn to the Gentiles with the Gospel and raise up a people who would make Israel jealous.
The disciples were blessed above any others who had come before, both prophets and righteous men. They looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, but the disciples received Him, walked with Him, witnessed His mighty works, and were shown things that the prophets never knew.
What the passage is saying is that the crowds stand in the tradition of the “wilfully blind” of the Old Testament, and the disciples stand in the tradition of the prophets and the righteous people of the Old Testament. The disciples truly believed in Jesus, and so accepted what He was saying, namely, that the message of the kingdom was at a critical turning point.
IV. The Interpretation of the Parable (13:18-23). Jesus now lays out the parallel ideas to explain the meaning. He does not explain every detail — no explanation is given for the sower, or the path, or the rocky ground, or the diverse yield. The general point is that the seed is the message of the kingdom. It receives varied responses from the people; and it will take time to develop because of the difficult times and difficult people. But in time the message will produce a harvest.
The Israelites understood farming because it was their culture, so they could appreciate what Jesus was saying, whether they got the intended analogy or not. They should have gotten it, because it was used in the Old Testament already. Psalm 126 spoke of the perseverance of the sower with tears and trouble, indicating that eventually he would bring in his sheaves. That psalm was written at the restoration of Israel from the captivity. It was not about farming, but about proclaiming the message of the kingdom at that stage in God’s program — convincing Jewish people to leave the east and return to the land to help build the program of God in the land of promise. It was difficult, because they were now settled in their homes and businesses in Babylonia-Persia. But the principle was that if they continue to sow, if they continued to expend any effort for the greater cause, there would be a result, there would be people coming down the road from the east to return to the land.
The seed that is sown is the message of the kingdom. The soils are the people, the human hearts, who make the decision about the message. They can be compared to the different kinds of soils who receive the seed (which does not mean they became Christians, but heard and considered the message). So the parable is probably about the ground, which would mean the people who heard Christ’s message. The good ground received the seed, the word, it took root and grew, meaning it was believed and it produced the fruit of righteousness and obedience.
Some hear the truth, but like hardened paths they do not let it penetrate, and before long Satan takes the truth away. If people do not receive and respond to the word with faith, their opportunity will be stolen by the evil one.
Some hear the message with great joy, but like the rocky soil he does not let it take root. It is a superficial response like the people who followed Jesus all over. But because it was not received with genuine thoughtfulness and faith, under external pressures, it quickly fell away. They were outwardly enthusiastic about Jesus, but inwardly they did not take it to heart. There are a lot of these folks in churches.
Some hear the message, not with joy now because they are as the ground under the thorns. Life has too many other troubles and commitments for them to take the message to heart. Worries about worldly things and devotion to wealth choke out the message of the kingdom. They would have to give up too much to make a commitment to Christ. No fruit results, and that shows that there was no life. The person remains in the thicket of the problems and cares of life.
But some hear and believe. These are the disciples, of course. They are only marginally better than the other people in their understanding, but they are on the right way. Their hearts receive the message with faith, and the seed will take root. The message of the kingdom will gradually grow and produce results in them, in varying quantities, and then not instantly. But they are the good ground. Even the soil that produces a small crop is “good.” It will take a good deal more of Jesus’ teaching, not to mention the resurrection and the giving of the Spirit, before they really understand the mysteries of the kingdom.
There is much more that can be said about the parable and about parables, but this will be enough for now. There are two lessons in one here: (1) the meaning and use of parables in general and God’s dealing with unbelievers, and (2) the meaning and application of the parable of the sower and the seed.
The main point of the passage is the meaning of this parable. The explanation of parables is explanatory for it and the others to come. The parables will teach people the form that the kingdom will take before the great coming in glory of the king. It is a mystery form of the kingdom.
In this parable the sower sows the seed. God prepares the ground that will receive the message by faith. But the ground, the human heart, might be hardened in unbelief, only superficially happy about the message, or too entangled with the cares of this world. There are many reasons that people do not respond by faith to the word. But those who do will produce “fruit.” The faith that they have will be developed by revelation being given to them. To those who have, more will be given.
To put the lessons simply:
1. We like the Sower (Christ at first) have the responsibility to proclaim the message of the kingdom, the gospel, to the world. It is the Word of God that will produce results.
2. We will be aware that not everyone will receive it by faith. That is not our business; our business is to continue to proclaim the good news.
3. The evidence of those who receive it by faith and act on it is that their lives will change and they will produce righteousness. The evidence of saving faith is a growing spiritual life.
4. The advance of the kingdom, the spiritual life, does not occur instantly, but over time. But it makes continual progress. Those who believe, like the disciples, do not instantly understand it all. But the Spirit of God, using the Word of God, illumines their understanding daily. Eventually, stumbling disciples will become bold apostles.
5. It is our task to know and understand the message well, so that we can present it as clearly and meaningful as possible. The rest is not up to us. And if we do that, we know that only some will receive it. We dare not consider some who share God’s word and see only a small response to be less spiritual or talented than those who share God’s word and see great responses. God gives the increase.
Matthew records a number of parables in chapter 13, and then in chapter 14 he returns to the description of some of Jesus’ mighty works that portray Him not simply King of the Jews now but Lord of all creation. The 14th chapter begins with a report that Herod (not Herod the Great who died just after Jesus was born, but one of his sons) had had John beheaded in prison. This is the first significant sign of the growing opposition to Jesus and John. As a result, Jesus begins to widen His appeal to include the Gentiles more and more. First, in chapter 14 Jesus will do mighty deeds in Jewish land; then in chapter 15 He will be in Gentile territory. He will present Himself as Lord of all.
13 When Jesus heard what had happened, He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
This is a “miracle” passage again, the record of a wonderful work that Jesus did, showing that He was more than a mere teacher or prophet. He was able to take the fish and break and multiply it to feed the whole company of people, more than five thousand men, possibly ten to fifteen thousand people in all.
The passage has no Old Testament reference to explain, although there is an allusion to the feeding of Israel in the wilderness. And there is no lengthy teaching by Jesus, although there is implied teaching on a number of levels. So the interpretation will be brief and direct, but with some hints at wider teaching.
One thing that has to be settled at the outset is the parallel with the feeding of the four thousand that occurs in Matthew 15:29-39. Most liberal, critical scholars conclude that there was only one event, and that the telling of the event got altered a bit over the years, and different tellings of it got preserved in the same gospel as if they were separate events. Of course there is also a fundamental assumption behind their views, namely that Matthew did not write the gospel, but that it was the product of the Christian community that lived fifty or so years later and they did not get all their facts straight.
That view is an amazingly naive and simplistic answer to the question of the relationship of similar events. What should be done before taking such a radical approach is to try to see what the differences are between the events, and then try to explain why two accounts would be included. But if the material did come from Matthew after all, then we are dealing with the record of an eye-witness, and not some later community that was trying to sort out what people remembered. If there was only one event, then the gospel accounts really did get it terribly muddled, because the passages are not the same. The differences lead to the conclusion that there were two separate, but similar miracles that were performed to show two related but different messages (as there were similar healings). The feeding of the five thousand takes place in Jewish territory, on the western side of the division of the river Jordan flowing into the Sea of Galilee. It was a sign to Israel that the Messiah was able to feed all the people even when there was no food to be had. The fact that there were twelve baskets left over indicates that He could meet the needs of all twelve tribes of Israel. The feeding of the four thousand takes place more to the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, across the boundary in the political territories. The region in the east was not under Herod Antipas, but under his brother Philip’s reign; it was a heavily Gentile population. So by doing the miracle there as well, Jesus was showing them that as Messiah He could provide food for the nations too. The account of the feeding of the four thousand follows the miracle done for the Canaanite woman, with the lesson that the dogs (Gentiles) will take the scraps that fall from the table (what the Jews reject). According to Scripture there were seven nations living in the land when Israel arrived; this may well explain the symbolism of seven baskets of leftovers being collected afterwards. So the analysis of the contexts and a consideration of the differences shows a better solution to the parallel material than saying the community got it muddled.
One additional point is the correlation with the other gospels, for they all record this miracle. Luke says it happened in the region of Bethsaida, which would put it more to the north of the Sea; the other writers do not identify the place. We now know that there were two Bethsaidas, one on either side of the tributary that runs into the north side of the sea. This would have been the western Bethsaida, although the exact location is far from certain.
The other gospel writers have more to the conversation than Matthew (as Matthew consistently shortens and condenses the material). When the question of food came up, Jesus asked the disciples what they would feed the people, testing them. Then, when they said they had no food to give people, Jesus told them to go and see what was available. They found one little boy with the loaves and fish. And so then Jesus did the miracle.
John 6 also records the feeding of the five thousand, then the walking on the water, and then a lengthy discourse by Jesus, “The Manna from Heaven.” This sermon by Jesus was intended to explain in more detail the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. It clearly was a sign to Israel, for it compares the provision of bread with the Manna that their fathers ate. But Jesus uses it to explain that He is the bread of life that came down from heaven. So this shows the “Jewish” orientation of the first miracle. Matthew does not include it because he is presenting the miracle of feeding the people on its own merits. The additional message about the Manna takes the application eve farther than what is implied in the story itself.
A little comment on method of Bible study here: it is helpful to study this discourse on the Manna, or the other parallel account, to get a fuller understanding of the details of the story, the chronology, and the significant application that Jesus made of the miracle. But if your lesson is centered on the exposition of the passage in Matthew, your primary ideas must come from what Matthew has. Once you have made those points that Matthew makes, then you can correlate this other material for additional thoughts. What we try to do in Bible Study is to interpret the text that we are using in its context, noting what the writer does not say, as well as what he does say. If we are teaching what the message of Matthew is, the feeding of the people, then we do not use all that John says as the main point of our lesson, otherwise we should be teaching from John. This acknowledges that there was a reason Matthew did not want to emphasize exactly what John did. If I were doing a Bible Study on John 6, then the discourse on Manna would be the critical part of the lesson.
It is often a thin line to follow. But all of this keeps our interpretation tied to the text we are actually using. An old rule to go by in teaching the Bible is: “The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.” It is amazing how much teaching and preaching today leaves the text it seems to be expounding and goes all over the Bible. The result is that the message is somewhat “biblical,” but it did not come from the passage being studied. We have to make sure that our central idea of the lesson is actually what the author intended, and the only way to know that is to study what he actually included. This of course assumes that the passage is a unit in the argument of the book, and has something to say in and of itself.
In Matthew 14:13-21 the structure is very simple and straightforward. The focal point is certainly the miracle that was performed to meet a need. But the conversation that leads up to it is significant to the interpretation: as always, Jesus is using the miracle to get something more across. Jesus does not simply do the miracle, but first instructs the disciples to give the people something to eat. They, of course, have nothing to give the thousands. And so Jesus gives to them, so that they might give to the people. Understanding that the miracles were to signify some truth about the person and work of Jesus, this little interchange before the miracle also has greater significance than readily meets the eye—it will be a preview of how all spiritual service in ministry will be developed.
The section begins with a transitional statement linking this event to the sad event of the death of John (13a). It then reports how the multitudes followed Jesus, and He, having compassion on them, healed them (13b-14). Then we have the interchange about food (15-17), followed by the miracle (18-20). The passage closes with a report of the number (21).
Transition (13a). News reached Jesus of the death of John the Baptist, recorded in the preceding paragraph, although slightly rearranged in sequence. The implication is that it moved Him deeply, because He tried to retire to a solitary place. The press of the crowds did not allow Him much time alone, and He now needed that time to rest and to think. Probably the pain of the mission was beginning to be felt; and yet what happened to John had happened to countless prophets and saints before. Nonetheless, it grieved the Lord, as indeed the death of the saints always does (Psalm 116:15). But He and the disciples were trying to get free of the crowds to rest.
Compassion 13b, 14). But the crowds followed on shore wherever they saw Jesus going, and so He landed and got out of the boat and began to heal the people. The location of this activity is somewhat disputed. Matthew does not locate it; Luke says it was in the “area of Bethsaida.” So it would be somewhere on the northwest shore of Galilee. Tradition has placed it farther south on the western shore of the sea, a little south of Capernaum. This is an early tradition, from the first couple of centuries; but it probably is not the exact spot. The churches that have been there through the ages have allowed pilgrims to contemplate this miracle, however. The whole area from Capernaum to Bethsaida is not large, and so we are not far off when we focus on any of these areas. We are told in the gospels that the area was grassy, so that the people could sit down to eat. John adds the bit of information that it was nearing Passover, so it was early spring, a little over a year before Jesus would die on the cross.
The key idea to work on in this section is the quality of “compassion” that Jesus had. A little word study on this word would be most helpful as you study the passage. It is one of the characteristic attributes of God; but it is also a quality that we have been given in our nature and so must act upon. Compassion is that internal yearning of sympathy and concern for people with great needs. It is such a deep emotion that it cannot be easily shut down; we cannot easily walk away from people in great pain, or poverty, or desperate needs. Here Jesus had compassion on the people, and so He began to heal them.
The compassion will also extend to His feeding the people. Note that Jesus’ compassion moved Him to do things for the people. He did not stop to ask which were righteous and which were not, who was wise in his finances and who would only squander it, who was Jew and who was Gentile. He had compassion on them all, and without making inquiry or setting conditions He went about healing, and then fed them all.
As we said before, the healing ministry of Jesus was a sign to all that He was the Messiah, for Messiah was to heal people. And yet, this was not the full Messianic work, only a sign that Jesus was Messiah. After all, He did not heal everyone; He did not end the curse—John had just died in prison. One can only imagine what was running through the mind of Jesus at this time. Perhaps John’s death was a reminder of the coming end to His own life and He was thinking of showing compassion to as many as He could in His limited time among them.
Need (15-17). As the day wore on it became clear that the people needed something to eat. The disciples came and advised Jesus to send the people away so that they could find food in the local villages and have something to eat. On the surface this was simply a wise and practical bit of advice. They were concerned with the need to eat, the day was long gone, and Jesus would have to stop for the day sooner or later. But there is something ironic in the disciples telling Jesus to send needy people away, when Jesus had been moved by compassion to help them. The disciples needed more of that compassion; they should have asked Jesus to do something, rather than tell him to send people away. Matthew does not tell us that Jesus was testing the disciples; he leaves it with the irony of the disciples offering advice to Jesus (who did not take their advice, of course; He does not send the people away).
But Jesus said to them, “You give them something to eat.” It is as if He was saying, if you are so concerned for them, feed them. The concern for their needs was fine; but now do something about it. They were right to see the need in the people for food; but they would have to be the ones who would feed the people. This is a brief preview of His commission for them: they are to meet the needs of the people. They may not have seen this deeper meaning at the time, but as the disciples, and all ministers, looked back on the event, they would catch it--especially as Jesus had instructed Peter and the others to feed his sheep. The whole ministry is centered on feeding people, both the physical food, which is a part of the pastoral compassion and care, and also the spiritual food, the word of God. But they do not have it in and of themselves to meet these needs; they will first receive it from Jesus, and then will give it to the people. This is the way all ministry works: the Lord has chosen to give it to some, so that they mind give it to others. Paul will say, “That which I received, I deliver to you.” This is very Rabbinic; it is also very much the way the Christian faith works.
And it is also symbolized in the way that Holy Communion was developed and instructed: Jesus broke the bread (as He will do here) and gave to the disciples in the Upper Room; subsequently, the disciples will break bread and give it to the followers of Jesus, and this continues age after age. This was only noticed later as the disciples saw a parallel between what Jesus did there and what He did in the Upper Room. But these little hints are for additional applications and insights, and do not form the main message of the text.
This may seem like we are reading too much into the text, but two considerations warrant it: one is the symbolic nature of almost everything that Jesus did in His miracles, and the second is the interpretation of the event given in John 6 that confirms this was what Jesus was getting at here. There he went on to talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, surely a Eucharistic application of the divine provision for people. We are not expounding John 6, but we may use it as confirmation for the additional interpretation seen here. The keys here for the interpretation are Jesus’ instruction for the disciples to give the people something to eat, and then His miraculous provision of food to give to them. The Jewish believers would have immediately seen the significance of this—God was giving them food to eat through this miracle! And they would have made the connection to the Manna in the wilderness where God had compassion on the people and fed them for forty years (although there are major differences in the details between the giving of Manna and this). And Deuteronomy 8 explains that He did this in order that they might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So from the event itself, and from the background of it, the spiritual meaning was evident. The Jews would have picked up on this right away.
But the primary meaning is on the compassion for the people and the desire to feed them actual food. The disciples, of course, have no food to give to the people. They do find some bread and some fish (John tells us that a boy had them), five loaves and two fish (dried fish most likely).
Provision (18-20). Jesus took the food, looked up to heaven, gave thanks, and then broke the bread. Then He gave to the disciples and they gave to the people (not the order and the repetition of “gave”). Everyone ate and was satisfied. And twelve baskets of food was picked up afterward.
The number twelve is not explained by Matthew, but it is a common number in the Bible. Here we have to be cautious about allegorizing the number, but twelve is used frequently for the twelve tribes of Israel. If this is the intent, then the idea is that there was enough left over from this feeding to feed the whole nation of Israel. As Messiah, Jesus was fully able to meet all the needs of the nation, just as in the Old Testament the physical needs of the nation were fully met by the miraculous provision of bread from heaven. There is a subtle equation between this event and that, which according to John Jesus went on to explain, and if so an equation between the LORD of Exodus and Jesus. But there is also a foretaste here of the great messianic banquet to come in which everyone will be satisfied.
This miracle, as well as the others in the context, were designed to make people aware that Jesus was far more than a prophet. The miraculous works would authenticate His claims, and He claimed to be the Son of God, the King of the Jews, the LORD of all creation. The proper response would have been for people to follow Him and learn from Him. But we know from John that they started to leave.
Report (21). Matthew wants his readers to catch the scope of this event. There were about 5,000 men besides women and children. So we do not know the total number, but far more than 5,000 mouths to feed. This was truly an amazing thing.
The main point of the passage is the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, and as the Messiah He can and will meet all the needs of His people Israel (before He meets the needs of Gentiles). This He will do on the immediate occasion; but that is a harbinger of what He will do at the end of the age.
Some skeptical students of the Bible do not like this kind of miracle (a “gift” miracle). Some try to explain that what “really happened” here was that people all shared their lunches with each other, and in time it was told as a miracle of the way the Lord inspired the multiplication of the food. The healing miracles the skeptics can accept a little easier, because they feel they can explain them by psychological means. But multiplying food is different. It is the kind of thing that only can be explained supernaturally. It is a work of creation! God desires that the poor and the hungry be fed.
The primary application, then, is for Christians to have the same compassion that Jesus did. If we see the poor, the needy, the hungry, and are moved with compassion, then we must follow Jesus’ instructions: Give them something to eat. We may not have much, but we may have more than the needy. We may reason that they will only squander what we give them, or that we should not give because it will only encourage them to remain poor and dependent--but that is not what the Bible tells us to be concerned about. If we become more like Christ we will be moved by compassion, and we will start to meet people’s needs--which may mean we will have to go to the Lord to ask for more to give them.
A secondary idea suggested by these things is that with the provision of food there has a spiritual message as well. The people would have had it in their thinking that man does not live by bread alone, or, that God provides things for people in order that they will listen to Him. We too have received the word from the Lord, and so must give it to the people. Any time God provides something for people it is a call for faith, a call for them to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and that they need to trust in Him.
So the secondary application is to take the spiritual food that Christ gives us and give it to the spiritually needy people of the world. It may well be that in providing physical food for the hungry and the masses we will also have opportunity to tell them of the true food (as Jesus did with the discussion of water at the well in John 4). For those who are spiritually needy, then the provision of life from Christ is always available.
We now come to a section almost entirely made up of Jesus’ teaching in response to the challenge from the elders. This kind of passage will require understanding the ideas involved and not so much the kind of miracle that Jesus might do. Here our study will be helped a good deal by getting behind the text to learn more about the culture in which Jesus ministered. As will be obvious from a straight reading of the passage, the controversy between Jesus and the leaders of his day are becoming sharper and sharper with each conflict.
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if a man says to his father and mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 ‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men’.”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean’.”
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you not know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean’. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean’.”
The passage unfolds step-by-step. First there is the challenge by the teachers and the response to them by Jesus (1-9). Then there is the report that Jesus turned to teach the crowd on the real source of uncleanness (10, 11). Third, the disciples ask about offending the Pharisees, and Jesus answered them with a parable that then had to be explained (12-20). In effect, then, the teachers raise the question, and Jesus answers them, explains his answer to the crowds, and explains his dealings with the teachers to the disciples. There was one occasion, but Jesus has three separate audiences to address, with separate issues.
In the study it will be important to learn about the traditions of the elders on the subject of washing or purifying the hands. For this you may start with a good book on the backgrounds to the Gospel, but may in fact go to the primary source, the Mishnah._ftn11 While tracing down that issue in early Judaism, you will also want to learn more about the issue of “Korban” that Jesus discusses here—how they got out of supporting parents by making a dedicatory offering.
A second important issue to be studied in this passage concerns the citation from Isaiah. The meaning of the passage is clear, and certainly appropriate here. But in what way did Isaiah prophesy about them, and not his own generation? This will open up your thinking on the way prophecy was used.
A third matter to think about is Jesus’ interpretation of the laws of uncleanness from Leviticus. Was he making a radical break here from the laws of the Bible, or was he looking at the spirit of the law and not just the letter?
This will lead finally to Jesus’ use (again) or parabolic style to explain to his disciples what He was doing.
Once again, though, you will see that some of the main principles of Bible study will be brought forward and used in this passage as well. Here we will not see so much interplay between story and speech, since this is mostly speech. But the content of the speeches will show how they relate to the story line, and the speeches reflect the culture and teaching of that century, as well as the message of the Old Testament.
There will be some key words that will need clarification here: “the traditions of the elders,” “ korban” —its a gift, unclean, and in the citation honor as well as the contrast between lips and heart, and then the image of blind guides. Of course the words for the different sins should not be too hard to study at this point.
The main differences in the two accounts are: Matthew omits the material that we have in Mark 7:3-4, adds Matthew 15:12-14 that Mark does not have, omits Mark’s interpretation that Jesus made all foods clean (7:19), and adds 15:20b to keep the focus on food eaten with unwashed hands. In general, it looks like according to Matthew Jesus disagrees with one Jewish teaching about the Law, whereas in Mark it appears that he is annulling the Law. These issues will be best discussed as they come up in the passage.
The two issues from the Old Testament that will need some clarification will be the laws on cleanness and uncleanness from Leviticus, and the citation from Isaiah about hypocrites. These too will be best treated in the context as they come up. But a good word study book2_ftn2 will certainly help with the difficulty of “clean” and “unclean,” and a commentary or two on Isaiah may be consulted for the passage used.
I. Challenge and Response: In response to the challenge by the teachers about the disciples’ violation of their traditions, Jesus rebuked the teachers for their hypocrisy (15:1-9). I put this first part together because it is essentially Jesus’ response to the charge of the teachers. For easier study purposes, it can be further broken down into sections:
First, the accusation (1, 2). The men who bring the accusation are from Jerusalem, meaning that they were the best trained and most highly respected teachers in the land. They also had a good deal of zeal to be this far away from home. Their appearance here must be a deputation or mission of some kind. Whatever the reason for their presence, they were the source of the most direct confrontation and personal attack that Jesus had to endure.
Their attack came because of the activities of the disciples (but see, the disciples were doing what Jesus did [Luke 11:37-41]). The whole section is abbreviated, more so than in Mark, because Matthew is a Jew writing to a Jewish audience. They know what all this means. Matthew does not list all the array of Pharisaical traditions (see Mark 7:1-3), but focuses on the one critical issue.
The point of their accusation is telling: Jesus and his disciples had violated the “traditions of the elders” (Mark: “tradition of men”), as if those traditions were now authoritative and could be sinned against. These traditions were still oral in Jesus’ days, but were written down a couple of centuries later. The traditions about washing would be found in the tractate called Yadayim or “Hands” (see Mishnah Yadayim 2:1). What this means is that the traditions of men had been elevated to the status of Scripture, so that one could be guilty of violating them. By the way, the same problem exists today as many groups have their “biblical” views, and to violate them means criticism or expulsion from the group. But some of those views are applications and not what the Bible actually teaches.
Second, the Rebuke of Jesus (3-9). The reply of Jesus is more a counterattack than a reply to their question. He first accuses them of breaking the commands of God in order to keep their traditions. This puts the issue back to them—they were the sinners, not Jesus and his disciples, because they had broken God’s commands and not just some teachings of elders.
To press his point he reminds them of their tradition of getting around the law of God. They could pronounce a vow on their things with the word, “Korban,” meaning it is a gift (see tractate Nedarim in the Mishnah, chapters 1, 9, 11). The word “Korban” is based on the word in Leviticus for bringing something near to God. If because of greed, for example, a man did not want to help support his aging parents, he would announce “Korban.” That would mean the money was frozen, and could not be used for taking care of the parents. Thus, they could use their traditions to get out of taking care of their father and mother (which the Law required). Then, they might find a way of nullifying the vow so they ended up keeping the money. A clever tradition of swearing or taking oaths had grown up as a way around a clear cut teaching of the word of God.
This, Jesus says, is hypocritical, and thus they fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. Here is the first place that He called them hypocrites. Here he quotes Isaiah 29:13, which was clearly addressed to the prophet’s own audience. But by quoting it Jesus was saying that his generation was doing the same thing as Isaiah’s generation, and so the words are also addressed to this generation. In both contexts, Isaiah and Matthew, the people spoken to are Jews from Jerusalem who had a religion that was characterized by externals that often crowded out truths. The Jews in Jesus’ day were just preserving the spirit of the folks in Isaiah’s day. They said all the right things, giving the impression they were pious; but their hearts and wills were not obedient at all (they would not honor father and mother, for one example). They had a religious form, but not the reality that goes with it. So their teaching was in vain because there was nothing of God’s authority behind them.
The quotation from Isaiah generally follows the shorter form of the verse found in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. The point is very clear: Jesus was saying to his audience what Isaiah said to his, that their worship was vain because they were far from God in their hearts.
II. Teaching: Jesus explained to the crowd that what went into a man’s mouth did not make him unclean, but what came forth (15:10,11). The Old Testament had a lot to say about clean and unclean (for which see the discussions in commentaries or in word study books). Everything was classified as either clean or unclean, and what was unclean was not allowed in the temple. So defilements, diseases, sins, contaminations, discharges and the like made a person unclean. The Pharisees were rigid in observing the laws of cleanness as well as the sabbath observances and the tithes. In the process they were so concerned with the outward observance of these defilements and contacts with things unclean that they failed to realize that the real defilement was sin. The diseases, discharges, and defilements that made a person unclean were things in life that were the result of the presence of sin and death. To observe the outward rituals and miss the connection with sin was a waste of time. The real source of uncleanness was the human heart, as Jesus will say shortly. To harbor sin (such as hatred and murder for Jesus) and wash hands with ritual washing was hypocritical.
In essence, then, the sayings of Jesus here agree with Mark’s conclusion in his account that Jesus was saying all foods were clean. The ceremonial laws, including the dietary laws, were given to keep Israel distinct from the nations, but in the coming of the Messiah the believers from the nations would be united with believing Israel in the new covenant. Here Jesus would address the real source of uncleanness, which got to the heart of the matter. They were holding to externals and missed the real spirit of the law and the reason for the washing.
III. Question and Answer: Jesus answer’s the disciples’ question about his treatment of the Pharisees by stating that they were blind guides (15:12-20). The question of the disciples showed that the Pharisees must have understood what Jesus had said and taken offence at it. The people held these teachers in high regard, and so the disciples were worried that Jesus was too hard on them. They wanted to be exactly clear on what Jesus had said and meant that offended them; and Jesus wanted them to be clear on the unreliability of the Pharisees’ teaching. The basic issue was their misunderstanding of the Law—they dwelt on the externals as the source of uncleanness and did not realize that the source of the defilements was sin in the world, so uncleanness originated in the human heart.
In short: the human heart produced sin, and sin brought the curse, and the curse brought disease, defilement and death. God legislated rituals to deal with the defilements and the death as a way of reminding Israel of the fact that they were defiled by sin. And Jesus often healed people as a way of showing that He could deal with the cause of the sickness, sin, as well as the results.
To answer the disciples Jesus used a couple of images. The first was that any plant that the Father had not planted would be rooted up (v. 13). The image comes from the Old Testament again that pictures true Israel, the covenant believers, as God’s planting (see Isa. 5:1-7). Jesus was not saying that false teaching would be rooted out, but false teachers. In other words, the Pharisees are not part of God’s planting. This is a theme that gets clearer and clearer in the book.
The second image is that the teachers of Israel saw themselves as guides for the blind (as Isaiah described the ignorant people of the land; Isa. 42:18).3_ftn3 But Jesus says that these leaders were blind themselves, and so blind leaders of the blind, and both would fall into a pit. The leaders were blind because they failed to understand the Scriptures that they taught, and so majored on externals and missed the reality. And, since they were so weak in spiritual understanding, they also failed to perceive who Jesus was and failed to follow Him—that is the ultimate spiritual blindness (see John 5:39-40). Therefore, as leaders they will lead people away from Christ, because they do not rightly discern the Scriptures.
The disciples have faith in Jesus, but are still weak in their understanding of all that Jesus taught. So Peter asked the meaning of the parable mentioned in verse 11, and the disciples’ failure to understand shocked Jesus: “Are you so dull,” meaning, “Are you still without understanding?” This question draws greater attention to their failure to understand.
So Jesus explains in some detail what it is that defiles a person. What someone eats goes in the mouth and is cast out into a latrine eventually. That in one sense is eventually unclean, either the wrong foods being eaten, or what is excreted. But Jesus is saying that the real issue is not what enters the mouth but what comes out, because that comes from the heart. And what are the products of the heart or will? — murder, anger, immorality, etc. (following generally the order of the latter commandments). The point that Jesus is making is that it is what a person actually is that brings defilement. The external laws of cleanness and uncleanness if properly understood to reflect the effects of sin in the world were helpful for a devout Israelite to avoid the impurities as a way of following a life of purity. But as is so often the case, it was easier to focus on the external rituals and forget the spiritual reality behind them. Jesus is teaching that true religion must deal with the true nature of men and women, not just the outer performances. The teachers would have known this if they had been concerned about inner purity.
Jesus finally ends this teaching by saying that eating with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean, but what comes from the heart does. This is a radical departure from not only the traditions of the elders but also the details of the Law. But Jesus has already made it clear (see Matt. 5:21-48) that He has fulfilled the Law, and therefore whatever the laws teach must be determined by their relationship to Him. Not only had Jesus rejected the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law as the authentic teachers of his day, but he had assumed that role for himself—he is the teacher. The conflict between what he was teaching and what the traditions of the Jews taught would come to a head later. But now that the Messiah has come and fulfilled the Law, every detail of the Law has to be seen in that way, in the light of the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Him.4_ftn4 And that usually means that the external regulations of the Law are no longer binding, but what it revealed about God and about His will are. After all, the spirit of the Law was to develop righteousness, not to provide a number of binding external regulations. Jesus was more concerned that people understand that to develop righteousness they would have to be transformed in their hearts so that they would produce righteousness and not uncleanness. Washing hands, therefore, ceased to be a significance step in that direction when the heart was unclean. And the only way that people could be transformed in their hearts was to turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior and find forgiveness. But the Jewish teachers would have none of that.
The passage focuses on the main idea that spiritual uncleanness is in the heart, the will, the mind, or whatever term is used for the spiritual nature of the person. It does not come from eating without washing the hands. The keeping of external regulations was to have directed the faithful to focus on inner spirituality, but it did not do this. And so external ritual replaced inner spiritual reality. And so Jesus took this opportunity to teach that truth—at the expense of the teachers’ reputation. As far as He was concerned, they had failed in their task because they misunderstood the Scripture, and so they were useless as guides. They would be rooted out and destroyed.
One clear lesson, then, for this passage would concern external rituals. If people participate in Church services and follow all the ritual perfectly, religiously, that may represent a heart of faith, but it may not. Unbelievers can have the appearance of being devout, but if there is not faith their ritual will not help. Ritual without the reality of faith is worthless. It is more important for people to get their hearts right with God than to get the order of the ritual down; and getting the heart right with God begins with faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, finding forgiveness and cleansing from God through Him, and following faithfully His teachings about the spiritual life.
Even true believers in Christ can at times go through ritual performances without it affecting the heart. God sees past the worship service, the footwashing service, the season of lent, the bowed head at the confession, or whatever other external routine is followed, to the heart. And if the heart is not cleansed, the forms of religious mean nothing.
One particularly telling witness of uncleanness in the heart comes from this business of Korban. If people are trying to legitimize ways of not fulfilling their spiritual duties then the heart needs cleansing.
Before we come down too hard on the Pharisees for focusing on externals and outer show, we need only to remind ourselves that week in and week out we spend far more time getting the outer body ready for church than we do the heart.
A second lesson is that there is a real danger to replace the true meaning of the word of God (the letter and the spirit of it) with traditions. Traditions can be very helpful, but they have a way of crowding out the basic Christian standards. You do not have to look very far to see that the attitude of these teachers appear in our churches. So many traditions have grown up over the centuries that many of them have become sacrosanct. We are more concerned that people might violate our man-made rules for the running of the church, the institutions of baptism and communion, or the set of rules that our particular group follows in the name of holiness, than we are about righteousness. We are more concerned about which way to stand at the communion rail than we are about meeting the needs of people in the community. If we are not careful, these traditions quickly achieve the level of canonicity, and we might even forget what the word of God actually says about some of those things we do.
Then, when someone comes along who keeps tradition in its proper place (you do not sin against tradition—you sin against God and His word), we are offended if not outraged. But then we remember the teaching of Christ that God is more concerned with what we actually are than what our outward performance looks like. I am not saying ritual and tradition should be shelved; I am saying, however, they must retain their proper place.
1 The Mishnah is the collection of teachings from the sages from about 200 B.C. to about 250 A.D. It may be obtained as a separate publication, or it may be obtained with the Talmud for the Talmud includes Mishnah. The material is arranged topically, and so you would have to locate the discussions of washing hands and on vows (for “Korban”).
2 There are a number of word study books that are quite good; but for someone who plans to do a lot of Bible study in Old Testament issues like this, the recent multi-volume set edited by Willem vanGemeren, The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan). One volume provides topical studies, and one of the topical studies concerns “clean and unclean.” The set is arranged by the order of Hebrew words, but is so well cross-referenced that a person who has no Hebrew can use it easily.
3 In that passage the nation is described as the servant of the LORD, and as the oracles develop, eventually Messiah will be the servant of the LORD.
4 I develop this approach in great detail in my commentary on the Book of Leviticus, called Holiness to the LORD, published by Baker Book House; 2002.
In the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew we begin to see signs of the tide turning against Jesus by the leaders of the country, and accordingly Jesus turning more to the Gentiles. In chapter fourteen John the Baptist was beheaded, a clear sign of the opposition to the movement. But Jesus fed the five thousand, showing that He could meet the needs of Israel; and then He walked on the water, showing that He is the Lord of creation. In chapter fifteen Jesus challenged the teachings of the elders because those teachings had been elevated to the status of Scripture. Then, following that confrontation, Jesus went out of the country to the region of Tyre and Sidon and met a Canaanite woman. Then, as he came back to the region of Galilee, he fed the four thousand, a sign that he could meet the needs of the nations. Then, as we shall see, in chapter sixteen Jesus will give His first prediction of His death.
So this lesson will focus on the meeting with the Canaanite woman.
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to Him and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
27 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
This little story is essentially built around the conversation between the woman and Jesus. We begin with the note that Jesus withdrew far up the coast to the region of Tyre and Sidon. One would have to say that He was not simply trying to get away from difficult events in Israel, and neither was this a chance meeting. The Lord was going to this Canaanite area, to this Canaanite woman.
But the conversation gives the impression that Jesus was not willing to answer her request because she was a Canaanite. This will become a major part of the study, for there is obviously something powerful at work in the ethnic dimension of the conversation. What is clear is that the woman was not going to give up, but kept pleading, even from her Canaanite background, so that Christ recognized her great faith. The contrast is truly striking: in Israel Jesus was trying to convince people He was the Messiah, and was being challenged to prove it with a sign. But here in Gentile territory he met a woman who was convinced He was the Messiah and He could not discourage her efforts. His apparent attempt to put her off was therefore a test, and her great faith must have been gratifying to the Savior.
So in this study we will once again focus on the conversation, because that is the substance of the story. But this is one passage where the reader will have to read up on the ethnic controversy, the Old Testament background of conflict between the kings of Israel and the Canaanites. This will give some insight into the imagery of “dogs” used in the conversation. The story, though, is truly about the persistent faith of this Canaanite woman.
The study could be divided up in a number of ways, because it is not a complicated passages. I will simply make the circumstances the first point (v.21), the conversation the second part (vv. 22-28a), and the outcome as the third point (v. 28b).
The account is also found in Mark 7:24-30. Mark gives us a little more information in some areas. Jesus came to the region and entered into a house and did not want anyone to know it. The woman heard about it and came looking for him. Mark explains that she was Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. This would be typical of the northern country, for it was ruled by Greeks for the period immediately before the time of Jesus. People in the region would be of mixed nationalities.
Mark does not include the disciples’ suggestion to send her away, or Jesus’ statement that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Scholars have suggested that that statement was added later to Matthew, as guidance to Matthew’s Jewish church in its relation to Gentiles, but that makes no sense. Besides, we do not know much of Matthew’s church. The story is better interpreted as part of the development of redemptive history, moving from the late OT concepts to the full Christian idea of Gentiles and Jews in the kingdom. Besides, the Gospel of Matthew had already included such a statement by Jesus in Matthew 10:6. And Matthew’s Jewish audience would have been interested to know that Jesus did a miracle for a Canaanite woman, in Gentile land. Mark was writing to a different audience than Matthew, a Gentile audience, and that statement would need a lot of explanation to them. Jesus had healed Gentiles before, but always in Jewish territory.
I. The Circumstances: Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon (v. 21). There are two things you have to explain here: the withdrawing, and the location.
Tyre and Sidon were the two main Phoenician cities just north of Mount Carmel on the coast. In the Old Testament times this was all the region of the Phoenicians, better known as Canaanitish tribes. The word does not refer to one specific ethnic group, but an amalgamation of different groups (usually a list of twelve or more people known as the Canaanites) living in the land of Canaan. The word “Canaan” is the ancient name of the whole land before Abram arrived. The word itself may be related to the purple dye of the shellfish, or the merchant class that traded in the material. Because of its seaports and corresponding trade the Canaanite empire became a dominant power in the third millennium B.C. It had weakened tremendously by the time of the conquest, but still provided a formidable military challenge for Joshua and then later the Judges. But the Canaanites were also thoroughly pagan and corrupt. Their presence in the land was a strong threat to the purity of Israel’s religion and morality. So there is a long history of spiritual and military conflict between the Israelites and the Canaanites. David and his royal successors managed to control them; Solomon even did business with them when he was building he temple. But over the years the Canaanites were defeated and most of them fled the land. The bulk of those who fled settled in North Africa in Carthage, and met their doom in 146 B.C., which essentially ended the curse on Canaan and any threat from Canaanites. There were still people of various ethnic origins living in the area of today’s Lebanon and Syria, and they would be called Canaanites (like our term Americans). And Jesus met one of them here.
But why did Jesus go to the region? He withdrew from the conflict with the Pharisees and elders about thirty to fifty miles north into Gentile country. He had “withdrawn” before (2:12, 22; 4:12, 12:15, 14:13). Jesus was trying to control the timing of things. He did not want people to make Him king, and He did not want the confrontation with His enemies to come to a head too soon. So frequently He withdrew, or told people not to say anything about the miracle, or a number of other unexpected acts. It appears that Jesus withdrew for a time, both to let the conflict settle a bit, and to turn attention to Gentiles in this act. The timing is most significant--the Jewish leaders were rejecting Him, and Gentile woman who hardly knows Him was seeking mercy.
Some suggest that Jesus only went to the border, but did not enter Gentile land. There is no basis for that, and no reason. He had been in Gentile lands, and while that may have been a defilement in the minds of the Pharisees, it was not so in biblical tradition. It is clear that He left Galilee and entered a Gentile region (v. 21; Mark 7:31).
II. The Conversation: Jesus draws faith out of the Canaanite woman (22-28a).The way that Jesus deals with this woman has been given some very strange interpretations. One scholar suggested that Jesus had been a racist and this woman converted him from that narrow view. That is just silly. If he had been a Jewish racist, and therefore a sinner, he would not have come to Tyre and Sidon. No, what Jesus is doing is typical of the way He dealt with people--He would put stumblingblocks, as it were, in their way to see if they had faith to step over them. For example, when someone called Him “good,” He said, “Why are you calling me good, there is no one good but God.” How they responded to that would show what they thought of Him (He was not denying that He was good, or God).
The woman came crying out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Her words are significant, given Matthew’s description of her as a Canaanite. She is well aware of the ancient rivalry between the Jews and the Canaanites. She believes He is the promised Messiah; but if that is true, then He is to her a Jewish king, “Son of David.” As such, He is sovereign over her and her land, and all she can do is cry for mercy. Her words open the old wounds. But she was desperate for her daughter, and so would cry out for mercy from the visiting Jewish king.
It is the setting and her words that prompt the disciples, and then Jesus, to respond the way they do. At first Jesus was silent, no doubt to see if she would persevere--and she did, following Him down the street crying out. The disciples said, “Send her away.” Now this could mean a couple of different things. They could mean, “Send her away because she is a nuisance.” Or they could mean, “Send her away by healing her because she won’t go away.” This last interpretation makes the best sense, because Jesus’ answer in verse 24 speaks to it and not the other. In other words, “I am only sent to the lost sheep of Israel” would explain why he was not healing her, and would not explain a request to dismiss her without healing her.
His answer, reflecting what He has already said in 10:6, focuses on His primary mission in the world, as reflected by Matthew. He was the promised Jewish Messiah who came to His own (John 1 tells us), but when His own rejected Him, He turned to the Gentiles. The “lost sheep of the house of Israel” does not mean there were lost sheep in Israel, but that all Israel was lost (Isaiah 53: all we like sheep have gone astray). His own mission was primarily to Israel; the mission of the disciples will be to go into all the world. But events like this will inform the disciples that Jesus set the precedent.
Jesus wanted the disciples and the woman to understand fully that His ministry in the brief time He had on earth was very focused. He was the Son of David, the Messiah. That fact did not admit this Canaanite woman to the benefits of the covenant made with the Jews. The kingdom had to be fully offered to them first, in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of the kingdom. (The passage is like John 4:22 where it was recognized that “salvation is from the Jews.”) So all the woman could do is ask for mercy, general mercy as a non-Israelite.
(Many students of the Bible for one reason or another are afraid of this race issue; but the people of the times were very much aware of it. And Jesus came as a Jew, as the promised king of the Jews, whose kingdom would eventually extend to all the world, as it had in bits and pieces in the Old Testament. But it began with Israel).
Well, this woman would not be put off, and so knelt before Him and begged, “Lord, help me.” Jesus pushed her a little further, reminding her of the historic distinction between the cursed Canaanites and the blessed Israelites. In the short saying the Jews are the “children” and the Gentiles are the “dogs.” The children get fed first.
But the woman’s answer is marvelous: even the “dogs” eat the crumbs that the children drop. She acquiesces to the role of a “dog” in relation to Israel (she knows the Messiah came to Israel first); she may not be able to sit down at the Messiah’s table and eat with the “children,” but she should be allowed to pick up some of the crumbs they drop. She wants some of the uncovenanted mercy of God, His general saving grace to all people.
The word for dogs here refers to small dogs, perhaps children’s pets who are harmless and somewhat helpless. She accepts Israel’s historical privilege over the Gentiles, especially the powerful ancient Canaanites; but she is no threat to that in her request for grace that is freely given to the Gentiles. Besides, she will take what the Jews do not want. And that attitude played out again and again in Paul’s missionary journey when he turned to Gentiles because the Jews did not want their Messiah, but the Gentiles did.
III. The Conclusion: Jesus rewards her faith by healing her daughter (28b). Jesus honors the faith that seeks mercy. She had no resentment, no anger about her situation; she only knew that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who came to heal people, and for some reason He was in her town. She sought mercy from Him. And this time Jesus responded with emotion (“O woman” has emotional force). Her faith was rewarded. And she became one of the early Gentiles to enter the kingdom.
The basic theme of the passage is that Christ went into Gentile territory and did this miracle for a Gentile woman who had greater faith than the Jews who were rejecting and challenging Jesus’ claims. It teaches us about the grace of our Lord, about faith of people who are in need, and about the coming advance of the kingdom to the Gentiles who will be sent into all the world. They would know that it was the Lord’s desire that all come to salvation.
So the conversation has to be understood in its historical setting to capture fully what Jesus is doing here. He is not playing games with the woman--He did not go all the way to her region to avoid her! But the crisis between Jesus and the Jews was soon to intensify, and Jesus is making it clear that the grace of God will be given to all who believe, even though His mission called for Him to present Himself to Israel as the Son of David. It was as if He was saying to the disciples and to her, “You do know I am the Jewish Messiah don’t you?”
It is amazing how the Church over the centuries has tried to conceal that point, presenting Jesus as non-Jewish in paintings and art, and even as Aryan in theological writings (as amazing as that may seem). The Church has done such an effective job in this that many Jewish people today have to be reminded that Jesus is their Messiah, a Jew (the Church has adopted a “triumphalist” or “replacement” attitude toward the Jews which has not been a healthy or correct approach). Here, the disciples wanted Jesus to satisfy her need; and Jesus wanted to heal her daughter (He came all the way to her region) but He wanted her to express her faith in spite of whatever racial tensions there were. And since she knew that He was the Lord, the Messiah, and asked for mercy, He healed her daughter. Jesus’ ministry may have focused on Israel first (as Paul’s did, “to the Jew first”), but He extended mercy to all who would believe in Him.
This passage should have become instructive for the disciples, but they still had to meet and decide if the Gospel had in truth gone to the Gentiles, and if so what laws should Gentiles come under (Acts 15). But there was no denying that Jesus went to the Gentiles and extended His grace.
And so the instruction is for us as well, that we are to take the message of grace to the world, to whoever is seeking mercy and will believe. If there is resistance and refusal, we may continue to pray for them (as Jesus prayed for Jerusalem), but we turn to people who want it, whom the Spirit of God has prepared to receive the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. Unfortunately, the Church spends the greatest amount of time, money and energy continuing its work at home, when the greatest responses to the Gospel today are in the third world. Our cities have churches and ministries on almost every corner; but in other countries there are people seeking God’s grace and the need is not being met.
We now come to a very significant section of the book in which the disciples’ faith seems to be much stronger and Jesus’ program made much clearer. This is the famous passage in which Peter makes his great confession of faith, and Jesus responds with the revelation of how He will build His church.
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you,” He asked; “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in Heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
20 Then He warned His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.
We last studied the account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon. When He came back towards Galilee, He still was in predominantly Gentile territory towards the northeast of the sea. There He fed the four thousand (15:32-39), showing that He was fully able to meet the needs of the Gentiles, just as He had demonstrated that He could meet Israel’s needs when He fed the five thousand.
But when He returned to Jewish territory He was met with a challenging demand for a sign from heaven (16:1-4). Jesus refused to give the Pharisees and Sadducees the kind of sign they wanted, calling them a wicked and adulterous generation, a description of a covenant nation that was unfaithful to its covenant Lord (drawing on the imagery of Hosea). The only sign He would give was already there in Scripture, the sign of Jonah. But it was a different kind of sign, not one to convince people that He was the Messiah, but one that would come afterward to confirm that He was. It was the sign of the resurrection. But by then these enemies would have already opposed Jesus and condemned Him to death.
This challenge prompted Jesus to warn His disciples about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:5-12). He called it “yeast,” because of its effects on the people. The disciples had trouble understanding this at first, thinking that Jesus was referring to actual bread. But soon they came to see He was warning them about their teaching. The false teaching of these religious leaders seemed to be taking a toll on would-be disciples, for the time of popularity in the Galilean region was now turning to opposition. Jesus and His disciples then left the synagogue and the town for the region of Caesarea Philippi; and many of the people were left confused between the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of the Jewish leaders. And so Jesus would want to know what His own disciples thought of Him.
For those who have had the good pleasure to visit the land of Israel, and for those who want to and are hopeful they will someday be able to do it, the region of Caesarea Philippi is one of the most moving spots to visit in the light of this chapter. The city has not been worked very much by the archaeologists, but we know where it is and where the basic structures were. But across from it at the base of mountains there is this enormous mountain side of rock, like a solid wall stretching straight up to the heavens. At its base there is a cave, which used to be a source for water for the Jordan River. An earthquake stopped it, and the water now seeps up from underground and flows into rivulets and streams to become the headwaters of the Jordan. At the entrance to this cave Philip the tetrarch over the region had built a temple to Caesar (hence, the name was Caesarea Philippi to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea by the Sea) and to the god Pan (so it is called Banias in Arabic). There were niches carved in the wall of the rock for statues of gods, and the temple was firmly built on the rocky plateau by the entrance of the cave.
What a setting for Matthew 16! Jesus and His disciples had left the city where there was a lot of false teaching about Jesus, and as they came to this region, near Mount Hermon, they saw this temple with all the statues of gods. And Jesus asked His disciples who people said He was, and who they, His disciples, think He was. Then Jesus said that He would build His church upon a rock, but it would survive the gates of Hell. There is evidence of some association with this cave and its temple and the underworld. And then Jesus and His disciples continued up Mount Hermon where He was transfigured before three of them (Matthew 17).
The account is also found in Mark 8:27-30 and Luke 9:18-22. The passage is treated similarly by all three Gospels. They all immediately follow the event with Jesus’ prediction of His death. But the teaching is found only in Matthew.
The structure of the passage is straight forward. In verse 13 Jesus asked the question of His identity; in verse 14 the disciples reported. Then Jesus asked them the same question (v. 15), and Peter responded (v. 16). The rest of the passage is Jesus’ teaching about His program and the powerful authority given the apostles.
I. The Question of Jesus’ Identity (13-16).
First, the narrative begins with Jesus question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (13). Jesus asked this question when He and His disciples came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, a city built by Herod Philip the tetrarch on a plane about 1100 feet above sea level at the foot of Mount Hermon. The location is 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Here Jesus wanted to know who people thought He was. The reason for the question was probably the changing of opinions about Jesus under the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And, this place with its temple to Pan provided the perfect backdrop for the revelation to come.
Mark and Luke do not include “Son of Man” in their report. Some have suggested that the wording in Matthew gives the answer away, “Who do they say the Son of Man is? But Matthew’s report is probably the original since Jesus uses this title for Himself in the Gospels, and since the title can have a somewhat ambiguous Messianic meaning, making the question significant. The title “Son of Man” was clearly Messianic in Daniel; but it could be used of the prophets as well (as in Ezekiel). Mark and Luke shortened the question for their audiences.
Second, the answer the disciples give is: “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets” (14). Some thought He was John come back from the dead. Some thought He was the forerunner of the Messiah and so Elijah. Only Matthew includes Jeremiah, the first of the latter prophets in the canon. Perhaps some people had been struck by the authority of Jesus and His suffering as well at the hands of the leaders. Or, He was considered a prophet of doom like Jeremiah.
No group was openly confessing Jesus as the Messiah.
There were individuals who had addressed Jesus with Messianic titles before this (9:27 and 15:22), but we do not know how strongly they believed what they said, how much they understood, or how influential they were. People might have thought Jesus was the Messiah, but still had misgivings about it.
Third, Jesus wanted to know if the disciples knew: “Who do you say I am?” (v. 15). The “you” is emphatic and plural in the line; Jesus was asking all the disciples. Therefore, Peter was speaking on behalf of the disciples when he answered.
Fourth, Peter’s confession was clear and direct: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Mark has: “You are the Christ.” Luke has “You are the Christ of God.” A lot of scholars say “Son of the Living God” was added by some editor. But there is no reason to take that view. The inclusion of the description provides a better explanation of the other Gospels’ forms; and besides, “Son of God” probably indicated kingship to Peter (based on the Davidic covenant), even though in time it came to mean divinity. The Gospels frequently use “Son of God” to describe Jesus, and so it is not out of place here.
We have already noted that “the Christ” is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew “the Messiah,” meaning, the anointed one. And since in the Old Testament the Davidic King was to be called God’s Son (Ps. 2; 2 Sam. 7), it is likely that Peter meant just that. He was convinced that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the coming king who would miraculously heal the people and drive out the oppressors in the land. As we have noted before, the description of Jesus as “Son of God,” however, is filled with meaning, and will go beyond His description as king to His description as one who is the same as the Father. But Peter would not yet know all that, judging from the things that he said and did after this event.
II. The Teaching of Jesus’ Mission (17-19).
Critical scholarship thinks that these verses should be deleted because they are not in the other gospels. Others suggest they are simply in the wrong place. But there is good evidence to support these verses as original and necessary. In fact, the idea of God’s revealing these things goes back to Matthew 11:25 where the Father’s revealing Christ to people is correlated to faith. What Jesus would be saying here in the argument of the book is that the system was working as He said in 11:25. The Father had been revealing the Son, and Peter got the message.
Therefore, the first point in the teaching is that Jesus appraised the work of the Father in Peter (17). He said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” In spite of the leaven (teaching) of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in spite of the confusion among the people, Peter got it right. And this, Jesus said, was revealed to Peter by the Father. The procedure had worked; no one could know the Father or the Son unless it was revealed to them. And so the revelation of the Son to Peter, with all the authenticating signs and miracles, was received. Such knowledge cannot originate in flesh and blood, that is, it cannot originate from mortal flesh. It has to come from above (see 1 Cor. 15:50; Gal. 1:16; Eph. 6:12; He. 2:14).
Peter’s confession assumes a deeper level of understanding than other confessions that had been made. Now, this is not the first time that he and the disciples were made aware of the Messiahship of Jesus. In fact the disciples followed Jesus, believing that He was the Messiah. But their understanding of what Messiah was to do was still weak. What made Peter’s confession so important was the fact that it came against the backdrop of all the confusion and false teachings about Jesus. His confession of faith was so strong that Jesus could begin talking about His death on the cross.
Second, Jesus announced that He was about to build His Church (18). This verse and the next have been at the center of controversy for ages. In verse 18 Jesus declared, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” The saying relies on a pun on the name of Peter. The Aramaic name is Kepa (Cephas), and the Greek translation is Petros. The Aramaic word means “rock.” But the saying “on this rock” uses the feminine form of the word, petra. Many have argued that because there are two different words for “rock” used here, the meaning would be that Peter is a small stone, but Christ is the rock on which the church if founded. This would be a difficult sense since Jesus said He would build the Church; would He also be the rock on which it is built?
Or, others argue that the rock on which the Church will be built is the confession that Peter just made, the revealed truth about Jesus. This too is a fairly common view, and there may be some reasonable support for it. But both these views have probably been developed mostly in reaction to Roman Catholic teachings based on this passage. And yet, to say that Peter is the rock would be the normal way to interpret the line. However, and this is important, to say that Christ was going to build his church on the foundation of the apostles does not in any way teach an apostolic succession, papal infallibility, or exclusive authority for successors of Peter. Those doctrines were developed later. All the text would be saying is what the rest of the New Testament affirms, that Christ established His Church on the apostles. Their teaching, their writing the Scriptures, their establishing and organizing the Church, all were the necessary ways that Christ began to build His Church.
If Matthew had wanted to make a contrast between “rock” (Jesus) and “stone” (Peter), he probably would have used lithos for the latter. But then there would be no pun in the passage—and the pun (called a paronomasia) is the force of the line.
The metaphor of the rock is consistent with other uses in Scripture. Here Jesus will build his church; but elsewhere Paul and the apostles build it (1 Cor. 3:10). Jesus is the foundation of the Church (1 Cor. 3:11); but the apostles and prophets are also the foundation (Eph. 2:19,20; Rev. 21:14). Peter has the keys here; but in Revelation 1:18 and 3:7 Jesus has the keys.
So here in Matthew 16 Jesus is the builder of the Church. The foundation will be the apostles. Peter was the first to make this profound confession, and so he is prominent in the early church. But the other apostles have equal authority, even to rebuke Peter (Acts 11:1-18; Gal. 2:11-14). Peter is simply first among equals. If there had been succession, then Peter’s successor would have had authority over John and the other apostles still alive. And that is not the case.
Christ will build His Church. The Church, as most people know, is the “called out” body of believers, Christian congregations of people redeemed by Christ. The Church is known as the assembly of the people of the Messiah. The people of the assembly are the people of God—but this will be a new type of assembly. It will differ from Old Testament congregations of believers in that Christians were now living in the new covenant—Messiah had come and that changed things. In the Old Testament congregations the people knew nothing of the fulfillment of the promises, or of the coming of the Spirit.
But the Church is not completely identical to the kingdom either. The Church is a form of the kingdom in that Christ rules over his Church, and people who become believers and enter the Church also enter the kingdom. But the kingdom for which we pray will be a new order in which Christ will put down all enemies and rule over the whole world. So there is overlap between the terms and the times they cover; but there are distinctions as well. Jesus announced here that he was going to build His Church, indicating clearly that the Church was a future program and not a continuation of Old Testament assemblies.
Because the Church is a part of or a form of the kingdom, nothing can prevent it from realizing its fully promised blessings when Christ returns. It is tied to the coming kingdom of God. And so the gates of Hades cannot prevail over it. “Gates” is figurative for the power or the powerful leaders of Hades (in the Hebrew literature “gates” could be substituted for those who sit in the gates). Thus it would represent Satan or Satanic forces, the powers of Hell, who inflict death and destruction on the human race. Since Jesus the Messiah was building His assembly of believers, the powers of death and destruction could not prevail over it. This is especially true since Christ has defeated sin, death and the grave through His resurrection. Since He has done that, there is no power in the world below that can win over His program. The Church may seem at times to be weak, divided, and ineffective. But that is usually the result of human leaders and institutions creating problems; the Church itself, the company of the people of Jesus, will be victorious, because Christ has overcome the world. Even death, a weapon of Hell, cannot destroy the true Church. It may ruin denominations or local churches that lose sight of the vision; but the universal body of believers, the universal Church, will be victorious.
Third, Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom to Peter (v. 19). Now the metaphor changes from rock-foundation to the keys of the kingdom. The person with the keys has the power to admit or exclude people (Rev. 9:1-6; 20:1-3). The allusion is to the chief stewards of the monarchs (Isa. 22:15, 22). The king was still sovereign; but whoever had the keys had authority over the house. What then was the binding and the loosing?
A literal translation of this line would yield: “whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” If this is the translation, there is no place for earthly ministers to claim the power; they simply speak for God and enact what heaven has enacted. Unfortunately, the history of the Church has shown many who think they have the power to admit to heaven or confine to hell. For the many views ad arguments on the verse you can consult the commentaries at will.
The meaning of the binding and loosing in the verse probably refers to people and not to teachings (see 18:18 for “whatever”). The keys then speak of the permission of entering the kingdom or being excluded from it. The meaning of this idea is clarified by the teaching of Jesus in Luke 11:52. There Jesus denounced the teachers by saying that they had taken away the key of knowledge and had not only failed to enter the kingdom themselves but had hindered others from doing so. This meant that by their approach to Scripture they were making it impossible for people under their teaching to accept the revelation about Jesus and enter the kingdom. In strong contrast, Peter, by confessing Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, had received the revelation and so was to be given the “keys.” The metaphor of the “keys” refers then to the clear teaching about Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel. Peter, by proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, which by revelation he was understanding more and more, would open the kingdom to many and shut it to others. See Acts 2:14-39 and 3:11-26, and the result that the Lord was adding to the church those who were to be saved (Acts 2:45). There we see how Jesus would be building His Church. But the proclamation of the Gospel message would also alienate and exclude people as well (see Acts 4:11-12; 8:20-23).
This view then harmonizes with the translation of “whatever you bind . . . will have been bound . . . “ and so forth. By making the proclamation of the Gospel, the message of the kingdom, Peter would be binding and loosing what heaven had already bound and loosed. Peter would preach the Gospel, and that preaching would be the means by which those bound in heaven would be bound, and those loosed in heaven would be loosed. As long as Peter proclaimed the true Gospel, he would be binding or loosing what had been bound or loosed in heaven—he would be using the keys to the kingdom properly.
There is a strange use of these expressions among Christians today for a commanding, authoritarian form of praying. In it people say they bind or loose evil spirits in people when praying for healing. There is no warrant for that use of the words; the context clearly ties the keys of the kingdom to salvation, who enters and who does not, and the authority to grant entrance and announce exclusion comes only with the proclamation of the Gospel already revealed. When the Gospel is preached, it appears that it brings some into the kingdom and repels others. But the Gospel being preached is only the earthly manifestation of the heavenly process.
Are these keys given to Peter only, or to the apostles only, or to all Christians? If the keys refer to the proclamation of the Gospel to the world, then they are the possession of all believers, because that is the task for the church. Christ’s disciples were and are to be fishers of men (Matt. 4:19), lights to the world (5:14-16), and witnesses who proclaim the message of the kingdom (10:6-42). They are also commissioned to teach the nations all that Christ commanded (28:18-20). Even though the glorious kingdom will come suddenly in the future, in the meantime Christ builds His church. He established it on the foundation of the apostles; but He builds it through the proclamation of the Gospel, the accurate preaching of the word of God. In proclaiming the Good News the people of God will make it clear how others can enter into the kingdom, but they will also make it clear what will exclude people from the kingdom. Their message will include and exclude. But the passage in no way teaches that they, or the apostles, have a direct pipeline to heaven, or even worse, can make the final decision of who is bound and who is loosed. God does that, has done that; and we by our preaching the Gospel will see it all work out, what has already been bound or loosed in heaven. The passage is not concerned with Peter’s power or infallibility, but rather the role that he and the disciples of Jesus will play in the building of the Church. Since his proclamation is the basis of preaching about Christ, it precipitated Jesus’ teaching about how the Church would be built.
Finally, Jesus safeguards the method of the kingdom by forbidding publicity (v. 20). Jesus was not trying to keep the message quiet, or his identity a secret. He was refusing to bow to the demands of the people to declare himself with a sign. He wanted people to come to faith in Him as Peter and the disciples had done, through the response of faith to the revelation. He wanted to make sure that they would come to Him by faith, and not because of messianic zeal without true repentance. And He wanted to ensure that the steady progress to the cross would not be hindered by full disclosure. After the resurrection there would be complete proclamation to the world. The disciples were beginning to understand how all this was to work, but they still were unclear on the death and resurrection (see 16:21-23).
If you have time you could study many Old Testament passages about the Messiah as the Son of the Living God (some of these are in the archives under the daily devotions on Old Testament Christology). But there is one passage that is parallel to this one in Isaiah 51. There the prophet writes: “Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth.” In that passage the LORD is reminding the Israelites of their heritage in the Abrahamic Covenant. God began with Abraham and Sarah and built a nation, the people of God. Now, in a parallel fashion, the Lord begins with Peter and the other apostles to build His Church, a ew program in the New Covenant.
This is one of those passages that will involve more reading of different interpretations than of simply studying the text. And some of those views will involve a lot of passages and a lot of theological reasoning. That may be more than most people wish to do, but it is important to understand traditions of churches. But a careful study of the text of this passage will show how far the passage can be taken; and thereafter teachings allegedly based on this passage will ave to be evaluated carefully. If a church denomination holds to apostolic authority, it would have trouble proving it from this passage alone. If a church denomination is adamantly opposed to such a teaching, it would have trouble basing its view on this passage if it sought to remove Peter as the rock. In other words, that debate is more involved, and this passage is brought into it because of Peter and because of the keys. The views are not going to change.
Putting aside the centuries of Christian debate on that issue, we can conclude that in this passage:
1. Peter declared his faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, the Son of God. His words fit the language of the Bible; but in time he and the others would come to realize that those words meant more than they had understood at the time. And as they studied the Old Testament again and again they would see that the higher meaning of those words was in there. Today, how people answer the question, “Who do you say I am?” will reveal whether or not they have faith, and so whether or not they are part of God’s program.
An aside is necessary here. Some may be satisfied that Jesus was a prophet (as Islam would claim). If He was a prophet, then His words must be true—and He claimed to be God, and to have come to die for our sins. If people reject that, then they cannot say He is a prophet, or at least not a true prophet.
2. Christ declared that he was going to build His church on the apostles; they would proclaim the message of Christ, record it in Scripture, and establish the Church throughout the known world. Everything we do today is based on the work and the teachings of the apostles, who were commissioned by Christ and inspired by the Spirit.
3. Christ gave to the apostles and to all disciples the privilege of proclaiming the Gospel to the world, and by that proclamation binding and loosing what was already bound and loosed in heaven. This was no mysterious power reserved for a few; by proclaiming the Gospel one would see faith or rejection in the hearers, and understand how the kingdom of Christ was growing in a world that often refused to enter. We all have the keys of the kingdom because we can proclaim entrance into the kingdom. Our task is the faithful teaching of the truth of the Gospel, even though some will be offended and refuse it. The message is based on the person of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and on His work, the work of redemption.
We now come to the amazing account of the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain. This dramatic event marks a major turning point in the gospel narratives, for Jesus was beginning to turn more and more to Jerusalem and the suffering and death that awaited Him there. But before all of that would take place, there was this glimpse of glory. And we read in the New Testament that it was because of the glory that was set before Him He was able to endure the cross. The revelation of Christ’s glory in this chapter was a clear confirmation to the disciples of the truth of Peter’s confession of faith (16:16); but it was also a great encouragement for Christ Himself as He faced the agony that would occur on another hill called Golgotha.
After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”
6 When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. He said, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up they saw no one except Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Do not tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
10 The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” 11 Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. 12 But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He was talking to them about John the Baptist.
We may divide the passage into three major parts for our analysis. First, we have the record of the event of the transfiguration (verses 1-3). Second, we have Peter’s suggestion and the divine response to it (verses 4-8). And third, we have the instruction by Jesus and the question by the disciples (verses 9-13).
The event certainly is the basis and key to the entire passage. It simply reports what happened, without going into as much detail as the other narratives. But in the other two sections we have the all-important dialog. In the second part we have Peter’s suggestion, followed by the voice from heaven; this revelation struck terror in the disciples, but that fear was relieved by the Jesus’ words of comfort. So there are three “speeches” in the second part to be considered. Then, the third section, which is the aftermath of the event, also has three “speeches,” an instruction, followed by a question, followed by an answer. What is interesting is that in the event Jesus does not explain the transfiguration at all. The voice from heaven explains who Jesus is, but not why Moses or Elijah are there on the mountain. We are left with a number of questions, as indeed the disciples must have been as well.
The account of the transfiguration occurs in the other gospels as well. Mark (9:2-12) tells us that His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. Mark also tells us that Peter did not know what he was saying, for he was frightened. Mark does not record all that the voice from heaven said, leaving out “in whom I am well-pleased.” And Mark tells us that the disciples kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant. And in Jesus’ answer about Elijah we see that there was more conversation than what Matthew recorded. Jesus also at that time reasoned, “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?” Jesus was explaining why the kingdom had not been established if Elijah had already come.
Luke has some different things (9:28-36). Whereas the other gospels say it took place after six days, Luke says “about eight days.” Luke tells us that they went up on the mountain to pray. And as He was praying He was transfigured: His face changed and His clothes became as white as the lightning. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah also were in glorious splendor; they spoke to Jesus about His departure (literally, His “exodus”) that He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Luke records the same words from heaven that Mark had. But Luke does not include the discussion about Elijah.
All three of the so-called synoptic gospels have essentially the same thing; but they each chose to tell the account in their own way according to their purpose. Our focus will be on what Matthew actually says; but we will interpret it in line with all the reports of what happened.
It may be a small point, but it is worth noting that there are two traditions about the location of the Mount of Transfiguration. The Roman Catholic tradition identifies it as Mount Tabor, south of the region of Galilee, on the northern edge of the Jezreel Valley. As one would expect, there are chapels and churches on the top of the mount to commemorate the spot. The other view, and probably more likely one, is that Mount Hermon is the site of the transfiguration.1 It is in the far north, located north of where Caesarea Philippi is situated. It would make sense for the transfiguration to take place in that region where Jesus had been ministering and where Peter made his confession. Of course, there is a week’s time for them to get almost anywhere. But the critical point is that they went up to the place away from all the people. Mount Tabor is not a very large mountain, and it was inhabited at the time.
If you have time you can also study the mentality of using mountain tops for spiritual experiences and for shrines. This was common throughout the ancient world. And since the instinct of coming up out of the world was a good one, God also used it to reveal himself (study Mount Sinai, the sermon on the mount, the mount of the transfiguration, and of course, Mount Zion).
The setting in the gospel is also important. After a time of popularity in the northern regions the tide turned against Jesus. The leaders were busy trying to discredit Him, and the people started going away. This prompted Jesus to ask what people said about Him, and what the disciples said. Now, as He begins to turn towards Jerusalem and His death, He is transfigured before three disciples on the top of the mountain. This should have encouraged the disciples that no matter what happened in Jerusalem, Jesus was the Lord of Glory. Looking back they realized this; but at the time they may not have thought it through. But as far as the arrangement of the gospel goes, it is downhill from here to the valley of shame and humiliation.
Even though this could be dealt with in passing in the text, it may be helpful to deal with it now. Peter wanted to make three “tabernacles” or “shelters” or “booths.” He was thinking of the Feast of Tabernacles. But what prompted him to think of that. The accounts tell us he was afraid, and did not know what he was saying. I take that to mean that his timing was wrong for the suggestion, for this was not the time. The Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated every year by the Jews; it commemorated the wilderness wandering or temporary sojourn of the people until they settled in the land. The people therefore would build the little shelters and live under them for the week, only to come out of them at the end, at the great day of the feast (with much relief we might add). The seven day festival not only commemorated the temporary sojourn of the people in the wilderness, but in this age, for the final great day was a celebration of the settlement in the land, and (in the future) the culmination of the promises. That is why it came at the end of the calendar year.
Peter had heard Jesus say about a week earlier that some who were standing there would not taste death before they saw the Son of Man coming in His kingdom (Matt. 16:28). Now, on the mountain, Peter saw Christ in all His glory. His instinct may have been to think that this was it, the start of the kingdom. And so in all his eagerness he wanted to make the shelters for the great celebration. We do not know how well Peter knew the prophetic literature of the Bible, but Zechariah makes it clear that in the kingdom the people will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, i.e., the culmination of all the promises. Peter had the right idea, in general, but the wrong time, for Christ had to die first.
It is interesting that Matthew says this took place after six days, and Luke says about the eighth day. Edersheim2 wonders if Peter’s great confession might not have been made on a Sabbath day, and then after six days, the night of the next sabbath, or the morning of the first day of the week, the eighth day, the Lord appears in His glory. If this is correct, and it is the only meaning for the days that makes sense, then the symbolism of a Sunday transfiguration and a Sunday resurrection is significant.
The Transfiguration (17:1-3). The central point of the first three verses focuses on one word—and indeed, this word is the center of the whole passage. “Transfigured.” The Greek term is well-known in English; from metamorphoo (pronounced meta-mor-phaw-o) we get our word “metamorphasis.” The word describes the complete change of the form and substance. For example, we use it to describe the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Here then we have a complete change in the appearance or form of Jesus in the presence of the disciples. He now was brighter than the light, revealing His true glory to them.
What is interesting to note in this word study is that we have here the reverse of the theme of Philippians 2, the kenosis. There Paul says that Christ Jesus took on the form of a servant. Here, however, the Servant takes on the form of deity, revealing His glory.
The same word is used by Paul in Romans 12:1,2, in which he instructs believers to be “transformed” by the renewing of their minds. There is to be a genuine change in the life of the believer. Of course the New Testament also teaches that we shall be changed when we enter the presence of the Lord, we shall be glorified.
In the transfiguration Moses and Elijah appear and talk with the Lord. Moses represents the Law, and Elijah the Prophets; Moses represents those who have died in the Lord, and Elijah those who have not. Moses wrote the Law which anticipated the sacrificial atonement of the Messiah; Elijah was to come to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Lord. Moses went up Mount Sinai and because he was with the Lord of Glory there, his face shone when he came back down; Elijah did not die, but was taken up to glory in the whirlwind and the chariot of fire. Here the two of them speak to Christ, and the parallel accounts tell us they spoke of Jesus’ “departure” (Greek exodus). They spoke of His coming death; but by the term the Bible uses we know they spoke of it as the fulfillment of the great deliverance in Egypt. Jesus’ death would be the exodus from the bondage of sin in the world.
The vision was then clear: Christ was revealed in His glory, and He was joined by Moses and Elijah to indicate that He was about to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and that death cannot destroy the glory that will follow. Moses and Elijah were and are alive, and are glorified. Jesus may face death in the days to come, but death in God’s service is the way to glory.
The Response of Peter (17:4-8). Matthew does not tell us why Peter said what he said, or comment on the suitability of the comment. He simply reports the suggestion of Peter to make shelters, to celebrate the apparent fulfillment of the promises. Peter is in no way irreverent or self-willed. We must note in his words, “Lord, it is good for us to be here! If you wish . . . .” Peter loved the Lord, and was willing to do anything for Him, if He wished.
The second “speech” in this part of the passage is a word from heaven. It is not so much a response to Peter as it is a revelation that dominates everything that was happening and in a way completely overshadows whatever Peter thought or said. It was one thing to see Jesus transfigured, with His clothing and His appearance brighter than the sun—that was frightening to the disciples, as the other gospels tell us. But it was quite another thing to hear a voice from heaven confirming that Jesus was the Son of God. Peter had just made that confession; but now Peter heard it in a new light, as it were. The Christ, the Messiah (in Hebrew), was not merely a son of David and therefore designated “son of God”; He was God’s Son in a unique way. God (the Father, we know) declared, “This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”
The word from heaven made three clear points: Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is loved by the Father and pleasing to the Father; and Jesus must be obeyed. All of these ideas were being challenged by the religious leaders of the day, and questioned by the people. The disciples, however, knew Jesus was God’s Son (in some way), that He was doing the will of the Father, and that He was to be obeyed. Now, this direct revelation confirmed their faith—and it surely encouraged Jesus as well as opposition had begun to mount and would increase.
The experience on this mountain reflects the experience of Israel on Mount Sinai. There in Exodus (19-24) the glory of the LORD hovered on the top of the mountain as Moses received the Law. And because of the presence of the LORD, Moses face began to reflect the glory of the LORD. But to ensure that this was indeed the Law of God that was to be obeyed, God spoke. The Bible says that the people heard the sound of His voice; they did not see the LORD, but they heard the words (Deut. 4). That vision, and that sound, confirmed to them that the Law was from the LORD God and was to be obeyed.
The disciples, we read in Matthew 17, were terrified at this voice and fell on their faces. But the Lord Jesus came to them and comforted them. So the third “speech” in this section is the simple word from Him: “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” And when the disciples looked, they saw no one but Jesus. The revelation was not given to strike fear in the disciples, although all revelation should bring the response of fear and obedience because of the fact that the sovereign Lord of glory has made Himself known to us and has called us to obey. But the revelation was given to the disciples to convince and to encourage and to strengthen them in their faith and obedience. And because of this Jesus “touched them.” The touch was not simply proof that He was real, but that they were His friends and accepted by Him. It was a reassuring touch, followed by the words, “Do not be afraid.”
The point is that God’s revelation to His people is a demonstration of His love and His grace for them. Of course we are overwhelmed by it, by the thought of it. But at every turn the revelation of God confirms to us that Jesus is our Lord, that our faith is not in vain, that we need not live in fear, but that we should live by faith in Him. And a revelation of this kind provides us with another word from God about the hope of glory that lies ahead of us, no matter what we have to endure here on earth. Only in Christ is there any hope of passing beyond the grave to glory.
The Question about Elijah (17:9-13). There is much more that could be said about the transfiguration and the revelation from heaven, but in this brief guide to Bible study we will have to move on. The final part of Matthew’s account has the question about Elijah (the other gospels do not). It could be treated as a separate narrative (since there is enough to deal with above), but since it is raised because of the appearance of Elijah, then it should probably be included in the discussion.
On the way down the mountain Jesus cautioned the disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man was raised from the dead. The other accounts tells us that the disciples were not sure of what He meant by “raised from the dead,” even though prior to the transfiguration He had predicted His death (16:21), and Peter had protested the death (16:22). The revelation of the transfiguration would be a prophetic revelation of the glory of Christ, and the resurrection from the dead would confirm what the transfiguration declared. If news of the transfiguration spread prematurely, it would be misunderstood, and perhaps the many followers of Jesus would try to enthrone Him before He went up to Jerusalem to die for their sins.
The disciples then want to know why the teachers say that Elijah was first to come. They had seen Christ in His glory; they had seen Moses and Elijah; but they were not to say anything about it until Jesus died and rose again. Jesus’ answer was that “Elijah comes and will restore all things.” That is the future; that is the “not yet” of the Elijah prophesy of Malachi. But then Jesus added what we call the “already,” by saying, “But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize Him.” He was speaking of John the Baptist, of course. The teaching about John in no way teaches re-incarnation. The Lord simply is saying that John came as the fulfillment of the prophecy that “Elijah” should first come. But it was not yet time for the fulfillment of all things, and John did not turn the nation around, because He was captured and put to death. The point is that Jesus will also be seized and put to death. Jesus was telling the disciples that before the crown there was the cross. And both John and Jesus had to suffer at the hands of wicked people.
There is no need to get into all the details of the Elijah prophecy again here. Review what was said in the Bible Study of Matthew 11. Here Jesus’ words state that John came in fulfillment of the Elijah prophecy, but Elijah comes and restores all things. There is yet more to be fulfilled at the time of the second coming when everything will be made right, and when Jesus will appear in glory (see the vision of John in Rev. 1).
John wrote in the prologue to his gospel, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the only begotten Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). Among other things, John must have had this event in mind. Here the three disciples saw the glory of the Lord Jesus, so that they knew He was the divine Son who came into the world. They were still unclear about His death and resurrection, but afterward they would understand more fully the reason for this revelation on the mountain. Matthew tells this event to make the identity of Jesus Christ perfectly clear, because the rest of the gospel will focus on rising opposition, suffering and death. But the transfiguration revealed that He is the Lord of Glory, that everything He did pleased the Father, and that He is the one to be obeyed. The glorious appearance and the voice from heaven left no doubt in the minds of the disciples.
Several areas of application come to mind. First, the transfiguration itself instructs us as well as to the true nature of Jesus. But it also gives us a glimpse of what is yet to be, not only of His appearance in heaven, but our glorification as well. That is why Paul’s instruction in Romans to be transformed is so important: we are to begin the changes now in our spiritual life, and God will complete it in our actual translation to glory.
Second, revelation demands a response. The natural instinct is fear and worship, falling on our faces before Him. But the practical continuation of our response comes at the divine instruction to listen to, i.e., obey, Jesus. If Jesus truly is the Lord of Glory and not just a man from Galilee, then we must worship Him and obey Him.
Third, God’s revelation is given to us because God loves us and desires that we be with Him in glory. The touch of the hand of Jesus was probably most re-assuring of this in the event. Of course, people who reject the Savior and refuse to obey His word have much to fear. But we who worship Him and serve Him have His word, “Do not be afraid.” And later, “Where I am, there you shall be also” (John 14).
As for the steps in the method of Bible Study, we can see here how the event is central, and all the discussions that follow help to explain its significance. It shows us that the dialogue, the speeches of the story, are so essential to the interpretation. But in the study of the passage we also see the importance of the word study for “transfigure,” and how it connects us to other passages. And finally, we also note how the Old Testament background (tabernacles, and Elijah) are important to understanding all that is taking place in the narrative.
1 The Gospel of Mark mentions indicates that there may have been snow on the mountain, and that would fit Hermon. But this comment may be a later addition to the manuscript, and so has not been included in many modern versions. Snow may be found on the higher elevations of Hermon, and even in some of the lower slopes, late in the year. Jesus probably did not go to the top.
2 One of the most helpful books to have on the gospels is Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. It is old, and conservative, and so open to a lot of modern attacks. But the more it is studied the more it makes sense. His style and insights are a delightful read.
Beginning with Matthew 18 we start a section of the book that records a lot of the teaching of Christ. It will be followed by the journey to Jerusalem and the triumphal entry (Matthew 21). The teachings we encounter first are geared to his disciples. In these passages there will be little or no reference made to the Old Testament directly, and so our time will be spent sorting out what Jesus was saying precisely. Of course we could settle down in one of these units and study it at great length. But in the beginning of our study of the Bible we should try to cover all the material fairly quickly, determining the points and their application today.
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin. Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come. 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
10 See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. 12 What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
15 And if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won the brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax-collector. 18 I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
23 Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was no able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 The servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii [a day’s wage for a worker is a denarius]. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me,” he demanded. 29 His fellow servant fell on his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me and I will pay you back.” 30 But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 Then the master called the servant in . “You wicked servant,” he said, “I canceled your debt because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailors to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
This chapter is the fourth major discourse in the Book of Matthew. Like the others, like the Sermon on the Mount for example, you could break it up into a half dozen lessons or so. And if you have the time and inclination to do that, that would be most profitable. But it is also valuable to study the discourse as a whole, to see the sweep of it. When you do this, you will not spend so much time on the particulars in each section--just enough to know what each paragraph is saying and how it might be applied.
The discourse is bracketed by comments that it was delivered on one occasion. The chapter parallels Mark 9:33-50 in a number of ways; but the differences are so many that it is likely one or both of the accounts has been selective or has adapted the material to the audience of the book. Here we do not have enough information to know what they did.
The chapter is not a code of rules for the believing community, like Qumran’s Manual of Discipline. It presents principles to follow in the Christian life. This makes the application easier because the principles will work in a variety of situations. What is said in this chapter is not that hard to understand--it is painfully clear.
What strikes you as you read the chapter is the use of family terms for believers--they are little ones, children, brethren. The family terminology, related elsewhere to covenant language, immediately reminds us of our duties to one another.
But what also strikes you is the seriousness of what Jesus taught. His repeated “I tell you the truth” means that what he was saying was binding. And the descriptions of the punishment for those who persistently refuse and rebel underscore the seriousness of it all.
We will work through the passage section by section; in your own work you may study the whole chapter, or separate sections one at a time.
The discourse begins with the disciple’s question about who was the greatest in the kingdom. If we piece the Gospels together, Luke tells us that Jesus detected their rivalry (9:46-48), Mark says he then challenged them and silenced them (Mark 9:33-38), and Matthew reports how they blurted out this question.
The section begins with “At that time.” Jesus had been talking about his suffering and death; but it was as if the disciples were on another wave-length. They are concerned with who would be the greatest. It may be that Jesus’ teaching on distinctions in the kingdom (5:19), or Jesus’ attention to the three disciples and to Peter as the rock, might have set off the rivalry. It would continue in 20:20-23 with the request of the mother of James and John. These kinds of questions came from a group of men who had a limited understanding of the kingdom. If they were thinking of a purely human kingdom like David had, the questions might not have seemed to them out of order. But later when they realized this was the King of Glory who would be seated on the right hand of the Majesty on High, then questions of where they would sit in the kingdom would prove embarrassing by their ignorance.
Jesus responded to their question with a demonstration--a child. The child could have been Peter’s if this was in Peter’s house (17:25; Mark 9:33). Be that as it may, Jesus solemnly warns them (“I tell you the truth”--when did he not tell them the truth?) that they must change and become like little children, for unless they do they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The point of the child as an illustration is humility (not innocence or faith, for the child would not yet know enough to come to faith). The child is not concerned with social status (although the child quickly learns that from adults). The point is that Jesus advocates humility of mind (v. 4) and not childishness of thought (see 10:16). Then, out of such humility will come the childlike trust.
The point is that the kingdom cannot be gained by merit or force. The disciples have to change, they have to become like children in their heart attitudes. The person who truly humbles himself will be the greatest in the kingdom. The disciples have begun their journey to kingdom greatness by trusting the Lord; but they have to set aside this rivalry and humble themselves.
A good illustration of this is King Solomon. He humbled himself and prayed for wisdom to govern the people of Israel, saying, “I am only a little child” (1 Kings 3:7). And God made him great in every way.
In this section we have a teaching that answers a question. The teaching used the illustration of a child. Such a response would be remembered very well by the disciples who had much to learn.
These verses form a tight unit built around a promise-warning proverb and held together by the “stumblingblock” theme. What is new, though, is the reference to believers as “little ones,” clearly building on the teaching of verses 1-4.
The first part of the teaching is a blessing: whoever welcomes a little child in the name of Christ welcomes Christ. Jesus was not meaning “little child” literally, but one who has humbled himself or herself to receive Christ by faith. They are the disciples. And they are not welcomed because they are great--they are welcomed because they are believers in Jesus. That is the basis on which the devout welcome disciples. This goes beyond mere hospitality; it presupposes the animosity of the world and is therefore the spiritual care of the devout followers of Jesus for the disciples of Jesus. To welcome them is to welcome Jesus into their homes.
On the other hand, children are susceptible to danger and can stumble, even the greatest of them. So the warning is given to those who cause these little ones to stumble. The idea is that by rejecting the little ones, by not welcoming them, some will cause them to stumble in their discipleship. It may lead to serious sin; but it immediately concerns their following Jesus. Rejecting them is rejecting Jesus (see 10:40-42; 25:31-46).
Because the crime is so great, that is, because they not only reject Jesus but seek to cause the little ones, believers, to sin and turn away from Christ, the denunciation is strong. It would be better for them to be drowned in the sea before doing this, than to commit these crimes and face eschatological judgment. There is some advantage for a premature death of the wicked. Jesus referred to the heavy millstone, the stone pulled by animals, to make the point forceful; and the description of eternal punishment is likewise severe. The point is that the little ones, the disciples of Jesus, are under his care; and whatever people do to them, they are really doing to Jesus. This too fits the imagery of a family.
Then Jesus announces a woe to the world, especially to those who would do so wickedly (7). This is a proclamation of judgment, not an expression of sympathy. And it focuses on the world and the stumbling blocks. The stumbling blocks are there, but woe to those through whom they come. By this teachings believers know that there will be opposition and occasions for stumbling--Jesus said it is there (which indicates it is a part of God’s [permissive, at least] will for the victory of faith). But Jesus’ words also assure that in the end justice will triumph.
A good illustration of this is in Acts 4:27 and 28. It was the plan of God that the Messiah was to be opposed, rejected and crucified. But Herod and Pilate and the leaders got together to plot how to kill Jesus. By their choice they would become the ones through whom the opposition developed. Here is that strange cooperation of divine plan and human will in the realm of the wickedness of the world. Herod and Pilate did what they wanted to do; and it would have been better for them if they had never been born.
Then in verses 8 and 9 Jesus instructs the disciples to get rid of things that cause them to sin. The language here is extravagant. But the point is that disciples also could become aggressors and not just victims: “ But, if your hand . . . .” Failure to deal radically with sin in their own life, especially sin that harms other believers, betrays their allegiance to the world. It is not enough for Christians to confess such sins and then go their normal way. No, they must determine how to rid themselves of the opportunity and the propensity for such sin.
How do we know that these lines are to be interpreted figuratively? Some have taken them literally and cut off hands and maimed themselves to root out sin. But the root of sin is the heart. We know Jesus did not mean to cut off the land literally, so that one could enter the kingdom maimed, because no one enters the kingdom maimed. We will all be raised and changed and made whole. This is the language of hyperbole. Get rid of the occasion for sin, especially if that sin is destroying the little ones.
And, the passage is not really telling the church to excommunicate sinners. Jesus’ point is very different than that.
So in this section Jesus builds on the teachings of humility introduced before, but he does it now with proverb-like sayings, i.e., what is better and what is worse, to teach what people should do. The teaching is not designed to say throw wicked people into the sea or cut off hands that offend; rather, it is designed to say that people should not sin against others, especially the believers, and cause them to sin. The church has not taken this to heart, for its history is filled with acts of wickedness against other believers, often by those with the power to do so, but not entirely by them. That is not humility; they are not great in the kingdom (those who are in the kingdom).
The parable told here appears also in Luke 15:3-7. But there it is not told to disciples, but to the Pharisees, in defense of Jesus’ attitude to sinners. Lots of scholars struggle with the question of which was the original telling, or where the story came from, or other critical issues. The parable is simple and powerful enough to have more than one use, to be told for more than one purpose. But a close look at the two passages will reveal a few differences, indicating that they were two similar parables told with very different aims. In Matthew Jesus was explaining his Father’s concern that none of the little ones should be lost.
The “little ones” are the believers, the ones who humble themselves and become like little children. If they do that, they will be among the Messianic community. But if they mistreat the little ones and oppose them, they will share the woes..
The reason that the little ones must be treated with respect is because “their angels in heaven” always see the face of the father. Many have taken this as a reference to guardian angels--that every believer has a protecting angel. But there is no evidence in the Bible of that. And besides, why would they be in heaven always seeing the face of God? B. B. Warfield develops what may be the best interpretation of this, namely that the angels of the little ones are their own spirits after death, which always see the father’s face. Do not despise them, Jesus says, because their destiny is to be in the presence of God, to see his glory (see Acts 12:15).
So if God rejoices over one straying sheep that is found, how would people dare cause any of the sheep to go astray? The father is unwilling for them to be lost; so to try to scatter the sheep is to oppose the will of God. The flock as a whole will not be missing even one of its true members.
Now Jesus explains how the members of his church (which he said he was going to build [Matt. 16]) should deal with someone who sins against another, or, more specifically, how to deal with someone who despises another brother.
The initial step is to confront the brother privately and show him his fault. The aim is to win him over, not to destroy him. The one who does this must do it with true humility and in love.
Then, if the private confrontation does not work, the next step is to take two or three witnesses and try to bring about a change (Deut. 19:15). The use of witnesses shows the link between the Messianic kingdom and the Israelite community of the Old Testament period. The united testimony of the witnesses will establish the resolution.
If the guilty person refuses to submit to the considered judgment of the people of the Messiah, the church, then that one is to be treated as a pagan. This does not mean here to treat the guilty with compassion (just because Jesus had compassion on the pagans and tax collectors). Jesus has in mind barring the guilty from the community until he repents. Each member of the church is to abide by the corporate judgment of the church with the responsibility of ensuring the good of the Christian community.
Verses 19 and 20 are not a general promise for prayer, as if to say anything we pray for if a couple of people agree on it then God must do. Teachings on prayer occur in other places, but here they are concerned with the confrontation of a guilty brother. The text does not say they pray, just if they agree “about anything”--here “any judicial matter.” The two who agree are probably the offender and the one against whom the offense has been committed. So if they come to a resolution and agree, it will be allowed, ratified--it will “come off.” This is because they prayed and came to a wise decision, and God’s binding and loosing stands behind the process followed--God’s presence stands with his judges/elders.
All of this prompted Peter to come to Jesus and ask how many times one must forgive a brother--seven times? This now concerns personal forgiveness, not the work of the church. And Peter must have thought he had covered the answer: Judaism taught forgiveness for the same sin three times, but Peter suggests seven.
But Jesus’ response is way more than that. He alludes to Genesis 4:24 to say seventy-seven times! Lamech’s revenge becomes a guideline for forgiveness. Jesus did not mean that seventy-seven was the limit; nor did he mean there was no discipline in the church and that people should simply keep forgiving. His point was that sins among the brethren, these little ones were to be forgiven, and forgiveness cannot be limited by frequency or quantity.
The point of the Gospel, as the next parable shows, is that everyone has been forgiven more than they will ever forgive.
In this context this story is clear enough, painfully clear. It illustrates the Lord’s prayer that we ask forgiveness as we forgive. This unmerciful owed millions, and he was forgiven his debt. But he then turned around and exacted a hundred days wages. But he had no sense of forgiveness or mercy. And it all came back on his head at the end, or in judgment day.
There is no incongruity with God’s magnanimous forgiveness and his ruthless judgment. It is because God is so compassionate and merciful that he cannot and will not tolerate those who are not. People who do not forgive do not truly know what it means to be forgiven--they see it as a personal gain and something to be used to gain personal power over others.
There is no reason to go back through each of the six sections and summarize the point being taught and the method Jesus used. That has been clear enough in a careful reading. This is one of those passages where it is clear but troubling.
The theme of the chapter is certainly the care and well-being of the little ones, those who follow Jesus by faith. They are not to be harmed of mistreated in any way, especially by others in the church (would that the churches paid attention to this). And, for the sake of the unity of the church, believers are to find the correct way to resolve their difficulties, and that involves prayerful consideration with witnesses, and forgiveness without measure (would too that the churches practiced this).
But these are not options! Jesus’ warning for those who harm the little ones, or those who sin against the brethren, or those who refuse to forgive, is very sharp. His warning raises the question in each case whether those who do such things are even in the church.
The topic of marriage and divorce is the subject matter of this particular lesson. The study is complicated by the fact that there are difficult expressions and ideas in the passage, and that there are many other passages to correlate, and that this is a constant problem in life that is constantly being debated. There is no chapter in the Bible that is a complete treatise on the subject; rather, there are individual discussions of parts of the topic that came up in certain settings. The student of the Bible should not simply take one passage (that may say what he or she wants to say on the whole subject) and make that the total teaching; there must be correlation with the other passages to harmonize the material. Unfortunately, in a Bible study like this on Matthew we will be primarily focusing on the passage in Matthew--there is no time to work through all the relevant passages for this study. But in this passage Jesus sets forth several truths that lie behind all teachings on marriage and divorce, so it is fundamental. So we will look at Matthew, and yet keep in mind the other passages when trying to decide on a meaning for various verses in this chapter.
This chapter demonstrates the two essential points to be kept in mind in the development of this and other topics--the ideal and the practical. The ideal is simply what God intended from creation: one man and one woman united for their whole life to produce a Godly seed. That, we shall see, is the standard. Anything short of that, for any reason, is a failure to measure up to God’s standard, a falling short of the will of God--in other words, a sin. We will have to come back to consider this further at the end of the study.
But there is also the practical--people do break up their marriages and marry again. How are we to respond to this and deal with it in the life of the Church? The fact that divorce was permitted in both Testaments, as we shall see, indicates that people failed to live up to the revealed will of God. And the permitting of divorce did not in any way bring with it the approval and blessing of God. Rather, those whose marriages failed had to find spiritual restoration and healing before they could move forward in their walk with God. It would be foolish to enter a second marriage without trying to sort out and deal with what went wrong in the first.
So in this passage we will look at these two aspects, the ideal that God set forth, and the practical that must deal with the problems.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you ever read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way. Others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
The section of Matthew that begins with this passage in 19 and ends with the events of the crucifixion is filled with mounting opposition. The ideas of Jesus and his enemies are poles apart, and there is no hope for reconciliation between them, apart from the repentance and conversion of the religious leaders. They are on a collision course, the religious leaders wanting to get rid of Jesus, and Jesus knowing he came to die at their hands. But in his teachings Jesus brought mercy and grace, promise and hope--to those who believed in him and had become members of the messianic people. Those who rejected the Messiah could only look forward to judgment.
There is no miracle in this passage, no mighty work that Jesus did to authenticate his claims. No, he has done that through his word and his works. Now he will teach with authority on themes of the kingdom, showing how very different the kingdom of heaven is compared with earthly realms. This passage is then a teaching passage.
The passage is arranged with three questions, a lead question, a follow-up question, and then an implied question; and the substance of the passage is the teaching of Jesus in response to these questions. First, there is the question by the Pharisees about divorce (v. 3), and Jesus’ answer that God the Creator did not include the dissolution of marriage as a viable option (vv. 4-6). Second, there is the follow-up question about Moses’ permitting people to divorce (v. 7), and Jesus’ answer that divorce was permitted because of sin, and that divorce is a sin (vv. 8, 9). Third, there is the disciples’ cynical observation in a questioning way that it would be better not to marry (v. 10), and Jesus’ answer that a special measure of grace is required for people to abstain from marriage (vv. 11, 12).
The difficulties in this passage are: Jesus’ exception clause on the subject, and the meaning of the word he used (translated “marital unfaithfulness” in the NIV); the equation of divorce with adultery, and the “eunuch sayings” of Jesus.
On the whole, the teaching about the ideal for marriage is not hard to understand--it is the plan of creation. And, as some have observed, if everyone lived right there would be no questions of interpretation about divorce. But there are, and so we must consider the circumstances and the consequences of falling short of God’s will.
There are two Old Testament passages referred to in the passage, the first the creation of Adam and Eve, and the second Moses’s ruling on divorce. It will be easier to discuss these within the flow of the passage, and so they will be included there and not here. But in studying this passage you would have to go back and study the Old Testament passages being used in order to get the full impact.
The first section of the passage then records Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees’ question about divorce. There is the question in verse 3, and the answer in verses 4-6.
A. Question: Is it lawful to divorce for any and every reason? This question comes from the Pharisees as a test, and that is no surprise because throughout the book they are seen challenging Jesus. The Pharisees, you may recall, were not what we would call clergy, but were devout religious men who sought to guide the people in obedience to the Law of Moses. They believed in the elements of the historic faith, resurrection, angels, and miracles; and they stressed ritual purity, tithing, and separation. As a result they were very legalistic and therefore hypocritical as well. They were deeply troubled by Jesus at first, but then many of them became hardened against him and sought to destroy him. Not all Pharisees were this way, but apparently those in power were. They were shrewd in their dealings, and fully capable of bringing an innocent sounding question to Jesus that had hidden traps.
Here they raise the age-old question about divorce to test him.1 They wanted to see how he would answer the question, to see if he would say something that would ruin his reputation before the people by contradicting Moses, or even involve him in the Herod-Herodias affair so that he too might be arrested and taken away from them.2_ftn2 They hoped that Jesus would quickly lose favor with the people.
The question is about the legality of divorce in general, but it is worded to reflect current debates: “for any and every reason.” The phrase refers to the major debate in Judaism over divorce between the famous teachers Hillel and Shammai, and their disciples. Both these schools permitted divorce, but for different reasons; and both based their teachings on the same verse of the Bible. Deuteronomy 24:1 ruled that divorce was permissible for “some unseemly thing.” The latter expression in Hebrew is literally “the nakedness of a thing” [‘erwat dabar]. Shammai and his students emphasized the first word, the nakedness, and said the divorce was only for indecency. They did not all agree on what that indecency might be, because the word “nakedness” can be a broad term, or can figuratively refer to many things. It probably referred to any profane and lewd conduct or life style that was ruining the marriage. It would not refer to adultery, for the punishment there was death, not divorce. Shammai also permitted remarriage when the divorce did not correspond to their own rules of conduct.
On the other hand, Hillel and his followers took a more lenient view of the reason for divorce; they focused on the word “thing” and said divorce could be granted for almost anything. They had limits, but they allowed divorce for a number of reasons.3 And so the question was one that the Pharisees had been debating for some time, to no resolution, and they decided this was a good question to use to test Jesus. The background of their debates explains why they ask “for any and every reason.” There were clearly teachers who permitted divorce for almost any reason.
B. Answer: Divorce is out of harmony with the divine will (vv. 4-6). Jesus’ answer does not line up with the loose interpretation of Hillel or the more strict view of Shammai exactly. But Jesus did restrict divorce to sexual misconduct.
Jesus refers to Scripture to make his case, as did the prophet Malachi before him (Mal. 2:10-16).4 Jesus quoted Genesis 1:17 to affirm that God made male and female with the implication that they would be joined together, and then he quoted Genesis 2:24 to remind everyone that the two would be one flesh. Genesis explained, “For this reason, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.” The word “flesh” in the Old Testament passage does not just mean sexual union, but a union of their lives--their hopes, dreams, ambitions, plans, and sexual activity. They would become one in every sense; and to destroy that ruined more than a sexual union. Thus, in every marriage, the unity of man and woman is a re-enactment of the design of God for creation. Jesus draws the conclusion from this that if God joined the two together, they are one by God’s will. Divorce, then, goes contrary to the design of the creator, and is to be considered the sin of rebellion because it tears apart what God was putting together.
The principles that Jesus laid down here cannot be lost in the endless discussions of situations and circumstances of divorce. First, marriage is sacred because God ordained the unity of the couple, the man and the woman, as one flesh. Second, because marriage is grounded in creation it cannot be defined merely in the terms of the marriage agreement a man and a woman make. Some might argue that when two get married they make a covenant, and then if the covenant promises are broken the marriage can legitimately be dissolved. It may be dissolved, of course, but if it is it still violates the will of God. What this passage will teach is that we must recognize marriage for what it is--the plan of the creator to unite a man and a woman together as one flesh; and we therefore must recognize divorce for what it is--either rebellion against or failure to fulfill the will of God, not a violation of the agreement two humans made.
A. Question: Why then was divorce permitted? (v. 7). The Pharisees then come back with a follow-up question: if divorce is a violation of the will of the creator, then why did Moses permit it? They word it this way: “Why did Moses command that a man give his wife a bill of divorce and send her away?” But a careful reading of Deuteronomy 24:1 shows that Moses did not command them to divorce, but allowed for it for some “indecent thing.” Moses actually ruled that if a man married, and the woman did not find favor in his sight, and he divorced her, and her second husband did the same thing, then she could not return to the first husband.5 So in the discussion in Deuteronomy, divorce and remarriage are presupposed for the ruling about marrying the first husband again. In other words, divorce and remarriage were allowed, but not commanded. The pious would seek ways to restore the marriage, but if it did not work, then there was permission to divorce.
B. Answer: Divorce is evidence of sin (vv. 8, 9). Matthew’s account of this interchange differs slightly from the way that Mark reports it (10:2-9). Matthew is more interested in the ideas that are being offered than in who said what first. Both Matthew and Mark present the clear teaching of Jesus that divorce did not reflect the true plan of creation but the hardness of the human heart. Moses permitted divorce because it is preferred over sinful indecency. The fact that a divorce was granted did not specify that the one divorcing the guilty partner was committing a sin, but rather that it was evidence that sin had already taken place and was destroying the marriage. Divorce was not, and is not, a God-ordained, morally neutral option; it is evidence of sin and of hardness of heart (=refusal to obey).
But what is the “indecent thing” that is the reason for dissolving a marriage? We already noted that it would not be adultery, for the normal punishment for adultery was death (Deut. 22:22). Adultery was the destruction of a marriage--in other words, it usually involved sexual intercourse with someone married to someone else. Whether they actually put adulterers to death is beside the point--the law would not legislate a different punishment here for it. Here divorce is the permitted action for the indecent thing.6 In Deuteronomy the “nakedness of a thing” would have referred to any lewd, immoral behavior that made a mockery of the marriage. For such things divorce was allowed--but not commanded.
Jesus summarizes the law with an exception clause: “except for marital unfaithfulness” (NIV).7 The word that he uses is Greek porneia. It is usually translated “fornication.” The term was used for all kinds of lewd and immoral acts, such as prostitution, homosexuality, public indecency, and the like. So Jesus is making the ruling in Moses more specific; he agrees with Moses that divorce is permitted because of the hardness of heart, but he affirms that it may only be granted on the grounds of sexual sins (porneia seems to refer to sexual sins persisted in, that is, the guilty party has chosen a perverse form of conduct or life-style and is not concerned about preserving the sanctity of the marriage). If sexual unity in marriage was the plan of the creator, then sexual promiscuity is not in harmony with it. It may not necessitate divorce (depending on the way the couple can work it out), but permission for divorce under such circumstances was in harmony with the will of the creator to make sure that the marriages were pure. Divorce was the lesser of the two problems.
Thus, Jesus is very clear here: there is no divorce permitted if the grounds for that divorce are extended beyond what the law allowed, divorce based on sexual violation of the marriage. In summary, then, Jesus and Moses permitted divorce if one party (or both) were involved in immoral, indecent conduct that made a mockery out of the marriage. In such cases if there was no chance of repentance and change, divorce was permitted. It would still be a failure to fulfill the will of God, and so the divorced person, even if considered the innocent party, would have to own that failure before finding a new start with God’s blessing.
This is why Jesus explains that the repercussions are severe: anyone who divorces his wife for any illegitimate reason and marries another commits adultery. In other words, the legitimate grounds for divorce would dissolve the marriage because the indecency had already occurred. But if the divorce is for other reasons, then the sexual union in the remarriage is the indecency that destroys God’s plan for marriage.
A. Observation: It would be better not to marry (v. 10). The response of the disciples and Jesus’ further teachings are also difficult to explain in this passage. Jesus has come close to the teaching of Shammai, but restricted the ruling to who may remarry legitimately. The disciples simply respond to these strictures by observing that it would be better not to get married at all. Their words indicate that they--and many people like them--thought that marriage would be more appealing if it were easier to dissolve than this. In this observation they have focused on the strictures, and failed to understand what Jesus said about creation.
B. Answer: Celibacy is not for everyone (19:11, 12). Jesus responds to the disciples’ cynical comment by saying that not everyone can accept this word (i.e., the idea that it is better not to marry), except those to whom it has been given. Not everyone can abstain from marriage, but some do. He refers in general to those eunuchs who were born that way, or who were castrated (court officials who would be too close to the royal harem).
Then there are those who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God. Jesus is not promoting castration, not by any means (mutilation of the body was totally against Jewish law); but he was speaking of the renunciation of marriage for a higher purpose--the kingdom of God. In other words, sexual fulfillment in marriage is not the only option for life (some folks in the church might think that a single person is not fulfilling the will of God, and that is naive and simplistic). Jesus and Paul later (1 Cor. 7:7-9) commended celibacy for the sake of the kingdom--not as a means to achieve the kingdom, but because of the claims and interests of the kingdom. If people were able to devote full time to the kingdom of God, they had the gift of celibacy; if they could not do that, it was better to marry than to burn with passion. So not everyone could accept the position that it was better not to marry. Moreover, neither Jesus nor Paul see celibacy as a more holy condition than marriage, nor as a condition for the clergy; it was a special calling for some who were to serve different purposes in the kingdom than others, purposes that did not include sexual gratification in marriage. If someone has been given the gift and calling of celibacy, then it should be accepted and the work of the kingdom should dominate the life.
There are many other passages in the New Testament on the issue of divorce, and these would have to be studied and then correlated with this passage to develop a full teaching on the subject. But in this passage we can certainly see the basic issues that can never be set aside.
1. Marriage was ordained by God in creation; it was the union of one man and one woman, known as one flesh, to produce a godly seed (as Malachi explains it). God put them together. No one could say, even in an unhappy marriage, that God did not put them together. That is simply a dodge for the real issue of what marriage and the marriage union is all about. What God has joined together no one must separate.
2. Divorce and remarriage were permitted in Israel by the law, and that exception to the preservation of marriage was also accepted by Jesus. Marital infidelity, probably lewd and immoral behavior, and sexual activity that ruined the marriage anyway, was the grounds for divorce. But the divorce was not a God-ordained, morally neutral act; it was the destruction of the plan of God, a rebellion against the will of God, and a failure to measure up to the divine standard. It was the lesser of two evils. Divorce may be necessary at times, but it is still considered a violation of God’s will, and therefore is wrong. Of course, a related topic is what marriage involves, and how many marriages have already gone through a psychological divorce. But that is another issue that needs to be addressed elsewhere.
3. If anyone divorces for illegitimate reasons, and marries someone else, then that new sexual union is the immoral act that dissolves the first marriage, i.e., it is committing adultery.8 Elsewhere the text goes so far as to say that if a man divorces his wife and she marries again, he has caused her to commit adultery. In other words, divorce was permitted for sexual violation of the marriage (originally it did not refer to adultery because that had a death penalty, but today adultery would certainly be considered a sexual violation of the marriage); no other grounds were legitimate. To end a marriage and remarry then was the violation.
4. The natural response to the strict ruling for marriage focuses on the difficulty of implementing it in a culture that allows divorce for any and every reason. The believer should not fall into that trap, but should keep in mind the divine will of the creator in establishing what the marriage was all about. Believers are to live above the curse, the world, and sin, and try to live life as God intended it.
5. Celibacy is a gift. This is celibacy, not singleness (some, even in the clergy, remain single but do not remain celibate--they are just avoiding the responsibility and formality of marriage). Those who are given this gift then may remain single and devote all their energy to the kingdom of God. But they are not intrinsically more holy than those who marry and raise a family for the glory of God.
One would have to add that the Bible makes it clear that all sins can be forgiven, even the lewd, immoral acts referred to here. There must be confession, and repentance (which involves a change) of there is to be reconciliation with God. And divorce should also be included in things that need to be confessed, because divorce is the violation of God’s will. Even an innocent party in a divorce, although not the one who is the cause necessarily, needs to acknowledge participation in a failed marriage if there is going to be a spiritual healing and going forth with God to better things. It is just good therapy to own such things, deal with them, find healing, and start a new life with God’s blessings. A person who has been stigmatized by divorce need not live as a guilty sinner throughout life, even though the churches often make them feel that way. Everyone in the Church has been forgiven and has found a new life by God’s grace. And while the Church must communicate forgiveness for all who truly confess, the Church must also teach that the standard of God for marriage is high. It is a balance that the Church has to have in all areas: it must proclaim the truth of God’s plan, but when people fail it must proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation. After all, the Church is all about putting people’s lives back together.
So then, (1) the Church must teach those who are about to marry all about the divine plan of marriage and its sanctity; (2) if there is a moral violation in the marriage and the couple want to keep the marriage together, they should do all they can to reconcile and heal their marriage; (3) if one party does not want to preserve the sanctity of the marriage, but remains set in improper conduct, then divorce is permitted; (4) anyone who divorces must acknowledge that this too is part of failing to live up to the revealed will of God; (5) any who confess this failure and seek help in getting through it (the guilty of course must repent and change), will be able to go on with their lives in the service of God; (6) but any who divorce for illegitimate reasons and remarry are guilty of adultery because they have destroyed God’s institution of marriage by their sexual misconduct.
These are hard sayings today because the culture is so careless about marriage. And many marry thinking that if it does not work out they can always divorce. The Church must hold the line on marriage; and it also must proclaim that for failure there is forgiveness and reconciliation and healing. And that proclamation we all need to hear again and again.
1 The wording speaks of a man divorcing his wife. This was an easy process, legally, fopr the man simply had to write the certificate of divorce and deliver it to the woman. A woman could divorce her husband, but the process was far more complicated. A divorce also required the resolution of the financial agreements between the parties when they married.
2 Herod the king, the son of Herod the Great, had married the wife of his brother. John the Baptist preached strongly against the adulterous couple, and was imprisoned and beheaded for it.
3 We have to be a little careful here to interpret them correctly. Hillel said that one could divorce his wife for spoiling the dish. Hillel was a clever punster, and he probably meant that the woman was the dish. But his disciples took him literally and said that one could divorce if the wife spoiled the meal. A good while later, towards the end of the first century, Aqiba allows for divorce if someone found another woman he preferred. But all these diverse views show that the issue was hotly debated in the first century.
4 Malachi referred to the creation to show God’s plan for marriage, and concluded his message with the LORD’s saying, “I hate divorce.”
5 We will not get into the meaning of this law here, but apparently remarrying the first husband after being with another husband was considered a kind of incest.
6 The analogy with adultery also underscores how the ruling is the lesser of two evils. It was also wrong in the culture to take another person’s life, but the law sometimes prescribed this as the punishment for sins that were severely destructive of the life and well-being of people.
7 Mark does not include the exception clause, perhaps because it is so obvious in the discussion. But Matthew includes it here and in 5:32 to impress the point on his Jewish audience.
8 In pious circles today, the Church and the Synagogue, there are other grounds for divorce that are applicable. Most would say if there is physical abuse and the husband is endangering the life of the woman, at the least they should be separated, and if there is no change, she should divorce. Most weould also include abandonment as a grounds for divorce, because of the problems it creates for the well-beaing of the family left uncared for. The discussion of marriage and divorce should establish the principles firts, and then deal with the different situations.
We now focus on a section of the Gospel that deals with the question of wealth in relation to the kingdom of heaven. The passage includes a confrontation between Jesus and a rich young man, and then the teaching of Jesus on the subject. The tone for the message is set by the little incident that comes before this material, the blessing of the children (19:13-15). The disciples did not like the idea of all the children being brought for blessing, but Jesus did not want it prevented: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” What Jesus means, of course, is not that the kingdom of heaven is made up of little children, but that the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like them, that is, who have a child-like faith (which is what the account in Mark and Luke stress). Jesus sees in them the kind of humility and un-encumbered trust that he is looking for in people.
But in the rich young man he does not find it.
16 Now a man came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” the man inquired.
Jesus replied, “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said, “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
27 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
28 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”
We have in this passage the report of an incident with a rich young man that triggers a discussion about possessions and the kingdom of heaven. The rich young man claimed to be righteous, and so wanted to know what thing to do to guarantee eternal life. He thought the kingdom could be earned this way. Jesus’ response was designed to probe how righteous he actually was--did he obey the letter of the law only, or the spirit as well?--and to show him the true way to eternal life. The instruction to sell all and follow Christ was designed to reveal that the man treasured his earthly possessions more than the heavenly hope, that he would rather maintain his lifestyle than become a follower of Christ.
The second half of the passage records Jesus’ teachings on the incident. Here we have a parallel claim: the rich young man had claimed to have kept the law, now Peter claimed that he and the disciples have left everything to follow Jesus. Peter’s words reflect something of the age--they have done something that deserves God’s favor. Jesus mildly rebuked them, but graciously told them of their inheritance in the kingdom which will be far greater than what they might have earned--it was by grace. Then, with an enigmatic saying Jesus explained that the rich and famous down here may not be the rich and famous up there.
The structure of the passage is this:
I. Jesus advises the rich man to give everything to the poor (19:16-22)
A. The rich man desires to know what to do to inherit life (16).
B. Jesus tells him to obey all the commandments (17-19).
C. The rich man claims to have kept all the commands (20).
D. Jesus tells him to be perfect he must give all to the poor (21).
E. The rich man went away sad (22).
II. Jesus teaches the disciples about the kingdom of heaven (19:23-30).
A. Jesus declares that it is hard for a rich man to enter (23, 24).
B. The disciples wonder who can be saved (25).
C. Jesus explains that nothing is impossible with God (26).
D. Peter claims that the disciples have left all for Christ (27)
E. Jesus promises rewards in the kingdom (28-30).
The passage is not a miraculous work passage to authenticate the person of Christ--we are past that now. And it has no quotations from the Old Testament to show that he is fulfilling the plan of God. No, it is a passage about the teaching of Jesus on entering the kingdom of heaven, in a culture that misunderstood the relationship between the priorities of this life and those of the life to come. Jesus is here seen as one who has authority; and so the young man seeks him out for the answer. But the man wants the best of both worlds.
In both halves of the passage the format is dialogue, and the two sets of dialogue open the way for Jesus to offer clear teachings. In both parts the questions and statements of the people seem straightforward; but the replies of Jesus have deeper meanings that have to be studied. So once again we have a rather simple encounter that uses dialogue; but the dialogue has much deeper meaning than a simple question and answer discussion. Therefore, to understand what Jesus was saying, we have to study the Old Testament background a bit on the commandments and their use, then look at the culture of Jesus’ day to see what the prevailing ideas were, and then look at parallel passages and teachings in the New Testament on salvation.
There are a few difficulties in the passage that will need to be explained in the study. The first is Jesus’ statement that there is only One who is good. Some have thought that this was Jesus’ indication that he was not good, or that he was not God. But since it is in a question posed to the young man, it has a more profound meaning than that, as we shall see. Jesus was asking the man why he called him good; he was looking for an acknowledgment by the young man of who he was, and a commitment to follow him as Lord and Savior. The second is Jesus’ advice to sell all and follow him. That does not sound like the New Testament teaching on the Gospel, as the response of the disciples indicates. If that were the way to get to heaven’s kingdom, it would be based on works and not grace, but even more significantly, hardly anyone would enter. What was Jesus doing in telling this man to sell all he had and give to the poor? We shall see that there are two instructions here, and the first simply opens the way to the important one: “follow me.” And the third difficulty comes in Jesus’ seeming endorsement of abandoning home and family to follow him. How does that harmonize with the righteous duty of taking care of children and family, or, what did Jesus mean when he talked of those who leave such concerns? Jesus was not calling for people to ignore their duties to take care of their families; but he was calling for a radical shift in priorities and commitments.
So in studying this passage we will have to consider several topics: the acknowledgment of sin as opposed to self-righteousness; the surrender to Christ as the way to eternal life; the rewards of the saints and their future responsibilities; and the nature of the heavenly kingdom and the community of believers who will be there.
A. How to obtain eternal life (16, 17a). The young man who approached Jesus is described by the three synoptic Gospels as rich. Mark does not say anything about his age, but describes him as running up to Jesus and falling on his knees before him. Matthew records here that the young man said, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Here we have a significant problem in comparing the Gospel accounts. Mark and Luke read: Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good? No one is good--except God alone.” But in Matthew “good” does not modify “teacher,” but is made part of the question. And Jesus’ answer is adapted to that wording. Some have suggested that “good” was originally in both places, and the different accounts preserve it in one or the other places; but that is not very convincing (“Good teacher, what good thing”). The determining factor in correlating these two passages is the understanding of the main point of the episode. The rich young man wanted to earn his place in the kingdom, and he was far from the humility of faith that is required (see the blessing of the children). In answering him Jesus was neither claiming to be incompetent to judge what is good, nor denying that he himself was good. Jesus wanted to show him that he did not understand goodness, for it is God’s will that determines what is good. The young man revealed that he wanted something that was apart from God’s will, and that he did not understand the goodness of God. It is probable that the man said, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” and that Jesus said, “Why do you ask me questions regarding what is good?” Matthew’s summary of the exchange with his placement of the word “good” in the answer of Jesus was designed to focus our attention on the central meaning of the exchange, that the man thought he could earn it by doing that extra good deed. Matthew’s way of summarizing the conversation fits well with the normal latitude that the evangelists have in reporting the essence of the events and dialogues in such a way as to clarify the meaning of them. The gospel writers often reword some of the material to make the point very clear to their respective audiences.
The point then is that this young man thought there was some good thing he could do, besides keeping all the commandments, that would guarantee his place in the kingdom. He was not humble and trusting (like the little child), but confident and self-righteous; and he had the wrong idea of what goodness was, as Jesus’ response showed. What he wanted was to earn “eternal life,” that is, a life that is approved by God and that will guarantee access to the kingdom. He thought that Jesus, being a good teacher, would be able to give him that answer of what to do.
But Jesus’ response was first to question his understanding of what is good. This is certainly no confession of sin by Jesus, as some have suggested; rather, Jesus was probing to see if this man understood the standard of goodness. God is good (Jesus was not focusing on himself, or his relation to the Father); that is, the standard of goodness was God and his will. If God is good, then one has to conform to God’s will to do what is good. If anyone wanted to do that which would guarantee eternal life, it would mean finding and doing the will of God. This statement thereby opened the way for the discussion of the commands.
B. Obey the commandments (17b-19). In the exchange that follows Jesus tells the man to obey the commandments. His answer is intended to imply more than what is stated. In the Old Testament the keeping of the commandments was an expression of faith, as it is in the New Testament as well. Jesus was not saying that salvation was by works of obedience; but he was saying that obedience is the genuine evidence of faith. A true believer obeys the commands of God.
But his instruction was also designed to uncover the arrogance and self-righteousness of the young man who thought he had kept all the commands. Thus, Jesus began by listing the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and fifth commandments from Exodus 20; and then he added “love your neighbor” from Leviticus 19:18. The reference to the ten commandments was clear and easy to understand; the inclusion of the command from Leviticus opened up other obligations not specified.
C. The claim to have kept the commands (20). And yet the young man claimed to have done all these things throughout his life. There is a self-righteousness at work here. And yet, it is not a very confident one. The young man’s additional question of what he still lacked shows that he still did not think his obedience was enough to gain salvation. To him there still had to be some good work that was over and above the keeping of the law, and that would give him the certainty of eternal life. In the first century this was a common idea: people who lived by the commandments looked for that one big thing they could do that would assure them of the life to come.
D. How to be perfect (21). Jesus then told the young man that if he wanted to be perfect he would have to sell all and follow him. Jesus was answering the question of the young man concerning what he had to do to find eternal life. The answer, essentially, was to come (by faith) and follow Jesus. But since the wealth was going to be the hindrance, he needed to sell it all and give it to the poor. By selling off his wealth and giving it to the poor the young man would not only be removing a competing element for his devotion to God, but also show that he was being obedient to the law, for loving the neighbor as the law said would require him to do something for those in need. Unfortunately, he had a divided heart--he could keep the external commandments, but he did not want to surrender his life to the Lord and radically change his priorities and practices.
The word “perfection” throughout the Old Testament has the basic idea of undivided loyalty and complete obedience to the will of God. And what Jesus was demanding for entrance into the kingdom was just that, true discipleship, meaning, a complete surrender of the self to Jesus as the Savior. To enter into eternal life requires surrender to the claim of God on the life, explained clearly through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, to obtain eternal life a person must realize his or her sinfulness in not measuring up to the goodness of God (the commandments have not all been kept; we are not perfect), and surrender to the will of God revealed in Jesus Christ (receive Jesus as Savior and Lord).
What is clearly revealed here is that doing the will of God must ultimately find expression in following Jesus. You cannot do God’s will and not follow Christ. That is because throughout the Old Testament the promise of the coming of the Messiah was the will of God. And, apart from allegiance to him by faith, there is no salvation. The rich young man’s compliance with the commandments was worthless, because it did not include surrender to the will of God in Christ Jesus.
E. Deaf to the appeal (22). Given the choice of his money of surrendering to follow Christ, the young man chose his money. For him salvation was impossible, because he was not willing to surrender to the will of God. He was hoping for another good deed to do to cap his obedience to the commandments; but he was not willing to surrender himself and his wealth to follow the Lord.
A. A rich man entering the kingdom (23, 24). Jesus was not saying that there will be no rich people saved--the Old Testament is filled with samples of wealthy people who surrendered to the will of God and remained wealthy and who will have a share in the kingdom. But in the days of Jesus the people had come to accept the teaching that the rich would automatically be in the kingdom, primarily because their richness was seen as a clear evidence of God’s blessing on their life (and poverty was seen as a punishment for sin--the poor were called sinners). But Jesus here made it clear, that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom.
Indeed, as verse 24 says, it is humanly impossible. The saying compares the difficulty to that of a camel going through the eye of a needle. Today, tour guides in Israel/Palestine love to tell tourists that the eye refers to the eye gate, a smaller gate in the big gate, and that a camel has to get down and squeeze through--a sign of humility. But there is no support for that view at all. Jesus’ point is that it is impossible with men--and that is how the disciples understood it.
B. Who can be saved (25)? Jesus’ answer greatly astonished the disciples. It went against the conventional thinking of the day. They asked who could be saved? In this context “saved” is the same as “entering into the kingdom” or “obtaining eternal life.” The disciples reasoned that if the rich people, that is, those who were so blessed by God (and therefore must be the righteous), can hardly get in, then who else could be saved?
C. thing is impossible with God (26). The response of Jesus makes it clear that salvation is by the grace of God: “With man this (salvation for everyone) is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” In other words, God is a God who specializes in the impossible, as history reveals. And salvation is impossible, apart from the work of God. If salvation is possible with God, then people, rich or poor, must seek it from God--and that requires complete self-surrender by faith to his will and plan.
D. The disciples have left all and followed Christ (27). Peter’s response reflects the common notion of deserving or earning God’s favor--they have left all, Peter protested, just as the Lord advised the rich young man. So it did not seem “impossible” for the twelve. And if they have made such a sacrifice, what will they get in return?
E. Jesus explains that the rewards are by grace (28-30). Jesus did not immediately rebuke Peter’s contention, but his answer ultimately showed Peter that he had missed the point. The reward that is to come to them, the twelve, in the day of renewal, as well as for all believers, far surpasses any sacrifice they might have made here. It is not a fair reward, if people were looking for what is fair; it is a reward too great for the sacrifice, because it is by grace.
Jesus looks ahead to his glorious reign at the consummation of the ages (the “renewal” referring to the beginning of the kingdom) and declares that his followers will have a share in that kingdom. The New Testament teaches that believers will rule with Christ on earth (see Rev. 5:9, 10; Luke 22:30; 1 Cor. 6:2). But here Jesus singles out the twelve to sit on twelve thrones judging Israel. Some scholars interpret “Israel” here to mean the Church, symbolized by “Israel,” and that the apostles will have some authority over the whole company of the redeemed. But that view does not do justice to the usage of the terms in the Book of Matthew that clearly distinguishes Israel and the Gentiles. Apparently Jesus was promising that the twelve apostles would judge national Israel at the consummation, probably for its rejection of its Messiah. Clearly, Jesus is the judge who pardons and condemns; but he has chosen to share the administrative duties in his kingdom with those who have proven faithful.
Jesus then extended the promise of rewards to all who made sacrifices to follow him. Here he was referring to the cost of discipleship: some people had to abandon family relationships when they chose to follow Christ, and for them there will be full and abundant compensation in the kingdom. This kind of sacrifice is often hard for westerners to understand, especially in a country where people generally do not care what others believe. But in the days of Jesus when people left the traditions of the family and the teachings of the Pharisees and followed Jesus alone, it often meant a radical break with family (and it still does in families that are rigidly Jewish, and also Islamic). Jesus is not saying that people should abandon their little children and not fulfill their family responsibilities. However, Jesus was declaring that to be his disciple meant a radical change in the priorities in life. And if by following Jesus someone has sacrificed a relationship with a family or family member, that person will find in the Messianic community a far greater family that truly cares for all things spiritual and practical; and that person will also have found eternal life. The language Jesus used here is figurative: abandoning a father does not mean a hundred fathers will replace him, but that there will be an abundant provision from God to compensate for the loss.
Jesus closed his teachings with a proverbial saying--many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Like so many proverbial sayings, this is open to differing interpretations. But in this context the message has to do with who has a reward in the world to come. It is clear that eternal life (both the salvation and the life in the world to come) is a work of grace; and the common notion that the rich, powerful, and prominent of this day will advance in the kingdom beyond the poor, the weak, and the obscure, is here denied. A rich man on earth is not guaranteed a greater place in the kingdom than a poor man, even if people think the rich are blessed by God; that is a worldly notion of eternal life (remember that the widow who gave a pittance was received by God above those who sounded the trumpet). Those who surrender to the Lord with a childlike trust will find advancement in the kingdom and great reward; but that surrender will involve being willing to relinquish all that this world has provided for the sake of serving Christ.
Again dialogue serves as the effective way of communicating truth. The questions of the young man first, and then Peter, raise the issues that Jesus wanted to discuss. The report of the conversations allows the readers to enter into the dialogue, listening for what Jesus had to say.
But the whole passage with its issues must be interpreted within the historical and biblical contexts of the first centuries. After all, the young man and the disciples reflect the beliefs of their day, that is, the standard Jewish teaching that when people please God by keeping the commandments they not only have a share in the world to come, but will find great rewards in this life--wealth. Jesus repeatedly set about to tell people that they missed the point, that there was something much more basic to it all--a complete surrender to God’s will as revealed in the person of Jesus the Messiah.
The main lesson that must be developed in this passage concerns eternal life--how to obtain it. It is helpful to note first what does not obtain it--good works done without surrendering the will to the Lord. There is a place for good works of course--they will be the evidence of a living faith in the Lord. But salvation is by the grace of God; and without faith it is impossible to please God. Jesus was not simply testing the man to see if he was perfect; no, he was calling the man to follow him with undivided loyalty, and to do that he would have to jettison those things that prevented him from following Christ. So the only way to find eternal life is to follow Christ, i.e., believe in him and live according to his teachings (Jesus himself gave up all the riches of glory to meet the needs of poor sinners here on earth). To do that calls for humility (not self-righteousness) and undivided loyalty (serving Christ alone, and not Christ and mammon). For those who do surrender their lives to God and come to faith in Christ and follow him, God will give them eternal life, and God will also abundantly bless them, certainly in the kingdom if not now as well.
The practical message to the person who is considering becoming a Christian is clear: completely surrender your life and your substance to Christ. To surrender to Christ means that one must put Christ first in all things. If wealth, or position, or life-style, or family hinders one’s loyalty to Christ, then that has to be dealt with radically. The radical discipleship Jesus taught does not allow for people to serve God and mammon; their loyalty must be to him first. Salvation is by God’s grace, through faith; and that faith is a radical commitment to follow Christ as Savior and Lord.
For the disciples of Christ the truth of the Gospel must not be confused with notions of the world, the current ideas of wealth and prosperity. Wealth is not necessarily a sign of God’s blessing on a person; and poverty is not necessarily a sign of God’s judgment. Believers must not evaluate spirituality on the basis of worldly standards. In the age to come the righteous will be rewarded with a share in the reign of Christ. But those rewards will be given by God to people for faithful service, and not necessarily to people who had wealth and power here. To please God believers must follow Christ wholeheartedly, and make doing the will of God the top priority in their life. If God grants them wealth (as he did with Solomon), then that is fine; but if getting wealth overrides the commitment, then there is a real problem. If making money, or a name, become the primary goals and leave no room for serving Christ, then being a success by the world’s standards will mean that they are a failure with God and will not have the rewards of the faithful.
The theme of God’s sovereign grace underlies the whole passage. No one should ever say, “I have been obedient to the LORD and therefore he should bless me this way or that.” Salvation is by grace; rewards in the life to come are by grace; and all of it is the decision of God alone. This will be the theme of the next section of the book.
The first part of the 20th chapter of Matthew records another story that Jesus told, this time about the wages paid to the workers in the vineyard. It clearly is about serving the Master, or working in the kingdom, but the twist here is that many of those who worked in the vineyard did not think that the wages were fairly paid. The story follows logically the ideas of the last chapter concerning wealth and the kingdom of heaven, that is, following the Lord and the cost of that discipleship. The theme of the last being first and the first being last ended that chapter, and this one as well. God’s economy of grace is not the same as the natural order people expect.
After this passage the focus will turn to Jerusalem and the suffering of the Messiah. In Matthew 20:17-19 Jesus will speak of His death again. Then, when the mother of the sons of Zebedee comes and asks for favors for her sons in the kingdom, Jesus speaks of their being able to drink the cup that he must drink (20:20-28). And then as a climax to His teaching and His mighty works, Jesus healed two blind men in Jericho as he headed toward Jerusalem (20:29-34).
1 For the kingdom of heaven of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 And after agreeing with the workers for the standard wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When it was about nine o’clock in the morning, he went out again and saw others standing around in the market place without work. 4 And he said to them, “You go into the vineyard too and I will give you whatever is right.” 5 So they went. When he went out again about noon and three o’clock that afternoon, he did the same thing. 6 And about five o’clock that afternoon he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, “Why are you standing here all day without work?” 7 They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You go and work in the vineyard too.”
8 When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the workers and give the pay starting with the last hired until the first.” 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each received a full day’s pay. 10 And when those hired first came, they though they would receive more. But each one also received the standard wage. 11 When they received it, they began to complain against the landowner, 12 saying, “These last fellows worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us who bore the hardship and burning heat of the day.
13 And the landowner replied to one of them, “Friend, I am not treating you unfairly. Didn’t you agree with me to work for the standard wage? 14 Take what is yours and go. I want to give this last man the same as I gave to you. 15 Am I not permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
We have here a story without any additional teaching. The statements of the landowner in the story therefore form the teaching that the Lord wanted to make. After all, the landowner does represent the Lord.
The story could be divided into two or three parts for the organized study. I have chosen three parts: the basic story of the hiring agreement, the twist in the story when the workers were all paid the same thing, and the landowner’s explanation of what he was doing (the first two could be joined together).
The passage is uncomplicated. There is no citation from an Old Testament prophetic passage to be dealt with. There is no miracle in the story that has to be explained. There are no heavy theological expressions or terms that have to be studied. And there is no real sin in the story that has to be confronted--perhaps a mild complaint and dissatisfaction by the workers. What we are left with is a fairly simple story with a twist to it, and a lesson made out of the event.
There is no reason whatsoever to go into this passage in great detail--the grammar and the vocabulary is all pretty much straightforward. In fact, an excellent reading of the story will provide enough color for any explanation of the meaning. But because even reading a passage requires a certain amount of exegetical interpretation, we must trace the basic things here.
In order for the story to work, the imagery has to be clarified. The landowner clearly represents the Lord, and the vineyard represents his kingdom. These two motifs have been used elsewhere in Jesus’ teaching with these meanings. There is no reason to ask what kind of work they were supposed to do, because that is not the main thrust of the text. But what is important is the apparent inequity in the pay scale.
The story unfolds as the day progressed. The landowner wants to hire some men to work for him. He simply goes to the place where he could find such labor--the local labor pool. Even to this day men stand around these areas in the hopes that they will be picked up and given a day job. And in our story the landowner made several runs at the marketplace, perhaps because the work apparently proved too much for the first two who were hired, or perhaps because the day was spent and the work needed to be done--we cannot tell.
But we can already anticipate where this story might be going. As time progresses, the Lord goes looking for more and then even more people to come and work in his vineyard--with the promise of a fair wage. In the Bible, working in the vineyard is a fairly solid image of serving in the Lord’s kingdom. The emphasis on wages in the outworking of the event means that this story is primarily about God’s gifts, or rewards, for faithful service. But the length of service and the amount of work does not determine what the reward is.
After the day came to an end, the landowner called his manager to pay the workers. But to everyone’s surprise, he first paid the workers who came last, and who probably worked an hour or two. They received the pay for a full day’s work.
This led the other workers to think that they would get more, because they had been there all day. But they were wrong--they all received the same thing, a full day’s wages. This landowner was certainly unconventional.
Quite understandably, the workers who had been there all day complained to the landowner. They thought it was unfair that the men who worked only a little should get as much as they. Most workers would think the same thing. But the landowner simply had to remind them of the facts of the case, and that ended the discussion.
In response to the complaint the landowner simply had to remind the workers of a few important points. He paid the early workers exactly what He promised, what they agreed to. So they had no reason to complain. And since He was the landowner, he was free to offer the other workers what He thought was fair if they would come and work as well. And finally, He told the workers to take their wage and go. There was no chance of their changing His mind; and nothing good would come out of their wanting more than the later workers, for there was no law that said he had to pay everyone proportionately.
The final point of the story says that the last will be first and the first will be last, a statement made elsewhere in the Gospel. At the least this statement says that the Lord cannot be held to social convention or custom in the way that He rewards people; but it certainly also says that His pact with each group is fair--and generous since without it they would have nothing. In other words, it is by grace that He rewards the workers, just as it was by grace He offered them the place.
Was this story prompted by the disciples claim that they had left everything to follow Christ, implying that they deserved some kind of reward for their service? Most likely, for Peter thought he should receive more than the rich young man would have. After all, they were the first to leave everything and follow Him. This lesson was apparently prompted by the event that led to the teaching on wealth and the kingdom and concluded with the same theme of the last being first. But the message here goes even further, to the general call to faithful discipleship.
We may form the interlocking lessons out of the answers of the landowner at the end of the story, for those represent the teachings of Jesus on reward for faithfulness.
1. The Lord is sovereign over His kingdom. Because He is the landowner, He can pay people whatever He wants to pay them, as long as He is just. And no one here could accuse Him of being unjust. He owed no man an explanation of His dealings with the workers in the vineyard. He arranged for the first workers to be paid a day’s wages--that was fair. But the other workers He only promised a fair wage, and He certainly was more than fair there.
In God’s kingdom, then, He is absolutely sovereign and He can deal with all people in whatever way He chooses. He is free to give some people more than others in relationship to their years of service or contribution. He alone makes the decisions of what to give people for service, how to use them (all day or not), and how to reward their faithfulness. And no one can challenge the decision of the sovereign Lord.
2. Everyone who serves the Lord will be treated fairly. The workers either got what they agreed to, or they got more. In fact, the latter servants came to work without an exact agreement, so they were actually trusting the landowner that they would receive a fair wage. They did not have a settled agreement fixed. And because they trusted His equity, they were rewarded with the same wage that the others who worked all day were receiving. But they got theirs first when the owner paid the wages. This no doubt was designed to underscore the point that the last shall be first.
3. How the Lord treats all of His servants is by grace. Until the workers were approached by the landowner, they had no work. If He had not found them and arranged for them to enter his vineyard, they would have remained with nothing. No one can complain that such a gracious provision is unfair--unless they think that everything must be based in a legal arrangement. Everyone should be thankful that God opened up the opportunity for service.
The story starts out with a conventional plot, hiring day workers. But it turns at the end to what is totally unconventional, so that the people who worked the least got equal pay. How is it possible that the last shall be first? Not by agreement and not by contract--but by grace and grace alone. As 19:30 reminded us, with God all things are possible, and especially this work of grace that the last is first. If God extends grace to people at the eleventh hour, and they respond, trusting in His goodness, they will also receive what He promised others. If God calls people into service in His vineyard, and they serve Him faithfully, both the calling and the reward is by grace, especially if their work was not a full day.
4. The workers should be pleased with what He gives them, and not concerned with what He gives other people. If the workers were genuinely pleased to receive the work and the day’s wages, they would have focused on that, and not on another worker’s packet. It is when people start comparing what God has given to other believers that they begin to judge God’s fairness. But in the final analysis it is not by length of service, or amount of work, that grace operates--it is based on what He chooses to give.
The warning to each of us is not to be proud of what we have done and expect more than those whom we think have done less. After all, if we have done more, or done it longer, it is only because by His grace He made the opportunity available earlier for us. The word here drives us back to the instruction that whether He gives us a whole day, or just an hour, we must serve Him faithfully and trust that we will enter into the reward that He has in store for those who are faithful. That God chose any one of us for His vineyard is amazing. We should rejoice in that, and rejoice in the fact that He is still inviting otherwise “unemployed” folks to join.
In the final analysis this story is basically about people responding to the opportunity to work in His vineyard when the invitation is made to them. For some the arrangements are clear, for others they are not, but in both cases the Lord deals justly and fairly with His people. It is not a parable about salvation per se, but about working in His vineyard, and the rewards that will be given for faithfulness. The bottom line is that people should be ready to respond to the opportunity for service, and rejoice in what He gives us as a reward for our service. He alone knows the value of each person’s service for His kingdom. But we can all rest assured that when the opportunity and the rewards come from the gracious Lord, they will be just and generous.
Beginning with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in Matthew 21 we begin the section of the book devoted to His passion. In other words, these last eight chapters of the book are concerned with one week in the life of Christ, the week that began with the triumphal entry, which the Church commemorates with Palm Sunday, and ended with the resurrection, which the Church celebrates on Easter Sunday. All the gospels devote a good deal of their time to this week, because everything Jesus has done and has said up til now has been preparatory for this week.
As we study these chapters we shall observe that the events of this week are multifaceted. In the current lesson on the triumphal entry we shall have to consider how this event was a fulfillment of prophecy for the Messiah, how it was a declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship, how it drew the proper response of faith and adoration from the followers of Jesus, how it overlapped with the ritual of presenting the lamb for the Passover, and how it led to the cleansing of the temple prior to the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
His Prediction of Death and Resurrection. There are three short passages that form the transition from the last parable about the workers in the vineyard and this triumphal entry. The first is another prediction by Jesus of His imminent death (Matt. 20:17-19). This is the third time that Jesus stated He was about to suffer and die; the fact that it was the third time, and that it was so close to the event, should have removed any questions in the disciples’ minds about the upcoming trip to Jerusalem. The passage is clear: Jesus told the disciples that they were going up to Jerusalem where He would be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law, condemned by them, and turned over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified. But on the third day he would be raised to life. What is new in this third prediction is the mode of His death and the participation of the Gentiles. Only the Romans could crucify--the Jewish leaders did not have the right to put people to death. So the events that would transpire would be a cooperative effort by those who sought His death.
Note the certainty in Jesus’ words. There is not a “perhaps” or a “maybe” involved. This was no guessing at what might happen in Jerusalem. Jesus is absolutely clear on what was going to transpire, down to the details. Ordinary people would have turned away if they knew this. But Jesus did not--this was why He came into the world. And He was resolute to go through with it because He knew there was to be a resurrection--the way back to glory would be a triumph over death.
The attempts by many modern scholars to discredit these predictions, calling them later additions to the text by the believing community, makes no sense because it destroys the entire flow of the narratives. All through the gospels Jesus had made it clear that He came into the world to make His life a ransom for the sins of the world. His promises of forgiveness, rest, and eternal life, all required that He resolve the problem of sin. His teachings in the Upper Room when He instituted the Supper were the culmination of this message and the connection to the fulfillment of it. And the response of the disciples is perfectly in character for them--they missed it, or did not want to hear it. For whenever Jesus spoke of His coming death, they either rebuked Him for it, or spoke about who would be the greatest in the kingdom.
It is clear that Jesus knew what He was about, and that now the time was drawing near for Him to lay down His life for the sins of the world. Yes, there would be various people who had an active part in His death; but the people responsible for the death of Jesus are all the sinners of the world--all of us. And while some are troubled by the idea of the Father sacrificing the Son (a difficulty encountered only if we think of them as separate people, and not one God), they must remember that Jesus was a willing sacrifice--He gave His life a ransom for sin. He was going up to Jerusalem to die--but He would be raised to life again.
His Instruction about Suffering and Reigning. So the second little paragraph following this is the question about suffering and service (Matt. 20:20-28). What occasioned the teaching was the request by the mother of Zebedee’s sons that her sons sit on either side of Christ in the Kingdom. Despite Jesus’ prediction of suffering and death, two disciples and their mother are still thinking of privilege and rank in the kingdom. The Gospel’s report this event a little differently, but not out of agreement. James and John are certainly involved in asking the question, but their mother is there too. This would be plausible if she was indeed Jesus’ aunt on his mother’s side (see Matt. 10:2 and 27:56). The request of these two men is in harmony with their aggressiveness already displayed (Mark 9:38). And the fact that the other disciples are annoyed with them also indicates that they were party to the request--it was not just their mother.
To sit at the right hand and the left hand of the king would be privilege and power. This would take place in the Kingdom, not the Church that was now to be founded. Mark says “in your glory,” clearly showing the request looks to the life to come. And Matthew never equates “kingdom” and “church,” so this is not about leadership in the Church, but something much greater. They obviously thought that the consummation of the ages was at hand--without the cross or any period of time after it.
So Jesus said to the two, James and John, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” Jesus was firm, but probing in His questions, because it is often ignorance that seeks power and glory so easily. To reign with Christ would mean to suffer with Christ--they have no idea what that would mean, because they have no idea of what His sufferings would be like. The Bible makes it clear that the way to glory is through suffering (2 Cor. 11:23-33; Col. 1:24; and Rev. 1:9). We cannot ask for the glory of wearing the crown and not ask for the grace to carry the cross. James and John responded in the affirmative--they could drink the cup with Him--but their quick answer shows that they did not fully comprehend what the cup meant, what the sufferings of Christ would accomplish, and how it would relate to His glory. Well, they would suffer for Him: James would be the first martyr, and John would suffer exile (Acts 12:2 and Rev. 1:9). But who would sit on His right hand and His left hand was not to be resolved at a mother’s request. Their request was out of order. And the response of the other ten men reveals a jealousy and self-interest in them as well, which has no part in greatness in the kingdom. Places of power and authority in the Kingdom are not granted as a favor (that was the way of the pagans) ; they are to be given to those for whom they had been prepared. They will be granted by the divine will and in accordance with the divine plan.
Greatness is based on service--whoever wants to be great must be a servant (not a deacon, as in the Church sense, for the word here just means servant, as the subsequent use of doulos confirms). If Jesus Himself is the Servant, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, then His disciples dare not seek a higher rank or privilege. They must be willing to serve others, and to lay down their lives if need be.
Jesus closes this discourse by announcing that the Son of Man did not come (a hint of His pre-existence in heaven before the birth in Bethlehem) to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. The last clause is a clear reference to the Song of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (see in the archives of this web site the exposition of Isaiah 53). In that prophecy the Messiah would suffer and die before being exalted in glory. Herein lies greatness--to ransom others by suffering for them. The disciples would have to come to grips with this very soon--not only in understanding why Jesus was to die, but also in understanding what they were called to do in His kingdom.
His Giving of Sight--and Salvation--to the Blind. The third little episode concerns the healing of two blind men in Jericho just before going up to Jerusalem (Matt. 20:29-34). The other gospels only mention one blind man, but Matthew is a little more detailed and clarifies there were two of them. It is unlikely that Matthew just threw in a second one for no reason; the mention of “two” shows a personal knowledge of the details of the event. It was enough for the others to report a healing in Jericho. Then again, Matthew and Mark say that Jesus was leaving Jericho, and Luke says He was entering. There are a number of possible ways to look at this difference, but none of them can be argued with great certainty. Some have argued that Jesus healed one blind man on entering the city, and two on leaving; but this is not very compelling. It is possible that Luke was arranging his material to build to the story of Zacchaeus in Jericho. But it is also possible, and a little more reasonable, to say that old Jericho and new Jericho were in mind, that is, by leaving one and entering the other (because they were next to each other) both descriptions could be accurate. We cannot be absolutely sure how these cities were occupied, and if this was what was meant. But we can say that there are possible solutions to explain what the writers had in mind.
The account in Matthew is simple and straightforward: Jesus was moved with compassion and healed the men in spite of the crowds and in spite of His pre-occupation with the suffering in Jerusalem. There was no basking in glory--He came to serve. And the men who had been blind received their sight--and the first thing they saw was the King. So they joined the throng to follow Him to Jerusalem.
But something rather symbolic was taking place here as well: the nation was in spiritual blindness concerning who Jesus was and what He was about to do; but here were two men who although blind wanted to see. The symbolism is clearly explained in John 9. There were those who could see, but were blind because they refused to believe; and there were those who were blind, but wanted to see. Therefore, on His way to Jerusalem the last miracle that Jesus did outside the temple was to give sight--and salvation--to two blind men in Jericho. This was a work that Messiah was to do, according to Isaiah (giving sight to the blind according to Isaiah). But in Jericho? Remember, Jericho was a city that lay under a curse since the days of Joshua. But Jesus can remove the curse and the effects of the curse.
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of Him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the Highest!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My House will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den or robbers’.”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. 16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” Jesus replied, “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?” 17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where He spent the night.
This passage is a short narrative report about the public presentation of Jesus as the Messiah. It falls into four little parts, each of which is tied to the fulfillment of Scripture. There is first the preparation for the ride and the reference to Zechariah made by Matthew; then there is the ride into Jerusalem and the cries of the people from Psalm 118; third is the cleansing of the temple and Jesus use of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and finally there is the report of the healings and the children, and Jesus’ use of Psalm 8. All these events, and the Scriptures that they fulfilled, declare again that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
But each section of the passage reveals a different aspect of the work of Messiah. In the first part He is revealed as the sovereign King, the one who has authority, but who comes in peace. As He entered Jerusalem, He was recognized at the coming Messiah who brings salvation. When He cleansed the temple, He demonstrated that He was the divine Lord, the messenger of the covenant, who would come to His temple. And when He was praised by the little children, He indicated that He was the fulfillment of Psalm 8, the incarnate Son of Man who should raise human life to the level God intended and should receive praise for it.
There are some who think that this triumphal entry did not take place at the Passover time, but in the fall at the Feast of Tabernacles, primarily because of the mention of the palm branches, and because the figs (in the next episode of the cursing of the fig tree) usually do not grow until the fall. But there are better explanations for these difficulties, as will be pointed out in the discussion; and making this a fall festival entry would mean that what the gospels present as the events of the last six days of Jesus’ life were actually spread over the last six months. That radical change in the chronology would require a lot more evidence than the things mentioned.
The setting of the events comes into play as well. The journey from Jericho to Jerusalem by the old Roman road is about 17 miles, and it ascends some 3000 feet. So it was normal to speak of going up to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho. The road passed through Bethany and nearby Bethpage (“house of figs”) which were on the southeast side of the Mount of Olives. The road crossed over the top of the mount and then down through the narrow Kidron Valley to ascend again to Jerusalem. These are not long distances--from the top of the Mount of Olives one can see the holy city on one side, and the Judean desert on the other. From Bethany to Jerusalem would be about a half hour walk (less if it were flat land). During these last days of Jesus’ public ministry, it is likely that He spent the nights in Bethany with His good friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and went back and forth to Jerusalem. But in the night in which He was betrayed He spent the night in the garden, on the other side of the Mount of Olives, because Jewish law required that the night of Passover be spent within the precincts of the holy city. The city limits had been extended to the top of the Mount of Olives, but not to the other side where Bethany lay.
The method of Bible study that must be employed here is to show how the Old Testament passages give the full and proper meaning to the events. The story without the Scripture citations would say very little; it is the prophecies that explain what all this meant. Therefore, a detailed study of the Old Testament passages is important to the reading of Matthew 21.
Jesus sent two disciples (Luke 22 says Peter and John) ahead to Bethpage to get the animals for the ride into town. The disciples were instructed to go and find the donkey and its colt tied there in the village; they were to loose them and bring them to Jesus, and if anyone asked what they were doing, they were to say that the Lord needs them and then they would be sent right away. This little preparation was designed by Jesus to demonstrate His authority: He knew the animals would be there, and He knew that if they said the Lord needed them they would be given to them. This was a planned sequence, designed to be an acted parable, a revelation for those who had faith. After the resurrection the disciples could look back and see how Jesus had demonstrated in this and the other events that He had authority, that He was in control of the events, and not losing control to wicked men or evil times.
There have been several suggestions for the interpretation of “Lord” in the words they were to use. Some have suggested the word would refer to the animal’s owner--the master needed his animals. But that would be a lie unless Jesus owned the animals. Besides, Luke tells us the owners asked them what they were doing and then released the animals to them. Some have thought it would refer to Yahweh, that is, the animals would be needed for the service of God at the sanctuary. But why that would be the case is unclear. The simplest explanation is that Jesus was referring to Himself as “Lord,” a title that He accepted from His followers and frequently used of Himself. In the later part of His ministry Jesus used such clear titles for Himself more frequently, and this would be a good example. He clearly was claiming authority as the Lord, even over what appeared to be the possessions of people.
Matthew then records the verses from the prophet Zechariah to say that this event was the fulfillment of that oracle. It is possible that Jesus said these verses to His disciples, introducing them with “This has taken place to fulfill.” That would mean that this introductory formula was said proleptically, just prior to its fulfillment. The other possible interpretation is that the inclusion of the verses was Matthew’s comment on the event afterward. In either interpretation, the point is clear that the event was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah given some 500 years earlier.
The introductory words of the prophecy come from Isaiah 62:11 but the main part of it from Zechariah 9:9. The whole passage is not included here: the expression “righteous and having salvation” was probably understood as part of the quotation used, or, it may be that the focus at this point was on the humility and peace that the King would have.
If we look at Zechariah more closely, the first “burden” begins in chapter 9 and continues through chapter 11. It concerns the anointed King who would be rejected. The second burden, beginning in chapter 12 and going through 14, concerns the rejected King who would be enthroned. This is clearly, then, the part of the prophecy leading up to the rejection and death of messiah. The core of the oracle is that the King would enter the holy city with humility and peace, riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Kings at times rode on donkeys in times of peace (Judg. 5:10; 1 Kings 1:33). And the Jews certainly knew that Zechariah 9:9 was a prophecy of the coming King--the Messiah. Thus we may observe that Jesus was proclaiming His Messiahship, His fulfillment of Scripture, and His coming in peace to offer salvation to the people. By this entry Jesus was compelling the people to recognize Him, at least for the moment, as the coming King predicted in Zechariah. They would have to consider this event in the light of that prediction.
There is some question about the number of animals involved. In the oracle in Zechariah the normal understanding would be that the two lines, one mentioning the donkey, and the other the colt, were Hebrew parallelism referring to one animal and not town. In the New Testament Matthew alone of the four gospels mentions that there were two animals. It is possible that Matthew did this to make the distinction that Jesus rode on the colt, for Mark said Jesus rode on an animal which no one had ever ridden. The point is that Matthew gives a little more detail of the animals to be found tied up, to make it clear that Jesus rode on the colt. So then, in the midst of the excitement of the crowd, a young, unbroken animal remained calm when Jesus rode it, a sign that Jesus controlled nature. This symbolism pointed to the peace of the Messianic kingdom. Matthew, in mentioning the two animals, stresses that Jesus fulfilled the detail of this prophecy--he rode the colt.
The disciples fulfilled their mission and returned with the animals. They then spread their cloaks over them, over both animals. When the text says that Jesus sat on them, it is most likely referring to the cloaks and not the animals. Jesus rode on the colt into the city. Both animals were in the procession, but Jesus rode the colt.
There was a very large crowd that went with Jesus along the way. Some of them spread their cloaks on the path to acknowledge Jesus’ kingship, and others cut branches and lay them in the way.
Many scholars have noted that cutting down tree branches was a custom of the Feast of Tabernacles, which was held in the fall and not the spring. But for that feast they would cut the branches and make little booths to dwell in--not spread them in the road. Those were larger branches, strong enough to make a lean-to shelter. These are lighter branches, certainly not large ones that might trip the animals. This was again an act of homage at the entrance of the king, and not a celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. 1 Maccabees 13:51 and 2 Maccabees 10:7 show similar customs, indicating that the act of spreading the branches was in recognition of the king.
The Gospels also tell us that throngs of people came with Him in the procession. The news had spread of His arrival in Bethany, and so there was time for the crowds to gather, especially His followers from Galilee, and certainly all those who were looking for the Messiah. Messianic expectations were high at this time, and when the word spread of Jesus’ arrival in the area, people naturally thronged to see Him. After all, His miracles and His teachings had drawn crowds everywhere He went.
The words that the crowds shout along the way come from Psalm 118. That passage, in fact, Psalms 113-118, belong to what is called the Hallel Psalms, psalms sung at all the major festivals in Jerusalem. The words, then, would have been well known even by the common person, much like Christmas Carols and Advent Hymns are known by nominal Church members. The cries included: “Hosanna to the Son of David”; “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD”; and “Hosanna in the highest.”
The word “hosanna” is a Greek writing of the Hebrew verb from the Psalm, “Save!” (Hebrew hosi’ah-na’ [pronounced ho-she-ah-nah]). It is an imperative, a cry for help. In time it became an acclamation, much like the Hebrew word hallelu-yah, which is an imperative (“praise the Lord”) but became an acclamation. The cry is addressed to Jesus as “Son of David.” There was no doubt in the minds of the faithful that this Jesus was the Messiah, the heir to the throne of David. This is confirmed by the exclamation, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.” In Psalm 118 the sentence was a priestly blessing for the king who led the people in procession to the sanctuary to offer praise to the Lord. But it came to be a praise to God for the coming of Messiah--Jesus had been widely recognized by His followers as “the Coming One.” And so when the people repeat their “Hosanna” to God in the highest, which is like saying “Glory to God in the highest” (in Luke) except it is a call for deliverance, they are praising God for sending them the Messiah, the Savior of Israel.
Of course it was fairly easy for the crowds to get caught up in the Messianic fervor in the light of Jesus’ miracles and teachings. They knew He was a prophet, as the text says; and they hailed Him as their coming King. But they had not grasped the inevitable suffering of the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. It was difficult for the people, even those who were the closest to Jesus, to understand that His ride into Jerusalem as the promised Messiah was not to ascend the throne, but to die on the cross.
Luke records that on the way down Olives He was criticized by the leaders for receiving such praise. But Jesus answered that if they did not praise, the stones themselves would cry out. He was--and is--that great. He alone is worthy of such praise; and everything in creation will praise Him.
The whole city was in a stir when Jesus entered triumphantly. When they asked “Who is this?” they probably wanted to know who this Jesus really was that there should be such a stir over him. The answer that was given in the crowds was that He was a prophet of Nazareth. The reference to Nazareth probably indicates some surprise since it was such an unlikely place. But there were people there who recognized Him as the eschatological prophet (see Deut. 18:15-18; John 7:40; Acts 3:22; 7:37). The account here in Matthew leads the reader to the proper conclusion, that Jesus was more than a prophet--He was the Christ (Messiah), the Son of God, who came to save the world.
When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, probably through what is called St. Stephen’s gate, He immediately went into the temple and drove out the moneychangers and sellers of doves. Matthew does not give all the details that Mark does; he simply focuses on the cleansing of the temple as a significance Messianic act. It is the work of the son of David.
Many biblical scholars believe that there was only one cleansing of the temple, and that there is some confusion as to whether it came early in Jesus’ ministry, or late. But there is every reason to accept that there were two cleansings of the temple, as the Gospels indicate. First, there are striking differences between the first account in John 2:19 and the second account, recorded here. If there had been only one cleansing, then it would be difficult to explain how these differences arose. Second, the failure of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to mention the first cleansing is in harmony with their omission of Jesus’ early Judean ministry. Third, while some argue that if Jesus did this once the authorities would not have let Him do it again, almost three years have passed, and there would have been no way for them to anticipate and prevent this happening now. Fourth, there is insufficient reason to explain why John would have moved the account of the cleansing to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when it was so closely tied to the triumphal entry and the trial of Jesus. The first cleansing of the temple was Jesus’ declaration of His ministry, that He was going to replace much of the Jewish cultic milieu_ftn1,1 and the second cleansing was Jesus Messianic work of preparing for the perfect sacrifice.
Jesus entered the temple area. The preparation for the service in the temple, especially at Passover, required worshipers to get the materials, wood, oil, the animals, and the like, and present them to the priests for approval. Nisan 10 was the day that the animal was to be presented. Thus, in one sense Jesus was presenting Himself both as the prophet and king, and also as the Lamb for the Passover.
The presence of the money-changers (never easily stamped out) changed a holy place into a place of commerce (and profit). And so Jesus drove them all out. And when He did He cited two passages of Scripture from the prophets. His first words were from Isaiah 56:7--the temple was supposed to be a House of prayer (see 1 Kings 8 for Solomon’s dedication of the temple as a House of prayer). But here, at the coming of the Messiah, the temple had become a den of robbers. These words come from Jeremiah 7:11. Jeremiah had denounced the superstitious worship in the temple that included all kinds of wickedness that ruined the worship. Jesus’ words make it clear that the moneychangers were dishonest, and more than making this a commercial center, it was a corrupt commercial center. The Greek word for “robber” probably includes its basic sense of “nationalist rebel.” The people had forgotten that this temple was to be a witness to all nations (the full quote is found in Mark) and not a center where the Jewish people superstitiously believed that God would protect His people no matter what they did. Thus, the same problem existed here as had been present in the days of Jeremiah: the people thought the temple was their security, and as long as it was standing they were safe, no matter what they did in it or with it. But Jesus here, as Jeremiah centuries earlier, knew that the temple had to go, for it had gotten in the way of true righteousness. His cleansing the temple therefore was a symbolic act by when He showed that the wicked had no place here. Jesus’ focus then was on the spiritual neglect of the true purpose of the temple, in contrast to the corruption of those in it who had a mistaken understanding of it as a political and religious center.
Now, for a moment at least, the temple would be cleansed and be a spiritual place. There were tables and coins scattered everywhere, and moneychangers running from the place; but for a brief moment the temple was beautiful again. Jesus quoted from Isaiah, “My House shall be a House of prayer.” But the rest of the verse that He did not quote says that the Lord Yahweh who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, yet will I gather others to Him, besides His own who are gathered. Jesus quoted half of the passage; but He did the other half. And by answering the prayers of the outcasts and making them fit for the sanctuary, Jesus put the temple back into proper service. He made it a beautiful place once again.
The little event also fulfills the prophecy of Malachi (3:1), which said that the Lord would come to His temple, and then asked who could stand at His coming. Two observations are in order here. First, the Messiah was to come to His temple. Throughout the Old Testament the temple was called “the House of Yahweh.” It was God’s House--not that He was restricted to dwelling there. But Malachi said that the Messiah is the Lord who would come to His temple. And Jesus appropriated the words of Isaiah to call the temple “My House.” Here we have several indications that Jesus the Messiah was divine, for not only was He to come to His temple, but He is the Lord who would come to judge the earth.
Second, the purification of the temple was therefore part of the Jewish expectation of what the Messiah was supposed to do. Jesus’ action here then was a self-revelation of His Messiahship and His eschatological authority over the Temple. While the people saw Jesus drive out the rebels who were ruining the place, they did not realize that this was a sign of greater things to come, i.e., the complete destruction of the temple and the building of a new one. Jesus would predict that more clearly during the passion week.
The passage closes with the report that Jesus healed many people. Here the look of indignation in the Lord changed to a look of compassion, and what had just been a den of robbers now became a holy place where people had their prayers answered--they were healed.
Not only is this the last mention of Jesus’ healing ministry, it took place in the temple, probably in the Court of the Gentiles. The lame and ill could go only so far into the temple precincts, to this court (unless they had things with them that would defile the court, clothing, pads and the like). So Jesus met them there and healed them, making them spiritually and physically fit and qualified to go into the temple area that had been off limits to them. Two things must be stressed here. First, Jesus again was showing that a greater than the temple was here (12:6). Both the cleansing of the temple and the healing of the people shows Jesus’ authority over the temple and those who ran it. Second, Jesus was showing that He alone could make people whole so that they could enter the sanctuary. He was God’s remedy for mankind’s ruin; He was the provision of sanctification for the sins and the infirmities of the world.
Naturally the chief priests and teachers of the law were rather upset over the acclamation He was receiving from the crowd. Think of it! He healed many people and caused the children to sing--and they were angry. We do not want to know much more about them, not with that condemnation. But it was when the children were singing “Hosanna to the Son of David” that these leaders became very angry. The point is that if Jesus received such praise in these words, He must be doing the things that Messiah was to do. This they could not accept. But Jesus answered them by citing Psalm 8:2, introducing it with the rebuke: “Have you never read?” He was responding to their indignation by uncovering their spiritual ignorance. Psalm 8 is a praise to God for creation, especially the praise of God for making man a little lower than God and crowning him with glory and honor. But in that Psalm are the words that God had ordained praise for Himself from children and infants. Quoting this psalm did several things: First, it allowed the children to go on with their boisterous praise throughout the temple area. Second, Jesus was applying a passage of Scripture that was about praise to God to Himself. The praise was for the Son of David--and Jesus said that was prophesied by the Psalm as God ordaining praise for Himself. Jesus was affirming His Messiahship, but also His divine nature--He had come into the world in a form a little lower than God, but would be crowned with honor and glory when all things were to be put under His feet (Heb. 2:6 ). Psalm 8 anticipated that the human life that God created was destined for higher and loftier things; and Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus was the one to lead humanity into its divinely intended place. Third, Jesus was again showing that the humble receive spiritual truths more readily than the learned and the wise. The children did not have the learned skepticism and self-interest that the leaders had. They therefore were the natural voices of praise for Jesus the Messiah.
And so it was an uproarious day in Jerusalem. The Galileans had been shouting their praise and devotion to Christ; and Jerusalem was shaken. The moneychangers had been thrown out of the temple, and there was debris lying everywhere. Then the children sang, and Jesus said, “That is praise perfected!”
The religious teachers had no answer, for all these events did not just happen by chance--they were all ordained by God from antiquity, and the words of the Hebrew prophets that predicted them were now being fulfilled to the letter. It would require sever spiritual blindness not to see it.
This, the, is the “triumphal entry.” It is not a triumphal entry in the tradition of the Romans, who, after some great victory, would parade into the city with pomp and praise to take their seat on the throne as the victor. This was the entry of a King, to be sure, but more than a King. This was the entry of the Messiah, the King of Kings; and yet His triumph was to be the greatest victory of all time, the victory over sin, death and the grave. To do that He would have to die in place of all humanity, and then rise from the dead as the sign that He had overcome it all. Thus, He entered the city to die. Then, when He comes again, He will appear in glory as the truly triumphant and glorious King of Kings.
His entry into the holy city was therefore the beginning of His Passion. Just as the High Priest in the Old Testament had to sanctify and purify the temple before the atoning sacrifice could be offering, the coming Lord had to cleanse the temple to make preparation for the perfect sacrifice that was to be offered, the one that all the sacrifices in ancient Israel pointed to in their prophetic sense. What was set in motion by this dramatic emphasis was the self-disclosure of Jesus in anticipation of His death. Through this and subsequent events He revealed who He was, why He came, and what He was about to accomplish, so that when He was crucified people would have a clearer understanding of the event--at least when they had a chance to reflect on it and recall all that Jesus had said and done, and how that all fulfilled the Messianic promises in the Old Testament.
There are so many applications that one could make from this passage, but a few stand out as essential.
First, if Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord and Savior of all people, then all people must acclaim Him to be so and call on Him to save them--”Hosanna” in its true sense. The believers in Jesus have done this; those who have not yet believed in Him must do so if they are to be saved. The message of the triumphal entry is therefore an evangelistic message: Behold, your king comes, lowly, and riding upon a donkey! If we want a share in His kingdom, then we must acknowledge Him as Lord; if we want to enter His kingdom, we have to accept His death for your sins. Those who have done this must proclaim this message on behalf of their King.
Second, if Jesus Christ is God’s remedy for the ruin of the race, then we must look to Him for physical and spiritual healing. He healed many people, not only when He entered the temple on this day, but in His lifetime on earth, to declare that He is able to solve all the problems that exist in our world. Either in this life, or in the life to come, those who trust in Him will be made whole in body, soul and spirit.
Third, all praise and glory belongs to Him--not just because He healed people while on earth (although in human experience that would be praiseworthy) but because all power is given to Him in heaven and on earth. He has authority over life and death, sickness and health, nature and the supernatural. People should never cease praising Him for all He is and does. Like the followers of Jesus in this story, even though we may not understand everything that the Lord is doing, we follow Him with love and devotion, and we acclaim Him as the coming King, and we praise Him as the Savior and Lord.
Fourth, there will always be opposition to Christ Jesus, and criticism of His works, sometimes even from devoutly religious people. There is a spiritual hardening in many people because of sin, and because of the blindness of the god of this age, and they will not acknowledge that Jesus is the divine Lord, God in the flesh, Savior and King, the one who will reign over the whole world forever.
There are many who say that if Jesus was the Messiah He should have brought in an age of peace and glory. And there are some who say that He was a prophet but not God. And there are some who say His death was a nice example of love, but not redemptive. But of course, the Scriptures say otherwise and show these claims to be false teaching. Therefore, all that the household of faith can do is to continue to proclaim what the Scripture teaches, both the Old and New Testaments, that He is Lord and Savior, that He came into this world to suffer and die for our sins, and that apart from Him there is no peace with God and no hope for peace in this world.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday was a triumphal entry because by it He began to fulfill His mission on earth, to suffer and die as the sacrifice for sin. In His death is the triumph over sin; in His resurrection is the victory over the grave. No mere mortal ever accomplished such a thing; no human ever had such a victorious beginning to his reign--which is why all human kings died and returned to dust. But Jesus Christ our Lord is alive forever more, because His triumph conquered death.
1 While there is not sufficient time to study John 2 here, it is important to note what happened. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days.” The disciples later knew that He was talking about His body, and the resurrection. Why did He not simply say that? The only answer is that there was a double meaning to what He said. When they put Jesus to death, they (thought they) were destroying His body, but they were also destroying the temple. For when Jesus made the perfect sacrifice, there would no longer be a need for the temple. Moreover, when Jesus rose from the grave, He also raised up a new temple, for the Church, the believers, would be known not only as the body of Christ, but the temple of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus announced early in His ministry how He was going to transform the essence of religion. People would now worship not in one mountain or another, but in Spirit and in Truth.
No one could walk into the temple and drive out the money-changers without stirring up a lot of antagonism. But when Jesus did this (Matt. 21:12-17), he did it to uncover the wickedness and sinfulness of those who claimed to be serving in the sanctuary but who gave no evidence of righteousness in their lives. The rest of the chapter, then, deals with this matter of producing fruit that will be evidence of a genuine life of faith. On the whole, Jesus was announcing here that the Jews as a whole had failed, and that God was going to turn to the Gentiles as the prophets had warned (see, for example, Mal. 1:11).
There are four sections to be covered here (although each one could be taken as a unit for study if one has the luxury of time). The first episode is the cursing of the fig tree because it had no fruit on it (21:18-22), and then the second is a challenge to Jesus’ authority (21:23-27); this is followed by two parables, the parable of the two sons (21:28-32), and the parable of the tenants (21:33-46). The last parable is the most important part of the section, because it explains what has come before it and clearly announces that the Messiah has been rejected by his own people who bear no fruit and so the kingdom will be taken from them and given to a people who will bear fruit.
So we have two short narrative episodes, and two parables. In all of the material Jesus was clearly calling for repentance that leads to righteousness; and he had the authority to do this because he is the King, the Stone, who can exclude people from the kingdom as much as include those who love righteousness. The authority of Jesus is first demonstrated by his cursing of the tree, and then in the end by his announcement of the cursing of Israel by removing from them the kingdom. There was no need for the leaders to ask about his authority--the words and the works made it clear who he was, just as the words and the works of John made it clear he was the prophet.
For convenience it will be better to take each of the four parts separately and then at the end reiterate the message.
18 Early in the morning as he was on his way back into the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.
20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked.
21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you as for in prayer."
There are several things that the student of the Scriptures needs to address in this little section. First is the comparison with Mark, the only other place where the cursing of the fig tree is mentioned. Mark has it in two parts, the cursing, and then the withering after the cleansing of the temple the next day. Matthew puts the two parts together for the topical value of the episode, and does not specify when the tree withered and the disciples marveled.
The cursing of the fig tree is in itself a parable of the cleansing of the temple, which has been recorded by Matthew just prior to this. So the study will have to determine the symbolism of the fig tree, and perhaps any symbolism of the mountain that is possibly moved, whether it represents any obstacle or just the mountain.
The passage appears to contain two lessons, the lesson of the cursing of the fig tree being the main message about the religious standing of Israel. But the disciples’ response was shallow, wondering how it was done. And so Jesus answered their question with a lesson on faith, the second message.
I. The Cursing of the Fig Tree (21:18-22)
This first episode can be divided into the two parts: the cursing of the tree, and the question of the disciples.
A. The Lack of Fruit Brings Judgment (vv. 18, 19).
This point has been worded as a principle that the incident teaches. Jesus was traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem, less than a mile, and came upon a fig tree. He was hungry and so hoping to find some figs on the tree. A simple incident! But there was no fruit on the tree and so Jesus cursed the tree.
It was a little early in the year for the harvest of figs, since this occurred during the holy week, which in 33 A.D. was the last week of March. But Mark tells us that there were leaves on the tree, and fig trees produce leaves and figs about the same time--this was early growth. The early figs are edible, but not as good as the figs that are harvested in June. The point is that the presence of leaves indicates there should be fruit. When Matthew says that he found only leaves, the readers would have known there should have been figs. If this had taken place at the normal time of figs, Jesus could have simply gone to another fig tree. But this was an unusual early growth, and as Jesus was hungry, expected he could pick some fruit from it.
The question then is often raised as to why Jesus would curse a tree that was not supposed to be in season. Well, the action was symbolic. The point is that the leaves on the tree advertized that there were figs there as well, but it was a false advertisement. Jesus used this to teach a memorable lesson: the tree was cursed not just because it was not bearing fruit, but because it was making a show of life that promised fruit but delivered none. What Jesus intended by this acted parable was that those who make a show of being religious but in fact are spiritually barren will be cursed. In this context it would apply directly to Israel, but it applies to all people who produce no evidence of genuine spiritual life. This teaching harmonizes with the previous account of the cleansing of the temple, and prepares for the messages to come (Matt. 23). The Jewish leaders in the context of Matthew are the primary targets, for they advertised piety without producing true righteousness.
It is interesting to note that Jesus’ miracles about cursing are directed at things other than people--the drowning of the pigs (8:28-34), and now the cursing of the fig tree. The warning is clearly for people to heed; but the way it is presented is indirect. Yet the message is clear: those who claim to be pious better produce the fruit of righteousness or they too will fall under the Lord’s judgment.
B. Faith is Essential for the Work of the Lord (vv. 20-22).
The second part of this story concerns the question that the disciples ask--how this was done, and not what it meant. Jesus’ answer draws upon his earlier teaching (17:20), that with faith all things are possible--even casting this mountain--probably the Mount of Olives on which they were standing--into the sea. This is a hyperbolic example of a miracle--whether what is to be done is great or small, faith is sufficient.
So based on this miracle and the disciples’ question, Jesus taught them on the power of believing prayer. The faith that he taught throughout his life was a genuine faith on the power of God and a developed discernment of his will. They should discover what the will of the Lord is, and then by faith pray for it to happen, not matter how impossible it might seem.
Because Jesus meant that the fig tree without fruit represented hypocritical religious people, the cursing anticipated their judgment. Thus, God’s plan includes the judgment of hypocrites; and Jesus’ cursing of the tree conformed with that part of the plan of God. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to curse a tree that gave him no food. Thus Jesus’ lesson on faith has to be seen in the context of Matthew--it was not just a lesson that faith could do all kinds of spectacular things--it was faith in praying! And prayer always must harmonize with the will of God.
23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked: "And who gave you this authority?"
24 Jesus replied, "I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism--where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?"
25 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From men’--we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet."
27 So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." Then he said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."
This episode is part of a longer section that runs through 22:46, a section that includes all kinds of controversies in the temple courtyard. We are presently dealing with chapter 21 as a unit since it is concerned with bearing fruit as obedience to do the will of God. In this section the leaders challenged Jesus’ authority for his works (cleansing the temple) and his stern words of judgment.
If the triumphal entry took place on Sunday as tradition claims, then these discourses took place on Tuesday according to Mark’s chronology. But there is good evidence that the entry may have taken place on Monday, which would make these discourses occur on Wednesday. In either case, the messages of chapters 21-23 were delivered in the temple area in the morning; and chapters 24, 25 were delivered in the later afternoon on the Mount of Olives (so the Olivet Discourse).
This first episode follows the account in Mark very closely (Mark 11:27-33).
II. The Authority of Jesus (21:23-27)
A. Hypocrites Challenge the Authority of Jesus (v. 23).
Jesus entered into the temple courts, which could refer to any of the walkways or porticos in the vast area (33 acres). There he was approached by members of the priestly aristocracy and elders, probably all members of the great Sanhedrin, the Jewish court. These were heads of the most influential families in the country. They had authority to make the decisions about the religious and civic affairs of the people.
But Jesus acted with authority, cleansing the temple and declaring things that went far beyond an ordinary teacher’s authority. They really did not want to know if there was authority given to him--they were more interested in stifling his teachings, healing, and powerful works. Had they listened to his teachings and seen his miracles without their blind resistance, they would have known the source of his authority.
B. Those who Challenge Jesus’ Authority Display their Hypocrisy (24-27).
Jesus responded to their question with a question of their view of John’s baptism. By referring to John’s baptism, he was of course referring to John’s entire ministry. This is a masterful reply. If the religious leaders answered correctly, that is, that John’s ministry was of God, then they would have the answer to their own question, for John was sent by God as the messenger of Malachi 3:1 to prepare the way for the divine Messiah. If John was that messenger, then Jesus is the Lord who comes to his temple.
But if they said it was not of God, then the people would rise against them because they did believe John was a prophet from God. The leaders refuse to answer.
Jesus was not refusing to answer their question. He answered it with a question. He answered it in a way that the honest person who was actually looking for the truth without regard for public opinion would not fail to see that he was the Messiah, and that he had the authority of heaven behind him. But the question uncovers a more deep seated problem, their blindness to the revelation of God. They rejected Christ totally, so they were not here looking for proof of his authority. They wanted to destroy him.
Those who reject the revelation already given cannot expect to be given more revelation. Jesus, therefore, would not tell them. They had already misunderstood the revelation of Scripture, rejected the ministry of John, and accused Jesus of doing things by the power of Satan! They were not open to a clear answer from Jesus--and they were not fit for positions of authority themselves. They may have questioned his authority; but he questioned their spiritual competence to determine this issue.
While the text does not directly explain the connection between this challenge and the surrounding events, it is clear from the context that this kind of blindness was behind their hypocrisy. Here were people displaying piety, but they not righteous.
28 What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, "Son, go and work today in the vineyard."
29 "I will not," he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, "I will sir," but he did not go.
31 Which of the two did what his father wanted?
"The first," they answered.
Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."
This is a short parable and will not take much time to develop in the message of the chapter. But for those who want to get into the criticism of the material, the study can become involved pretty quickly. There are lots of suggestions about the composition of the material, but when all is said and done the parable appears to be authentically Matthean and an integral part of the block of material found in 21:23--22:46. This material preserves confrontational discussions that took place on this one occasion.
For the lower or textual criticism, there are different readings for the parable, one being followed by the NIV and the other by the NASB. It is a question of which of the sons went and which did not. While the textual difficulty has to be taken seriously and sorted out for the precise reading, the variation does not change the basic meaning of the passage: one said he would go and did not, one said he would not and did go.
III. Genuine Repentance and not Religious Intentions (21:28-32)
Sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes, considered the scum of society, had lived lives that refused to obey God--but they repented at the preaching of John and will have a share in the kingdom. But the pious religious authorities say yes to God in ways that everyone could hear, but inwardly they do not obey his Word. They do not enter into the kingdom. So the distinction is between religious leaders with expressed intentions and public sinners who changed their minds and entered the kingdom.
John came in the way of righteousness (literally, v. 32); i.e., he came preaching God’s will about what was right. His message (3:2-3) was a call for ethical reform in the light of the appearance of the Messiah. But the religious leaders did not believe in his message, even when people were being converted. Those religious leaders will not enter the kingdom.
In the context this parable is an open rebuke to the religious leaders who were opposing Jesus. They, like the fig tree, made all the appearances of being spiritual and devout, but they showed no signs of repentance and no acts of righteousness. The sinners who believed and repented would have a share in Messiah’s kingdom.
33 Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35 The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them; "They will respect my son," he said.
38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take the inheritance." 39 So they took him and three him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? 41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop qat harvest time."
42 Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scripture:
The stone the builders rejected has become of capstone;
The LORD has done this, and it marvelous in our eyes?
43 Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
Here we have the simple pattern again of the parable following by the explanation of it as well as a concluding narrative report. The meaning in the story is pretty obvious: God is the landowner, the vineyard is Israel, the tenants are the leaders of the nation, the servants are the prophets, and Jesus is the son.
Critical scholars find this simple arrangement problematic and so have reconstructed the parable. Some have argued that the parable did not come from Jesus but from the early Church influenced by Isaiah 5. But there is no reason that Jesus could not have used Isaiah 5 and its imagery to describe the situation with his enemies. Others do not think that Jesus would have used the language of "son" for himself, but that it was introduced by the early Church. It would be difficult to imagine how Jesus would tell this story without immediately thinking of the son as himself. Others have tried to argue that the original story is in the Gospel of Thomas (65, 66); but the omissions in the story are due to the Gnostic influence there and show how that version relied on the Syriac. The passage is authentic and belongs in this place in the argument of the book.
IV. The Kingdom Will Be Taken away for Lack of Fruit (21:33-46).
A. The Parable (21:33-41)
The meaning of the parable is pretty straightforward. Jesus had been telling his disciples for months that he was going to be killed by the religious leaders in Jerusalem; now in the temple a few days before Passover he is telling the people and the leaders, albeit in parable form. But they knew what he was saying.
It will be helpful to point out some of the details in the parable. The first is the loving care the landowner (God) has for his vineyard (Israel; cf. Isa. 5:1-7 and Ps. 80:6-16). He build a protecting wall, a watchtower (against thieves) and a winepress to press the grapes right there. This shows his anticipation that there will be fruit from the vineyard that can be pressed into wine.
The servants are sent to collect some of the fruit from the tenant farmers who rent and work the vineyard. They do not come for all the fruit, only for the agreed upon portion that the owner expects. These are the prophets that the Lord sent to Israel to see if they were producing fruits of righteousness.
The tenants are mean and calloused. The owner sends servants and they are beaten; he sends others (are the two sets the former and the latter prophets?--probably) and they too are treated roughly. Their motive is selfish--they want to keep everything and feel no responsibility to the true owner of the vineyard. Lastly when the owner sends his son, they kill him.
Some commentators argue that the Jewish leaders did not know who Jesus was and would not have killed their Messiah. But this argument is not convincing. They should have known because of his works and his words; they should have known because of Old Testament prophecy that said Messiah would die. And even if they did not know or understand, their guilt remains. The fact is that these religious leaders were unwilling to discover Jesus’ true identity (see 23:37). Besides, the main charge of the parable is not just that they killed the son, but that they bore no fruit. They were not righteous--they were self-righteous, and that is not the same at all. When Jesus came calling for repentance and righteousness, they did not want to bow to his authority. They wanted him to submit to them--but they were hypocrites (see chap. 23). Their rejection of Jesus is the last act of unrighteousness; they would be judged.
After telling the parable, Jesus drew out of the people the self-condemning response to the story.
B. The Application (21:42-46)
Now to make the lesson clear, Jesus drew upon Psalm 118, with the formula, "Have you never read." They had read it, probably knew it by heart--but he was saying they needed to take a closer look at it now. The message of the psalm explains what God’s program is, and how the rejection of the Messiah is one of the ironic twists of the program.
Psalm 118 was probably written after the exile when the Hebrews finally could return to their land and worship once again. They approached the rebuilt temple doors with the intent of praising God for delivering them from the nations who had captured them. Their praise is essentially that the stone that the builders had rejected had now become central to God’s building program. The stone in the psalm represents Israel, probably their political leader who represents Israel. The builders were the nations, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, who rejected Israel when they were building their empires--as a builder would toss aside a small stone when building a palace. But now, that stone has been restored to its land, and is at the center of God’s kingdom. This was the day the Lord had made; this was marvelous in their eyes.
Matthew gives full expression to Jesus’ claims to being the true seed of Abraham--everything Israel was supposed to be but was not. Jesus is the stone now. In fact, a number of Old Testament prophets use the stone image for the Messiah and his kingdom (see Isa. 8; Dan. 2; Zech. 3). The builders, then, would be the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Romans--all who were trying to build a nation. They rejected Christ (which means he was killed - in the parable they killed the son), but he would become the main stone in the new building of God (which presupposes the resurrection). Jesus is not only vindicated through his resurrection, but becomes the central figure of the New Covenant of God. What the leaders rejected--Jesus the Messiah--is the very program God has designated for the redemption of the world. Because they reject him, they do not have a share in the new program of God.
Then, in verse 43, Jesus further explains the parable. Because those entrusted with the vineyard of God had cared for it so badly, and then killed the son, the responsibility of leading God’s program would be given to another people who would produce righteousness. The verse does not go fully forward to say the kingdom is taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles, although it leads to that; it speaks of ending the role of Jewish rulers over God’s covenant people. Besides, in the early church there was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles.
Matthew confirms that the religious leaders knew that Jesus was talking about them. They should have realized that the image of the stone for Messiah is a dangerous image: it can be a stumbling stone (Isa. 8) for those who do not believe; and it will be a stone of judgment for those caught up in the world (Dan. 2).
Amazingly, the religious leaders who have just heard the parable that they will kill the son set about planning how to kill him. Here is true spiritual blindness.
The theme of these four sections is the teaching of the authoritative Christ that the religious leaders and most of the people had failed to do what God had intended them to do, to be the faithful people of God producing works of righteousness. Paul will tell the Romans that because of their unbelief, the natural branches of the tree were lopped off, and wild branches grafted into the tree. Gentiles have been grafted into the tree--that is, by God’s grace been brought into Israel’s New Covenant. And Paul warns that if God did not spare the natural branches of the tree--those generations of Jews who rejected him, he need not spare us either if we do not produce righteousness.
The warning for all time is that God rejects the show of piety without the fruit of righteousness. Those who claim to be devout must submit to the authority of Christ and bring forth fruit of repentance--a changed life.
Since this parable follows the triumphant entry and precedes the teachings of Jesus on the signs of the end times delivered on the Mount of Olives (called the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24, 25) on the Wednesday of the Passion Week, the experts in the chronology of the Gospels put this time of controversy on Wednesday morning (along with all of Matthew 21:19b through 23:37-39; see the chronology chart at the end of this lesson).
But a lot of modern commentators think that this parable and the one in Luke 14:16-24 are two separate tellings of the same tradition. Of course, Jesus himself could have used the same, or similar parables at different times in his full teaching ministry; but these commentators usually mean that Jesus told the parable once, and the Gospels re-used it with changes.
The differences between Matthew and Luke are significant though. In Luke the story starts with "a certain man," but here it is the King. In Luke it is a great supper, but here it is a wedding banquet. In Luke there is one invitation, but here there are two. In Luke the invited guests make excuses, but here they refuse and turn violent. In Luke the invited guests are passed by, but here they are destroyed. These are major differences. Each passage fits its context very well, and so if one were to conclude that it was originally one story, there would have to have been significant editing to make the parable work in the contexts. Matthew’s parable is harsher than Luke’s, but then it comes later in Jesus ministry in Matthew, at a time when he was facing severe opposition from the Jewish leaders. It is most likely that this parable was a separate story, not a re-telling of the one in Luke, although in some ways the two are similar.
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4 Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5 But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13 Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
The meaning of this parable in the context of the Lord’s Passion Week, in which he was to be betrayed and crucified, is pretty clear--it condemns the contempt that Israel as a whole (and everyone in general) had (and has) for God’s gracious invitation through Jesus the Messiah.
The focus of the parable is on the wedding banquet of the Son. The reference is naturally to the Messianic banquet, which is not only mentioned in the New Testament (Rev. 19) but also in the Rabbinic Literature. At the end of the age, the Jewish tradition held, all the people of God--Israel--would enjoy a Messianic banquet in their transition from this life to the life to come. The details of that banquet, or the New Testament’s marriage supper of the Lamb, cannot be pressed too much since the circumstances are different, as we shall see.
We may also observe that the parable clearly intends to portray Israel’s spiritual indifference to the invitation in the sharpest way, culminating in their killing the messengers of the covenant. In Matthew 23 Jesus will accuse the hypocritical leaders of killing the prophets.
The imagery of a wedding banquet turns to the serious message when the man without the proper wedding clothes is not merely thrown out of the banquet, but is bound hand and foot, and cast into darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is obviously the judgment scene that Jesus repeated so often with these very words. Thus the banquet is the celebration of those who enter the kingdom, and the exclusion is the judgment of God for those who reject the invitation of grace.
We could break down the passage into several parts, but it seems that there are three natural stages in the story--the invitation refused (vv. 1-3), the second invitation violently opposed (vv. 4-8), and the invitation given to any who would come (vv. 8-13). In this last section we have sub-points that we can use: the wider invitation (vv. 8-10) and the rejection of the guest who was not clothed in the proper attire (vv. 11-13). The parable ends with a short maxim (v. 14).
I. The people invited to the wedding banquet of the Son refuse to come (22:1-3)
A. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet (1, 2).
Here we see the true nature of a parable--it is an extended simile. The Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a wedding banquet. But the point of this comparison will be the details of the story to follow, answering what there is about the wedding banquet image that was intended by Jesus to describe the kingdom. The parable will focus on who responds properly to the call.
The parable says that the King gave a wedding banquet for his Son. In the claims of Jesus, God the Father would be this King, and Jesus, of course, was the Son. The presentation of the King’s Son, the Messiah, as a bridegroom is not uncommon (see 9:15; 25:1; John 3:29; Eph 5:25-32; and Rev. 21:2, 9). This is the New Testament counterpart of the Old Testament usage of marriage as a symbol of the covenant, i.e., that Israel was the wife of Yahweh, and in the end, an unfaithful wife (see Hosea) who followed after other lovers (gods). The imagery in the New Testament does not focus on God’s relation to a nation in general, but on the special relationship between Christ and true believers. The anticipated union with Christ in glory is portrayed by John as a marriage supper (Rev. 19). Here and elsewhere Jesus uses the same idea to warn people not to refuse the invitation, and not to be found unprepared for the coming of the Bridegroom.
B. The special invited guests refuse to come (3).
The guest list was drawn up ahead of time, and when the time came for the feast, they were notified that it was ready. But these guests refused to come (they persistently refused, the tense is imperfect). These special guests would be the Israelites who were expecting the Messiah; they claimed to be closely related to the King, God. But when the King prepared the banquet for his Son, they would not come. In the New Testament Christ is often portrayed as the stumblingstone--people might have embraced an offer of the kingdom, but they had to determine what to do about Jesus? For help in this section, one need only look at the end of Matthew 23 to get the point: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing" (Matt. 23:37). For many reasons, but one primarily, the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as their Messiah when he came and extended to them the invitation to come to him (Matt. 11:28). They could explain it in so many ways, but it simply was that they did not believe in him.
This parable, then, portrays the expected guests as refusing the gracious invitation to attend the banquet. By refusing the offer of grace they refused a share in the banquet, and in the world to come--if they continued to refuse.
II. Those who continually refuse the invitation become violent (22:4-6).
A. The King graciously repeats the invitation (4).
The King extends his gracious invitation again, although this time he makes it even more appealing. He sent other messengers out to invite them again. This is so true of the way that the Lord calls people to himself, repeatedly and with all the incentives to appeal to people. In this parable the incentives are portrayed in the description of the banquet. The word used technically refers to a morning meal, like a breakfast but eaten mid-morning. However, the translation of "banquet" can be used because the wedding feasts often went on for days. So this would be the beginning of the days of feasting. And here there would be plenty to eat--the King says that his oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready for the feast. What could be more appealing?--the King himself extends the invitation, it is for a joyful time of celebration, and there will be so much there to enjoy. One is amazed that the invitation needed to be repeated at all! The invitation of the King was both a great honor--and a sovereign command (one does not refuse the King).
B. Those who continue to refuse turn violent (vv. 5, 6).
The response to this second invitation is rather surprising, to say the least. The people paid no attention to the messengers, but went off on their own business. But others seized the messengers and mistreated them and killed them! The King was so outraged by their treatment of his messengers that he sent his army to destroy the murderers and burn their city.
The violent and harsh conclusion of the story sets this parable apart for the one in Luke. In this context the opposition to Jesus had grown violent; and Jesus warned his enemies of the coming judgment they would receive. So the focus of the parable, although severe, is true to history. The Hebrews had often harmed and killed the prophets that God sent to them; and they were about to do the same with Jesus. But to refuse the offer of the King and murder his messengers was the same as committing suicide. That would even have been true in their days. But in the story this was not any king, but the King of Glory.
A survey of the Gospels as a whole is necessary to draw together the reasons for the Jews’ rejection and hatred of Jesus. Again and again Jesus called them to come and follow him and he would give them eternal rest. Their unbelief in him lay behind their refusal. But perhaps as the repeated appeals of Jesus made the call clearer to them--that Jesus was the divine Son of God, that they would have to submit to him, and that they could only enter the Kingdom of Heaven through repentance of their sins and faith in his provision--they became more aware of what he was saying about himself and therefore what he was saying about them. Their violent response in killing the messengers the LORD sent anticipated their desire to kill Jesus--they did not want to hear anymore of their guilt and his grace.
And so, just as Jesus explained in the last section, the kingdom would be taken from them and given to a people bearing fruit. Those who angrily refused the gracious invitation to the wedding feast would be insulting and minimizing the King, and so his wrath would fall on them.
III. The King invites others to the wedding feast but expels those who do not prepare properly for it (22:8-13).
A. The King invites as many as would come to the feast (vv. 8-10).
Because the ones who were invited refused to come, the king now turns to others. He sends his servants out into the streets to invite all that they could find, whether good or bad. The banquet hall was soon filled with people wanting to have a share in the King’s wedding feast for his Son. The call is not for the wise and the learned, certainly not for the smug and self-righteous, but for all who would come. He came into the world to seek and save that which was lost, not those who had rigorously kept the Law (or who said they did) and could claim to have the righteousness to enter the Messianic banquet. What is drawn into the hall are both good and bad people--but all in need of God’s invitation to escape the sin and bondage of this world.
B. The king expels anyone who did not prepare properly (vv. 11-13).
The parable tells how the King arrived to see the guests who wanted to be at the wedding feast for the Son. But he found a man who was not wearing the proper wedding clothes. The King addressed him as "Friend"--but do not be mislead by this word in Jesus’ teaching, for when he called someone "friend" it was always in an ironic sense and a word of judgment followed. Whenever Jesus called anyone "Friend," he usually made it clear they were not. In our story The King wanted to know how the man got in without the proper attire, but the man was speechless, a sign of his guilt.
Many interpreters take the proper wedding attire to be righteousness, and find many passages that seem to support that. But that may be pushing the symbol a little too much in this story. Where would he get the righteousness?--the King expected him to have it to join the wedding feast! Some have suggested that the King provided the attire (i.e., righteousness) but this man refused to have it. That is adding quite a bit to the parable, and such an addition is not necessary. We can leave the symbolism a bit general and just say that the man did not prepare properly to act on the invitation he received. So there was an invitation to the banquet, but not all who responded to the invitation were allowed to remain. The King had the man tied and cast out into the darkness, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The outcome of this man’s situation informs us of the true meaning of the symbolism. We have to say that the proper attire would correspond to all that Jesus said was required for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven--true repentance for sin and faith in Christ, and then a commitment to love and obey the Lord as evidence of saving faith. In Jesus’ day many people certainly wanted to enter the kingdom, but when Jesus started telling them to come to him and take his yoke upon them and learn of him, they went away. And in the day of judgment many will claim to have done good deeds, but Jesus will turn them away because they will not have dealt properly with the basic issue of salvation--they will not be prepared properly and spiritually to be received by the King at the wedding of the Son.
The lesson closes with an explanation ("for"). Many are "called," but few are chosen. The word "many" is not intended to be a restricted number; it is used several times in Isaiah 53 to speak of those for whom Christ poured out his blood. The invitation has gone out to all who care to listen, but some just refused, and some wanted to come but refused to submit to the requirements of entrance into the kingdom. So none of these will be present in the kingdom. Those Jesus refers to as "chosen" are the people who respond to the invitation to come, and respond in the proper manner so that they are prepared to enter the kingdom. Because the Bible refers to the recipients of grace as "chosen," we may conclude that it intends to say that God is not surprised by the acceptance of some and the rejection of many--in other words, sovereign grace is still at work, even though on the human level we see how some refuse and some accept and prepare.
In Jesus’ experience the invitation to the Messianic banquet had been extended to the Jews first, those who had the promise of the covenant, the kingdom, and the King; but they refused. But then Jesus began to turn to the Gentiles, and as many as believed in him would enter the kingdom in the place of the others, even if the ones who believed were formerly prostitutes and sinners rather than scholars and sages.
More people will reject the invitation or fail to meet the requirement of faith in Christ than those who are chosen, that is, those who truly believe and enter the kingdom.
In our day the invitation goes out from the Church by the Spirit through the Church:. "The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’." And whosoever wills may come and drink of the water of life freely. Those who refuse, whether violently opposed to Christ, or pretending to be in Christ, will have no part in the kingdom, but will be cast into outer darkness.
This is the message of the Gospel, the good news. It is only good news if salvation delivers us from darkness (if there is no darkness, no judgment, then there is no reason for good news). The Church must carry the invitation to the world, even if the world might refuse the invitation, or even treat them violently and kill them.
This is a parable. Not every detail of the story should be given a specific equivalent, only the main points and ideas. If there are similar stories, we need to notice the differences as much as the similarities.
In interpreting the parable, the context is so important. Throughout the events of the Passion Week leading up the crucifixion, the conflict between Jesus and the leaders became much sharper than it had been in Jesus’ public ministry before. Now everything was clearly set in order in the events and teachings for all to see, and in seeing the issue, the people would know that their decision to accept or reject the grace of God in Christ was truly a matter of life and death, eternal life and death. He made it clear that the only way they would ever see the kingdom of heaven was by him.
The story makes it clear that there is no reason, none at all, for people to reject a gracious invitation from the King to come to the wedding feast and enjoy all good things. The only reason they reject the invitation is that they do not believe the King, or they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But since this is a call from the King, from God Himself, the people are not free to take it or leave it, even if they think they can be non-committal. To reject the invitation of God to share in the Kingdom is folly--it is to choose death; or, to reject the offer of grace is to reject God’s only provision for eternal life.
Matthew |
Mark |
Luke |
John |
Great Crowd Gathers |
12:9-11 |
The Triumphal Entry |
21:1-11 |
11:1-10 |
19:28-44 |
12:12-19 |
Jesus Visits Temple |
21:10-11 |
11:11 |
Cursing the Fig Tree |
21:18-19a |
11:12-14 |
||
2nd Cleansing of Temple |
21:12-13 |
11:15-18 |
19:45-48 |
|
Healing and Dispute |
21:14-16 |
|||
Visit of Greeks |
12:20-36 |
|||
Discourse of Unbelief |
12:37-50 |
|||
Return to Bethany |
21:17 |
11:18-19 |
19:47-48 |
Fig Tree Withered |
21:19b-22 |
11:19-26 |
Authority Questioned |
21:23-27 |
11:27-33 |
20:1-8 |
|
Parable of Two Sons |
21:28-32 |
|||
Wicked Husbandman |
21:33-46 |
12:1-9 |
20:9-19 |
|
Parable of King’s Son |
22:1-14 |
|||
Render to Caesar |
22:15-22 |
12:13-17 |
20:20-26 |
|
Sadducees’ Question |
22:23-33 |
12:18-27 |
20:27-40 |
|
Great Commandment |
22:34-40 |
12:28-34 |
||
Jesus’ Question |
22:41-46 |
12:35-37 |
20:41-44 |
|
Woes to Pharisees |
23:1-36 |
12:38-40 |
20:45-47 |
|
Lament over Jerusalem |
23:37-39 |
|||
The Widow’s Mite |
12:41-44 |
21:1-4 |
N.B. The identification of the year and the date of the Passion Week is based on the work of Harold Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Zondervan Publishing Company), and Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, A Harmony of the Gospels (Moody press, 1978).
The identification of 33 A.D. for the crucifixion is based on all the data, but especially the notice that John the Baptist began ministering in the 15th year of Tiberius, which was 29 A.D. Jesus’ ministry covered four Passovers including the one in which he was betrayed and crucified. In the year 33 A.D., Passover, the 14th of Nisan, came on Friday (actually started Thursday evening and continued through Friday), so Jesus died on what we now call Good Friday. For the arguments and discussion of other views, see the work of Hoehner.