Month: <span>January 2016</span>

As the initial chapters of Matthew’s Gospel indicate, Matthew labored to present the kingship of Jesus Christ. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, Jesus explained how His disciples should understand the Old Testament in light of His arrival and reign. Jesus argued that since He had come to fulfill the law, His followers should practice perfect, inside-out righteousness and enjoy the Father’s blessing.

Matthew’s comment, “When Jesus had finished this sermon, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, because He was teaching them like one who had authority, and not like their scribes” (Matt 7:28-29), placed Jesus in a different class than Israel’s other teachers. The crowd’s reaction showed the supremacy of Jesus; there had never been one like Him. Jesus had not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill—to show His disciples the true intent of the Old Testament witness and establish the high moral standards that accord with a relationship with the Father.

(1) In Matt 5:21-26, Jesus commanded His disciples to avoid anger the way that Moses had commanded Israel not to murder. Jesus applied the sixth commandment, “Do not murder” (Exod 20:13; Deut 5:17), to the attitudes and thoughts of His followers. Jesus warned the disciples that if they even just cursed their brother, they would be in danger of hell (Matt 5:22).

(2) In Matt 5:27-30, Jesus warned His disciples to flee from immorality and thus avoid breaking the commandment forbidding adultery. Jesus demanded that His disciples apply the seventh commandment, “Do not commit adultery” (Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18), to their eyes and heart inclinations. Extremes were in order. The commitment to follow Christ required that disciples take whatever steps necessary to avoid sexual lust.

(3) In Matt 5:31-32, Jesus cited Deut 24:1 and forbade His disciples from seeking divorce except in cases of immorality. Moses required if an Israelite man wanted to divorce his wife, he had to give her a certificate of divorce to signify that he would never take her back. Jesus later said that Moses made the certificate law as a concession to Israel’s wickedness (Matt 19:7-8//Mark 10:4-5). Jesus demanded that His followers look to the pattern of a man leaving his parents and being united to his wife (Gen 2:24) and persevere in their marital commitment according to God’s will.

(4) In Matt 5:33, Jesus cited Moses’ laws against breaking oaths as a basis for avoiding oaths altogether. In various places, Moses commanded Israel to keep their word. In Leviticus 19, Moses argued that Israel’s behavior, including truthfulness (Lev 19:18), was to reflect God’s holiness. Moses’ broader teaching about oaths in Numbers 30 also demanded that Israel keep their word (Num 30:2). The assorted commands of Deuteronomy 23 included the warning that oaths were to be taken seriously (Deut 23:21-23). Jesus’ teaching in Matt 5:33 closely reflects Moses statement in Deut 23:22. Since words matter, best to avoid swearing oaths entirely.

(5) In Matt 5:38-42, Jesus demanded that His disciples extend mercy rather than take revenge according to the law of Moses. In Exod 21:22-25, Moses commanded that if a man hit another man’s wife, the husband is free to exact judgement upon the offender just as the offender injured his wife. In Lev 24:20, Moses said that if a man permanently injured another man, the offender was to be punished with the same injury he had inflicted on the offended. In Deut 19:21, Moses established the policy that false witnesses were to be punished without mercy. Jesus’ command that His disciples to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give to the one who wanted to take.

(6) In Matt 5:43-48, Jesus required His followers to love their enemies. In Lev 19:18, Moses commanded Israel to love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus’ followers demonstrated God’s benevolence and perfect righteousness as they showed love to those who opposed them.

(7) In Matt 7:23, Jesus cited Ps 6:8 to warn His disciples that they would be in danger if they did not adhere to the high standards of the kingdom of God. In Psalm 6, the psalmist cried out asking God to deliver him from death and the evildoers who surrounded him. The psalmist and Jesus wanted companions that were characterized by covenant loyalty, those who would share with them in the blessings God promised to the faithful. Therefore, if at the judgement someone addressed Jesus as Lord but had not fulfilled Jesus’ laws in the Sermon on the Mount, that one would hear Jesus say, “Depart from Me, you lawbreakers” (Matt 7:23).

The opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew portray Scripture as a storyline—a diverse but unified narrative of God’s work in history. Jesus’ genealogy and birth, coupled with the quotations from the Old Testament, show that the drama of the nation of Israel had reached new heights in the One born of a virgin. Matthew 1-2 presents the fulfillment of prophetic hopes established in the Old Testament.

God had been at work in the history of Israel. In the Garden of Eden, the Lord said to the serpent, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15). The Advent of Jesus thus marks a significant point in the storyline of Scripture, preceded by days of promise, setting the stage for the last days, and the consummation of the kingdom of God among men. Matthew’s reliance upon the Old Testament is further evidence that the Gospel writers did not see the coming of Jesus as an event to be understood in isolation.

(1) In Matt 1:1-17, Matthew marked off Jesus’ genealogy in equal numbers from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Jesus’ birth. Jesus’ genealogy signaled fulfillment. Matthew presented David as the central figure in Israel’s history, setting up the prominent role David would play in his Gospel (Matt 1:20; 9:27; 12:3, 23; 15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9, 15; 22:42-45). Matthew composed Jesus’ genealogy to signal the fulfillment of God’s work in Israel and to present a new beginning, God’s revelatory and redemptive work in Jesus.

(2) In Matt 1:23, Matthew stated that Jesus’ birth fulfilled Isa 7:14: “The Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.” When the kings of Israel and Syria came against Judah and King Ahaz in order to force Judah to join them in an alliance against the rising Assyrian threat, Ahaz shook with fear. Isaiah told Ahaz to ask for a sign from the Lord that the Lord would deliver Judah, but Ahaz refused (Isa 7:3-11). But the Lord promised deliverance anyway—and in time sent His Son to save His people from their sins.

(3) In Matt 2:6, Matthew noted that Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem fulfilled Micah’s prophecy that from obscure Bethlehem God would raise a mighty deliverer. In Mic 5:2, the prophet reminded his audience of God’s power. Even though the Lord had brought foreign powers against Israel to discipline His people, so mighty was God to deliver that from even tiny Bethlehem the Lord would raise up a deliverer to shepherd His people to victory. The scholars Herod gathered to inquire as to the birthplace of the Messiah had gotten it right. Herod felt threatened when he heard the prophecy that a military shepherd, like David, might arise from Bethlehem. Herod took the word of the Lord seriously and killed the baby boys of Bethlehem to eliminate any possible threat to his reign.

(4) In Matt 2:6, Matthew noted that Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt fulfilled Hos 11:1, which says, “Out of Egypt I called My son.” Hosea indicted Israel and Judah. Even though the Lord had been faithful to them since the time of the exodus, when He called His son, Israel, to worship Him in the wilderness (Exod 4:23), Israel and Judah continued in idolatry. As God had sent Israel to Egypt during a severe famine in Canaan (Genesis 46) and had rescued them from Pharaoh’s oppressive hand (Exodus 4-15), so God sent the baby Jesus and family to Egypt to protect them from Herod. Matthew used Hos 11:1 to portray a new kind of exodus occurring in Jesus.

(5) In Matt 2:18, Matthew wrote that Jeremiah’s description of mourning anticipated families in Bethlehem weeping at the loss of their children. Jeremiah 31 records the prophet’s words of hope, looking to the day when the Lord would restore His people and bring them back from exile. Hope is expressed by those who are suffering loss, and in Jer 31:15, the prophet described Rachel weeping for the loss of her children as they went into exile. The weeping of the families in Bethlehem looks back to Israel’s history and the need for a deliverer who would rescue Israel from sin. Only Jesus’ life-giving death could end the kind of grief Israel experienced at the exile and at the hands of Herod.