Study of Matthew

[job 1:21]

From: https://torahclass.com/
 
Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 1, Introduction
The New Testament contains 4 gospel accounts of the life, purpose, and
meaning of the most unique man in history: Yeshua of Nazareth, known better
within the Western Christian Church as Jesus Christ. The creation and ordering
of this New Testament addition to the Bible occurred early in the 3rd century A.D.
(and until that time the Bible consisted only of what gentiles call the Old
Testament). What I just told you about when the New Testament was created is
not in particular dispute among Bible scholars; however it does tend to startle and
worry many lay Christians and Pastors when they learn this. So I can be clear in
what this means for modern Believers, let me expand upon what I just stated.
While it is true that the 4 gospels and some of Paul's letters and many more
documents were circulated among the dozens of congregations of Believing
Jews and gentiles in the 1st century (that is, in the first few decades following
Christ's birth, death, and resurrection), the only authorized document that was
the Bible for these Believers continued to be the Hebrew Tanakh.... the Old
Testament. The 4 gospels and the several letters from Paul were considered
important (as were other documents that have been lost to history, and some
preserved but not accepted by the modern Church as inspired), and they carried
the same kind of authority as any edict of religious leadership bore in that era.
However.... and this is so important to understand at that time these gospels
and letters were NOT considered to be new Holy Scripture nor were they seen or
intended as the contents of a new and different Christian Bible. In fact, the
person that suggested such a radical idea was a gentile named Marcion.
The first recorded attempt to actually consider Paul's letters and certain of the
Gospels as "Holy Scripture" happened in 144 A.D. Marcion, a European, was a
recent Christian convert; a wealthy and powerful shipping magnate. He was not a
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
church leader but he did write a book that struck a cord among the now
thoroughly gentile-dominated church. In his book entitled "Antithesis" he put
forth his personal theology and it began with the proposition that all things of
Jewish origin and flavor must be eliminated from the Church; the Church father
Ignatius agreed with this view. Therefore according to Marcion and Ignatius the
Church needed to create a new gentiles-only Christian Bible and once created
declare the Hebrew Bible as null and void for gentile followers of Jesus. Marcion
also declared that the Christian Bible should consist only of the Gospel of Luke
plus certain of Paul's epistles. But even then it should not include the ENTIRE
Gospel of Luke; what amounts to the first 4 chapters were to be eliminated since
they dealt with the Jewish linage of Christ.
Marcion was widely denounced but he also gained a substantial following. No
known church body formally adopted his proposition (at least not in the form he
suggested and not until many years passed). Even when the Gospels, Paul's
letters, and the Book of Revelation were finally adopted by the Church,
canonized, and declared inspired of God early in the 3rd century in order to form
the first New Testament, the Old Testament was retained as the foundation of the
Christian Bible. So, as an important context and background for us to correctly
discern the meaning of the Gospels and all of the New Testament, we must
accept that while today we (rightly) look upon the New Testament as inspired of
God and as infallible in its original as is the Old Testament, in no way was that
how the writers of these New Testament books saw their own literary works, nor
did the early readers of these documents assign to them the same divine and
inspired status of the venerated Old Testament.
Which of the several gospels and other documents would be included in the New
Testament vacillated over the years, depending on the branch of the Church and
which Bishop was in charge. The books and the order they are presented in that
we see today in the West is either the Protestant version or it is the Catholic
version that contains several Apocryphal books not included in the Protestant
version. Even more, the books of James, Hebrews, and Revelation have been
removed, added back in, removed again, and so on over the centuries depending
on the Church branch. However for the sake of simplicity we can generally say
that in our time the order of the New Testament books is the same for nearly all
Christian denominations and branches.
Therefore, virtually all New Testaments open with the 4 Gospels, and in the order
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. Interestingly, the first 3 Gospels are seen
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
as having a different approach to telling about the life of Christ when compared to
the 4th Gospel (the Gospel of John), such that the first 3 are lumped together and
called the Synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic is taken from the Greek and it
means "to see together". So the idea is that the first 3 Gospels (Matthew, Mark
and Luke) are similar to one another and more or less seek to tell a simple story
in an easy to read style. Yet, despite the similarities, there are differences and a
number of complexities when comparing them.
The Gospel of John is seen by Bible scholars as substantially different enough in
approach and style so as to not be included as among the Synoptics. This is in
no way an attempt to diminish the importance or impact of the 4th Gospel. Even
so, I question this scholarly attempt to make John's Gospel as a sort of outlier as
compared to the first 3. When one researches various Bible academics'
explanations for why it is proper for the Gospel of John to be seen as different
enough from the others so as to be considered as a separate category, one
begins to understand how subjective and arcane the arguments are. For
instance, John's is usually said to be "the spiritual Gospel". I have no idea what
that means. Are the first 3 absent of any spiritual element? Hardly. In defense of
that dubious label, Bible scholars point out that while the Synoptic Gospels all
begin with an important event in the human life of Yeshua, John starts with
Yeshua's eternal and divine nature by saying: "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". Yet, John quickly veers
into many acts of Yeshua during His life on earth. Bottom line: I think the
grouping of the first 3 Gospels together and separating out John's as something
substantially different is overblown and little more than an academic attempt to
rethink (if not revise) these Gospel accounts. In fact, this grouping of the 3 into
something similar and common, and therefore different and apart from the 4th,
only occurred shortly before the beginning of the 19th century and only in the
West. From my viewpoint, each of the 4 Gospels brings its own distinctive
perspective to the life, purpose, and meaning of Messiah Yeshua. Since they are
all telling the story of the same man, there is natural overlap and repetition. At the
same time, since not everything Jesus did can possibly be included in these
modest sized documents, each author picked and chose what he thought to be
the most significant events his readers ought to know about, and to a degree he
presented events that helped put together a logical progression and history of
Christ's life to best explain who He was, and the impact He made.
Over the next many months, we will be examining only the Gospels, and of them
only the first: the Book of Matthew. Before we begin in earnest we need to get
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
some important housekeeping matters out of the way by dealing with some
issues that are going to come up. And the first is: why is Matthew the first
Gospel?
Naturally, Bible scholars are divided on this issue. The oldest extant New
Testament manuscripts we have, have Matthew as the first Gospel. Although we
have large fragments of the 4 Gospels going back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries,
the oldest complete New Testament is from the 4th century and is given the
name Codex Sinaiticus. So the only evidence available is that Matthew is not
only the first book of the New Testament, but it is the first of the 4 Gospel
accounts. Why was it put first in that order? The most logical explanation is that it
was the first Gospel written. Yet the majority of modern scholars don't accept that
Matthew is the oldest; rather they say it was Mark.
The Gospel accounts all contain similar stories about events in Yeshua's life and
many of the same sayings. Sometimes the accounts and sayings are identical,
and at other times they vary. How is this explained? Let's begin by grasping that
none of the 3 Synoptic Gospel writers were eyewitnesses to Christ's life, but the
author of the 4th Gospel, John, claims that he was an eyewitness.
CJB John 21:20-25 20 Kefa turned and saw the talmid Yeshua especially
loved following behind, the one who had leaned against him at the supper
and had asked, "Who is the one who is betraying you?" 21 On seeing him,
Kefa said to Yeshua, "Lord, what about him?" 22 Yeshua said to him, "If I
want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you? You, follow
me!" 23 Therefore the word spread among the brothers that that talmid
would not die. However, Yeshua didn't say he wouldn't die, but simply, "If I
want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you?" 24 This one is the talmid
who is testifying about these things and who has recorded them. And we
know that his testimony is true. 25 But there are also many other things
Yeshua did; and if they were all to be recorded, I don't think the whole
world could contain the books that would have to be written!
It is claimed in our time that the actual authors of the 3 Synoptic Gospels are
anonymous. And that only long after the Gospels were anonymously written were
they finally, somewhat arbitrarily, assigned names. Margarete Davies in her book
"Studying the Synoptic Gospels" uses the typical rationale for saying that the
Gospels only received their names at a late date. She says: "The Gospel writers,
it will turn out, did not follow the usual Greek and Roman practice of naming
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
themselves, but rather the tradition of anonymous publication, a practice
frequently followed in Jewish literature." Like with a couple of other issues we'll
explore, this one is interesting in light of how modern Bible scholars have come
to this conclusion.
Let's begin with evidence that is outside of the Bible itself. Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons, wrote his great work "Against Heresies" not later than 180 A.D. In that
work he not only quoted specific Gospel passages that match what we have in
our New Testaments today, but he also named each Gospel by the same names
we use today: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If we go back another 40 years, to
about 140 A.D., Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis also alludes to at least some of
the Gospels as he mentions Matthew and Mark by name, and says he got some
of this information about the Matthew and Mark documents from an (unnamed)
but earlier church elder. No matter; the fact that these two Gospels are named by
around 110 A.D. or so says that Matthew and Mark were called by those names
no later than the generation following their creation. However, even with this
evidence sitting before our modern Bible scholars, again Margaret Davies
assumes the same conclusion they do: "In the period 90 - 150 A.D., though our
Gospels probably had been written, the author's names were not known.... in this
period Papias stands alone". Papias stands alone. In other words, during this
time period of 90-150 A.D., since the only written record of the Gospels already
being named is Papias, then this evidence has to be thrown out. To my thinking if
Papias was a liar (for what possible purpose?) he was also clairvoyant in
predicting what the Gospel names would be in the future!
And yet, do these Bible scholars have some kind of firm evidence that the
Gospels were NOT named by this time? To contradict Papias they use what
writers of that same era do NOT say when quoting Gospel passages that are
similar to what we find in the Gospel accounts today. That is: since some of the
writers in the 90- 150 A.D. timeframe do NOT mention the Gospels by name, but
only quote some passages, then many modern Bible scholars say that this is
proof positive that the Gospels could not have been named (and thus were still
anonymous), even though Papias of that same era DID list the Gospels by name!
But because he was only 1 person, and his testimony doesn't arrive at the
conclusion these scholars seek, it is discarded. No record exists of any Early
Church Fathers challenging the notion that the authors of the Gospels were
known and attributed to each Gospel from the time of their creation. So as
preposterous as it seems that some modern scholars refuse to take the historical
record to settle this matter, this is not the only issue concerning details about the
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
creation of the Gospels where modern Bible scholars use the same strategy of
simple denial of the written historical evidence.
Since we find the same, or very similar, quotes from Christ used among the
Synoptic Gospel accounts, then the question is this: which Gospel was written
first such that the later ones borrowed from it? Right or wrong, it is generally the
belief of modern Bible scholars that Mark is the earliest Gospel written with
Matthew (especially) drawing heavily from it. This would be a good time to
explain something important about these Synoptic Gospel accounts: since very
likely none of the authors were eyewitnesses to Christ's life, then where did they
get their information? Clearly this is a valid question. Some say that if Mark was
the first Gospel written, when we find the same or similar quotes used in Matthew
and Luke, then it means Matthew and Luke must have used Mark's Gospel as
one of their chief sources of information. But then this also begs the question:
what were Mark's sources if indeed his was the first? The answer is that it is not
known; but it can be reasonably deduced that documents containing quotes from
Christ and other details of His life events had to be in existence prior to the
Gospel accounts being written. How many of these other sources existed, what
they were and who wrote them down we don't know.
I won't bore you with the tiny details of just how modern Bible scholars have
come to the conclusion that it was Mark who wrote his Gospel first, and Matthew
especially drew from his. However, the method is that generally similar quotes
from Mark and Matthew are held up side by side and modern experts choose
which one they think is the most authentic. Often this choice is made on the
assumption that the shorter quotation is always the correct one, and the longer is
merely modifying the shorter. What evidence is there for this? None; all is
subjective analysis. So while the academic world tilts heavily towards Mark being
the first Gospel written, and thus Matthew and Luke drew from it, there is a
substantial minority who insists that it was the Matthew Gospel that came first
and Mark and Luke drew from him. It is unlikely that this debate will ever be fully
settled since there is no absolute proof either way.
But a related issue is this: while all the existing copies of the Gospels that we
have today were written in Greek, there are hints and implications within the
Matthew Gospel that suggest that it could have been originally written in Hebrew
or Aramaic, and then very soon translated into Greek. And connected to that
matter is this: was Matthew a gentile or a Jewish Believer? The gentile Church
from as early as the mid 2nd century wanted little connection between the Jewish
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
people and Christianity, and therefore desired to have a separate Christian Bible
that emphasized gentile authority and preeminence. So in modern times a broad␂based wish that is expressed in the strong opinions by Bible scholars and Church
authorities of the Gospel authorship, does not take kindly to the idea that ANY of
the Gospel accounts were written by Jews. If indeed the Gospel of Matthew was
originally written in Hebrew or even Aramaic, then it is very nearly indisputable
evidence that Matthew was a Jew and the Gospel was written for Jewish readers.
Therefore every effort is made to prove that Matthew was a gentile. Is there firm
evidence to settle this matter? There is some evidence within the Gospel itself,
but external sources are the more powerful.
Eusibius, Bishop of Caesarea (around 300 A.D.) makes a statement that he
attributes to having originally come from Papias over 150 years earlier. He says
this: "Now Matthew made an ordered arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew
language, and each one translated as he was able." Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons,
in around 180 A.D. also referred to Papias in regard to the Gospel of Matthew:
"Matthew, also among the Hebrews, published a written gospel in their own
dialect, when Peter and Paul were still preaching in Rome and found the church
there".
These ancient records state unequivocally that the Gospel of Matthew was
written while Peter and Paul were still alive (early 60's A.D.), and that Matthew
was a Hebrew, and that he published a Gospel in his own dialect (which could
have been either Hebrew or Aramaic as they are close-cousin languages and
both were spoken fluently among ordinary Jewish folk in the 1st century A.D.).
And so from the reference to Peter and Paul we can rather easily deduce that
Matthew was almost certainly the first Gospel account written, and thus Mark and
Luke had to have drawn some of their information and quotes from him. And if
this is fact, it would seem to offer insight as to the reason that the Christian
council decided the order of the Gospels to open the New Testament as they did:
to their knowledge Matthew should be first because it was written first; Mark is
second because it was written second; Luke is third because it was written third;
and John is 4th because it was the latest Gospel written.
Surprisingly, many notable Bible scholars since the early 19th century say that
Eusibius, Irenaeus, and Papias are all wrong. These earliest Church Fathers are
thought to be in error, even though they were but a few generations from the time
when the Gospels were written, and Papias may have been living when the
Apostle John was still alive as he implies that he personally heard him speak. I
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
hope you're seeing a pattern here. Any ancient attestation against what some
modern Bible scholars wish to prove is brushed aside. Too much in our time,
especially linguistic experts are certain that they know the ancient languages and
their meanings better than those who lived and spoke them 2000 years ago and
more. Despite what eyewitnesses said occurred and recorded it in their ancient
documents, including such details as who was involved, when and in what order
events happened, and what it meant to those who lived it, modern historians
often believe that they are better equipped hundreds even thousands of years
later to give us a more accurate account and meaning. Not to be too harsh, but
the word I would use to describe such chutzpah is revisionist history. So while
many of these highly regarded modern era Bible scholars have indeed aided in
my study, and that of many hundreds of others, I cannot side step that such
conclusions are based primarily upon their own opinions and doctrinal beliefs that
at times go directly against the written recorded evidence.
The point is this: personal study and research make it my viewpoint that Matthew
was a Jew and his Gospel is aimed primarily towards Jewish Believers. Daniel
Harrington in his commentary on Matthew entitled "Sacra Pagina" says this in the
introduction: "This commentary on Matthew's Gospel has been written from a
Jewish perspective one that I believe is demanded from the text itself".
Obviously I agree with Harrington; and as his commentary and other fine
commentaries expose, the Gospel of Matthew is filled with semitisms (that is,
Jewish cultural expressions) that can be masked by their translation into Greek
and then later into other languages, mostly notably English. But even more
important, these Jewish expressions can be misunderstood especially when
taken out of their 1st century Jewish context.
Further, while the other Gospels also contain some amount of semitisms,
Matthew without doubt also pays closest attention to the Torah; both oral and
written. This can be best expressed by the curious reality that Christ's seminal
speech during His few years of ministry, a speech Christians rightly venerate and
call The Sermon on the Mount, is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. So
important was it to Matthew that he devoted 3 chapters to it.
I want to take just a moment to state that while it is possible that Luke was a
gentile, Mark certainly wasn't and of course neither was John. So I'm not making
the contention that of the Gospels only Matthew had a Jewish author. Rather I'm
saying that of the 3 Synoptic Gospels, Matthew can be said to be "the most
Jewish" in its form, approach, and in addressing matters that were critically
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
important to the Jewish community. In fact, Matthew used much Jewish rhetoric
and several themes that only Jews would have inherently understood. Thus as
21st century readers of the Bible, expanded explanations of certain subject
matter that we hope would have been there, aren't. Why? Because for Matthew's
intended Jewish audience, no expanded explanation was necessary. We'll talk
about this considerably more as we begin to explore the text of the Matthew
Gospel chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
Although I've already explained that some Early Church Fathers that lived only a
generation or two after the time that the Gospel writers lived stated and recorded
that Matthew was the first Gospel written, the question of exactly the year it was
written needs to be answered. There are two trains of thought in Bible academia
about this. The first is that it was written before the destruction of the Temple that
happened in 70 A.D., and the second is that it was written after. The first takes
into account the ancient records that say Matthew was written first in Hebrew or
Aramaic and while Peter and Paul were still alive. And since we know that Paul
died somewhere in the mid-60's A.D., then the record of the Early Church
Fathers makes it clear that Matthew had to have been written prior to the Temple
destruction of 70 A.D., which came around 5 years after Paul's death.
The second train of thought is that Matthew was written after the Temple
destruction. This is because such a timeframe fits in better with the modern era
Bible academic belief that Mark (and not Matthew) was the first Gospel written.
Their lone piece of biblical evidence for this firm conclusion comes from a
statement in Matthew 24:1, 2 (that is also used in Luke's Gospel).
CJB Matthew 24:1 As Yeshua left the Temple and was going away, his
talmidim came and called his attention to its buildings. 2 But he answered
them, "You see all these? Yes! I tell you, they will be totally destroyed- not
a single stone will be left standing!"
Therefore since Matthew (and Luke) included this prediction from Christ in their
Gospels (and Mark didn't), then for most 20th and 21st century Bible scholars this
is proof enough that this statement was inserted only because the writer of
Matthew wanted to prove that Yeshua's prophecy actually came true.
What we find all too often in modern commentaries on Matthew (and all the
Gospels for that matter), is a sort of pseudo-forensic study of the minds of the
authors of the Gospels, in which the commentary writer claims to know what the
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
Gospel writer was thinking at the time, and his motives behind saying the things
he did, or in some cases for omitting other pieces of information. I don't mean to
be rude, but I find such an attempt at dissecting the minds of people of another
culture, who lived 2000 years ago, as a bridge too far. What these scholars
decide cannot, of course, ever be proved or disproved; but they can persuade
and that makes such a practice dangerous. Today's new standard is that if a
preponderance of Bible scholars share the same opinion, it amounts to fact. But
the fact is that none of the Synoptic Gospel accounts make direct mention of the
destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.; that much is certain. Admittedly, no mention
of it is not proof positive that the destruction had not already occurred by the time
of the Gospels' creation. After all: the Gospel accounts were meant to be about
the life of Jesus, who died around 40 years before the Temple was destroyed by
the Romans. So speaking of the destruction of the Temple would have been
outside the context of the purpose and scope of their work. Thus the only direct
statements we have as direct evidence from which to judge when Matthew may
have been written are from people who are the likeliest to have known, and who
had no discernable motives to lie or make up a story like this from thin air. The
earliest Church Fathers Eusibius, Ireneaus, and Papias all say that the Gospel of
Matthew was written during a time that Peter and Paul were still preaching in
Rome (which was in the mid-60's A.D.). The Church Father Origen of Alexandria,
Egypt also agreed with Papias (Origen lived during the time that the New
Testament was first organized and canonized early in the 200's A.D.). Therefore I
can only conclude that Matthew's Gospel was written in the mid-60's A.D.,
concurrently with the ministries of Peter and Paul in Rome.
While we can trust all the Gospel accounts, I think Matthew's is especially
important because of its early date, and because he was obviously (to my
thinking) an educated Jew who was very familiar with the Torah and with Jewish
religious tradition and social structure. But was he a Holy Land Jew, or was he a
Diaspora Jew that lived in a distant land? It matters because it deals with what
kind of culture he was steeped in; a Hellenized Greek speaking culture, or a more
traditional Hebrew and Aramaic speaking Jewish culture. Interestingly, of those
scholars who accept Matthew's Jewishness, the bulk label him as a Palestinian
Jew. For them, the term Palestine is a substitute for Holy Land, or for Judea and
Galilee. This means that he was geographically residing near to the Temple such
that he could be involved with its many activities, but was also near the center of
Synagogue authority such that he was well versed not only in the Law of Moses,
but also in the traditions of the Pharisees who were the dominant religious sect
within the Synagogue system.
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Lesson 1 - Matthew Introduction
While we'll discuss at length the religious and social systems of both the Holy
Land Jews and the Diaspora Jews in following lessons, I do want to close out our
time together with this. During at least the last 150 years leading up to Christ's
birth, all during His lifetime, all during the lifetimes of Peter and Paul and of the
original Disciples, and until the fall of the Temple to the Romans in 70 A.D., the
Jewish people operated under a dual, generally complementary, religious
system. However this dual system was run by two different sets of authorities and
they couldn't have been more different. The one system was the Temple system,
under the authority of the Sadducees. These were aristocrats who inherited or
purchased their positions of authority. The other system was the Synagogue
system under the authority of educated rabbis and scribes; the common class
who, nearly universally, were members of the sect of the Pharisees. These two
systems were not necessarily rivals, but each occupied a certain space in the
overall Jewish religious scheme that was, generally speaking, inseparable from
every day social life. A natural tension existed between the two.
The Temple was where biblically mandated Feasts and sacrifices occurred, and
where the judicial system operated. The Synagogue system was a result of the
Babylonian exile, when the Temple and its system went defunct for a time.
Organized religion was a critically import part of every person's life in that era
pagan or Jew. So for the Jews up in Babylon, they could not tolerate not having
some sort of religious system operated by some kind of authority that was
Hebrew in its nature. Priests were only authorized to rule in the Temple so the
new system was run by what the Church would call lay persons.
Especially after their release from captivity in Babylon, about 95% of all Jews
chose not to return to the Holy Land but rather to live in foreign nations. Even
though Ezra and Nehemiah had led the rebuilding of the Temple and
reinstatement of its Priestly system, the bulk of Jews remained far away from the
Temple and its influence. Thus, for them, the Synagogue authority and system
emerged and it became the center of their Jewish religious expression. Only
later, perhaps 70 or 80 years before Yeshua was born, did the Synagogue finally
take hold in the Holy Land. But when it did, it became popular and every bit as
important to the Jewish people as the Temple system; just in different ways.
Clearly, of all the Gospel writers, Matthew was the one most familiar with the full
scope of Jewish religion the religion and culture of our Savior, Yeshua the
Christ and it is why his Gospel is the one we will study.
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 2, Chapter 1
The worldview from which we are going to study the Gospel of Matthew is this:
Matthew (whether that was the author's actual name or not) was a Jewish
Believer. This is an essential starting point because for centuries the institutional
Church has tried to push the narrative that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark
and Luke) were written by gentile Believers for gentile Believers. The Earliest of
Church Fathers Papias, Irenaeus, and Eusibius record that Matthew wrote his
Gospel at the time that Paul was preaching in Rome, so that would place it in the
mid-60's A.D. no more than 30 years after Christ's ministry. It also means it was
composed and in circulation among the Believing congregations prior to the
Romans besieging Jerusalem and destroying the Temple. Very likely this was the
first Gospel account written of the 4 Gospels we find that begin the New
Testament.
Although we have some early fragments of Matthew's Gospel dating back to the
late 2nd or early 3rd century, they are not the original documents nor are they
complete. The earliest complete copy we have comes from the 4th century, and
is included in what is called the Codex Sinaiticus. All of the earliest known copies
(or even just fragments of copies) are written in Greek; however, there is actual
written historical evidence from these same earliest Church Fathers forthrightly
stating that Matthew first wrote his Gospel in his own native language, Hebrew
(perhaps it was Aramaic, a cousin language to Hebrew), before it was soon
thereafter translated into Greek. This says that Matthew's intended audience was
Jews; another key to our study.
Therefore Matthew's Gospel is (in my estimation) the most Jewish of the Synoptic
Gospels, containing a number of Jewish cultural expressions (called Hebraisms
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
in the academic world), which are typically somewhat obscured or masked
because of their translation into foreign languages (such as English), but also
because while Greek is a very precise language, at times it doesn't have the
vocabulary that can accurately translate Hebrew concepts and their nuances to
the Greek language and culture. It also means that some things that Matthew put
into his Gospel that were inherently understood by Jews in that era would have
been foreign and confusing to gentiles, and it remains especially so to the
modern Church that is so many centuries removed from both the time and the
culture of the 1st century Jews. Add in a deeply embedded anti-Semitism within
Church traditions, doctrines and allegorical teachings, and we have the perfect
recipe for contorting Matthew to fit whatever meaning any particular Church
branch would like it to mean.
Parables play a crucial role in Matthew and when we come to Yeshua's teachings
using parables we're going to talk extensively about them: their nature and their
place in 1st century Jewish society. Just know this much before we get started:
Christ didn't invent the literary style of parables. Parables were common and a
mainstay within Jewish culture for a very long time before Jesus and were a
regular feature used forteaching Torah principles.
Because Matthew shaped his Gospel for reading by 1st century Jews, we're
going to spend much time learning about the mindset of those Jews and their
world in the Holy Land; but also the entirely different world where the bulk of
them lived dispersed into the gentle nations throughout Asia, Europe, and
Northern Africa. We'll study about how their religion was practiced at that time,
their societal norms and nuances, and even what it was like for them living under
Roman rule. These are among the several necessary ingredients that help to
build the much needed context for properly understanding and interpreting
Matthew's Gospel. All too often especially Christ's words, and particularly as
they were spoken in His parables, have been misunderstood over the centuries
because they have been filtered through Western gentile eyes instead of Eastern
Jewish eyes. My goal is for us to understand the meaning of Matthew's words
just as they would have been understood by the common Jewish folk in his time.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1. READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 1 all
For those who studied the Torah with me, one of the things you learned was that
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
those long, tedious genealogies we encountered, full of impossible to pronounce
names, carried more meaning and importance than a casual reading of them
would imply. Genealogies in the Bible era were used for different purposes than
we use them today. For us genealogies are primarily a way to chart precise
family trees. The information they supply has the purpose of telling us exactly
who we are related to and perhaps where our ancestors came from. Hebrew
genealogies, on the other hand, were used for different and varying purposes
depending on the circumstances. For instance they were regularly used to prove
inheritance rights that almost always involved land. Or they were meant as a
bridge to connect a living person to a highly revered person who lived centuries
earlier thus giving the contemporary person an elevated social status. Sometimes
they were used to provide evidence of regal association and provide a basis to
that person's claim of the right to rule. Not surprisingly Mathew's Gospel begins
with such a list and it too had its own purpose and agenda. This was not an
attempt at subterfuge or spin; it was the norm for that era when presenting the
credentials of a very important person.
The second word of the opening verse of Matthew is in almost all English Bible
versions "genealogy ". Webster's Dictionary says that genealogy is "a line of
descent traced continuously from an ancestor". Therefore when we read the word
"genealogy" to us it means that this list of names is but a simple table of distant
family from the past that traces without interruption from a beginning ancestor to
Yeshua of Nazareth. However in Greek the word is "genesis"; yes, the same
word used as the title for the first book of the Bible (or more appropriately in the
case of Matthew and his era, the name of the first book of the Torah). Some
scholars will argue that we are to take this word "genesis" in the sense of a "birth
record". However that is certainly not how it was meant when pointing especially
to the 1st book of the Torah and the Creation account. Rather (as we put on our
1st century Jewish mindset) a theme that flows throughout the Gospel accounts
and all of the New Testament is that the advent of Christ is to be viewed first and
foremost as the beginning of a re-creation: a second genesis. Paul advances this
theme is several of his books:
CJB 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is
a new creation- the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new!
John's Gospel follows along even though his doesn't begin with a genealogy;
rather he opens his story of Messiah by making a direct connection of His advent
with the 1st and original genesis. That is, for John, while Yeshua is the
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
inaugurator of a 2nd genesis, a re-creation (that we find in the New Testament),
He was also there to inaugurate the 1st genesis, the original creation (that we
find in the Torah).
CJB John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things
came to be through him, and without him nothing made had being.
Paul in Romans chapter 5 expands that connection as he makes Christ to be the
epitome of a 2nd Adam. W.D. Davies in his enormous, 3 volume 2000 page
commentary on Matthew says that the best possible interpretation and translation
of the opening few words of Matthew should be: "Book of the New Genesis
wrought by Jesus Christ, son of David, Son of Abraham." This concept of Christ
inaugurating an actual (not a metaphorical) 2nd genesis, a full-on re-creation, is
brought home to us all the more in final book of the New Testament: the Book of
Revelation.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there. 2 Also I saw the holy city, New Yerushalayim, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband. 3
I heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's Sh'khinah
is with mankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and he
himself, God-with-them, will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes. There will no longer be any death; and there will no longer
be any mourning, crying or pain; because the old order has passed
away." 5 Then the One sitting on the throne said, "Look! I am making
everything new!" Also he said, "Write, 'These words are true and
trustworthy!"'
Because Matthew was a Jewish Believer, then His opening point is also to
demonstrate that Yeshua meets all the requirements of the Torah and the
Tanakh (the Old Testament) to be the Messiah of God the Hebrew people have
longed for, since according to the Scriptures the true Messiah must be a
descendant of Abraham, Jacob, Judah, Jessie, and David. Notice also how the
opening verse is like a preamble that introduces the genealogy. That is, Yeshua's
identity is summed up as simply the son of David, son of Abraham. Only
thereafter (starting in verse 2) does the actual generation by generation
accounting of Christ's ancestors begin. By saying that Yeshua is the son of
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
David, the intent is prove that He is royalty of the tribe of Judah through David,
which makes Him of the proper family line to rule. By saying also that He is the
son of Abraham, it makes a firm connection that He is a full-fledged Hebrew and
therefore eligible to bring about the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis
12 that through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. So we find
Matthew beginning his table of ancestors with Abraham, the founder of the
special set apart people for God, and so the list of Christ's ancestors is
a descending list (oldest first) that begins with Father Abraham and ends with
Messiah Yeshua.
The other genealogy of Jesus that we find in the New Testament is present in the
Gospel of Luke. It must not be overlooked that Luke's genealogy begins with
Yeshua and works in ascending order (newest first), which ends with Adam and
then God. The usual Hebrew (and thus biblical) way of presenting a genealogy is
one that is organized in descending order. Genesis 4:17 begins the Bible's first
genealogy; it is given in descending order and the Hebrew tradition of presenting
a genealogy beginning with the oldest first seems to have been taken from that.
Luke, the writer of the Gospel named for him, is regularly said to be Dr. Luke, the
gentile companion of Paul (that is very likely so). Therefore I find it informative
that when he supplies a genealogy of Christ, he does it in a very un-Hebrew way;
he writes it in ascending order (that is, backwards from the Jewish norm).
Further, while Luke endeavors to connect Christ to the ancestor of every
human Hebrew and gentile which is Adam, Matthew seeks to connect
Christ to His Hebrew origins, so he begins with the undisputed Father of the
Hebrews, Abraham. This is more evidence that while Luke was probably a
gentile, Matthew was indeed a Jew.
From an overall standpoint, we should notice that the ancestor list in Matthew's
Gospel is divided into 3 equal parts of 14 generations each. So Matthew has
created a carefully ordered structure in his genealogy that is not found in Luke's.
Between Abraham and David he lists 14 generations. Then from David to the
Babylonian Exile are 14 more generations. And finally from the Babylonian Exile
to Yeshua are the remaining 14 generations giving us a total of 42. Without doubt
the structure Matthew used is meant to convey some kind of meaning, because
the list of ancestors is incomplete and skips generations. Before we explore that,
I'd like to emphasize something I told you a few minutes ago: the Hebrews did
NOT construct genealogies with the same purpose as it is for modern
Westerners. Ancient Hebrew genealogies were most often intended to
communicate a meaning with an agenda. They were not meant to convey a
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
precise all-inclusive record of a family tree (although there were times, such as in
certain chapters of Chronicles, when they were indeed meant primarily as a more
complete family history).
There are a number of scholarly theories behind the reason for Matthew's
structure of Christ's genealogy, and how we cannot help but notice its rather neat
mathematical basis. Some think he simply borrowed it, as is, from a pre-existing
record. Others think Matthew intended to connect it to Daniel's 7 weeks of years
(490 years). If one assigns a value of 35 years as a biblical generation (which I
think is a reach) and multiplies it by 14 it adds up to 490. Another theory says that
since a moon cycle is 28 days (which isn't really true, it's 29 1/2) with 14 days
waxing and 14 days waning, then the structure of the genealogy characterizes
the ebb and flow of Hebrew history that we find among the persons that form the
3 groups of 14 generations. I could go on with a few other theories but prefer not
to because the one theory that I think acknowledges the mathematical basis of
Matthew's structure in a way familiar to 1st century Jews is that the foundation of
it is Hebrew gematria; that is, the biblical meaning of numbers.
It is hard to ignore that David's Hebrew name consists of 3 consonants and has a
gematria value of 14. Even more, David's name is 14th on Matthew's list. So
what exactly is Matthew trying to communicate to us? While I'm not 100% certain
of it, it seems to me that David is the key to it all because all throughout the NT
Yeshua is said to be the son of David. And in the Old Testament (the only Bible
known to Matthew) as well as in many Rabbinical writings, the Messiah must be
the son of David. So I do think that the mathematical structure of David's name
expressed in Hebrew gematria may well be the best explanation for the pattern
for Yeshua's genealogy used by Matthew.
We should also not overlook the use of the number 42 in the Bible. Matthew
exposits 42 generations (3 X 14 = 42) from Abraham to Yeshua. The prophet
Daniel (upon whom so much of Revelation is based) speaks of the End Times
and the rule of the Anti-Christ using the key numbers 1260 days, 3 1/2 years, and
42 months. 1260 days and 3 1/2 years are the same as 42 months. Did Matthew
intend to communicate a connection between Yeshua's genealogy, David's
name, Daniel's End Times prophecy, and so the purpose for His coming? As of
now (at least for me) it is the most likely of all theories put forward as it
corresponds well to actual biblical information, and the Jewish culture and
mindset of the 1st century. A Jew of that day (especially the more learned ones)
would probably notice the structure at the beginning of the Gospel in those terms
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
using the numbers 3, 14, and 42 because due to the oppression of Rome,
Daniel's prophecies were hugely popular as well as were Messianic expectations
running high. During that era it was believed that the End Times of Daniel and the
coming of the Messiah occurred in tandem. 8o it all could have worked together
quite seamlessly in the minds of Jews at that time; especially Jewish followers of
Christ. For gentiles? Not so much.
There's a few interesting and pertinent things to notice within this genealogy. One
of the most obvious is the mention of the Babylonian exile. By highlighting this
catastrophic event Matthew uses Christ's genealogy as a kind of salvation history
lesson. The Babylonian Exile was a game changer for Jews. I say "for Jews"
because 130 years or so prior to Babylon capturing Judah, Assyria had
conquered the northern region of the divided Kingdom of Israel that was occupied
by 10 of the 12 Israelite tribes. Those 10 tribes were deported and scattered
around Asia and Northern Africa and in time that event gained the mythical title of
the 10 lost tribes of Israel. The only Israelite tribes that remained free and in their
own land were those in the southern half of the Kingdom: Judah and most of
Benjamin. These are the people who came to be called Jews. So it was the Jews
(and not all of Israel) who were captives of Babylon.
This event was seen by the Jews as a terrible judgment upon them by God,
because even His own Temple was destroyed, which meant that they had no
means to atone for their sins or to commune with God. It was an event that would
forever change the community of Jews because when King Cyrus of Persia
effectively rescued the Jews from Babylon and allowed them to freely return to
their homeland, even to rebuild their precious Temple, only about 5% of those
exiled made the trip home. The remainder willingly chose to live scattered about
the countless gentile communities in the Persian Empire. Therefore whereas to
the Jewish people the term "salvation" had always meant deliverance from the
oppression of a gentile conqueror, upon the advent of Christ the word took on
new significance as meaning deliverance from sin and eternal death.
Another important factor is the naming of 4 women in Matthew's genealogy of
Yeshua; the inclusion of women in a Hebrew genealogy is rare. The 4 were
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (called "the wife of Uriah" in the text).
Tamar was the daughter in law of Judah (the founder of the tribe of Judah) who
disguised herself as a prostitute and produced twin sons with him. Rahab is the
inn keeper/prostitute of Jericho, who betrayed her own people to help Israel and
Joshua conquer Jericho as they began their invasion of Canaan. Ruth is the
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
Moabite widow who gave up her allegiance to her own people and gods, and
joined herself to Israel and their God. And finally Bathsheba, whom David had a
sordid affair with and also arranged to have her husband Uriah killed, so that
David could have her as his own (Solomon was Bathsheba's most famous
offspring). While we can't be 100% certain regarding Bathsheba..... Tamar,
Rahab, and Ruth were all gentiles. Or, perhaps another way of looking at it is that
these women BEGAN life as gentiles before joining Israel and converting. It is
likely that Bathsheba was also a foreigner since her husband, Uriah, was a
Hittite. So the mention of 4 female gentile ancestors of Christ is meant to catch
our attention.... and especially to catch the attention of 1st century Jews. But in
what way and to what end?
Assuming that Matthew's genealogy structure is indeed based on Hebrew
gematria, and because numbers play such an important role in communicating a
message in the Jewish community, we should assume that since it was
exactly 4 gentile women included (and not some other number) that the meaning
of the number 4 in the Jewish mind has to be considered. And sure enough, the
number 4 in Hebrew gematria indicates universality; it means the whole world
since there are 4 directions on a compass and since in that era the Hebrew view
of the structure of our planet was that the earth was flat and square and literally
had 4 corners (hence the phrase "to the 4 corners of the earth"). So the message
seems to be that although Yeshua is thoroughly Hebrew, Jewish, of the royal
lineage of David, and born of a Jewish woman in the Holy Land, deep down in
His being and essence there are traces of gentile connections that cannot be
ignored. And even more interesting is that except for Ruth, the background of the
other 3 women mentioned is less than moral and upstanding.
After a long list of Yeshua's ancestors, verse 16 says:
CJB Matthew 1:16 16 Ya'akov was the father of Yosef the husband of Miryam,
from whom was born the Yeshua who was called the Messiah.
So Matthew is careful to make Joseph Mary's husband, but NOT the biological
father of her child. At the same time, he makes Mary Jesus' biological mother. It
is also informative that Matthew refers to Yeshua as "the Yeshua who was called
the Messiah". Why "the Yeshua"? Because Yeshua was one of the most popular
male names in the Holy Land in that era and it was necessary for Matthew to be
clear about which one of many hundreds if not thousands of Yeshuas he was
referring to.
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
Matthew, after explaining his genealogical structure of 3 sets of 14 generations
each, in verse 18 jumps right into the birth story of Yeshua. And immediately
Matthew takes on perhaps the most controversial aspect of Yeshua's birth
circumstances if not of His entire life. Matthew explains that although Yosef and
Miryam were engaged, they were not yet married. Yet, Miryam had become
pregnant. This was a terrible scandal within the Jewish community.
The CJB uses the word "engaged" to describe the relationship between Yosef
and Miryam; however a better word is betrothed. The word engaged in the
modern Western world doesn't carry the same sense as the word betrothed in
ancient times. Engaged is an arrangement whereby a man and a woman agree
to at some point become married. Engagements are broken all the time and other
than the typical emotional toll it causes, little other harm is done. Betrothal is
another matter altogether.
Betrothal in Hebrew culture was a solemn promise sealed with a commitment in
which the male and female bound themselves together through a marriage
contract that was signed, sealed and delivered at the moment of betrothal. So the
way we think of marriage in modern times in the West occurred at the time of
betrothal among the Hebrews in ancient times. The only thing left to be done that
in Hebrew culture was called "marriage" was when the bride moved into the
home of the groom and they consummated their union. It was the norm that after
the father of the bride agreed to the formal marriage contract, the woman was
now called "wife". Even so, she typically continued to live under her father's roof
for about another year. The union was considered to be so completed that if the
betrothed husband were to die, the woman was considered a widow. So
essentially the physical consummation was little more than a private ritual. Since
the woman was already legally a "wife", then cheating during betrothal was
adultery and not merely an indiscretion as it is treated today in the West. So the
fact that she was pregnant during the betrothal period (with Joseph certainly
knowing it wasn't his child) put Mary in danger of being executed. Typically if
there was sufficient cause, a betrothed husband would have given his wife a
divorce document (a get) to end a betrothal.
It cannot be overstated how serious it would be for a betrothed girl like Mary to
become pregnant. The Mishnah in the Tractate Sanhedrin, calls for 4 kinds of
death penalty to be administered in descending order of seriousness of the
offense: stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. A man who has sex with a
betrothed woman is subject to stoning. After the girl moves in with her husband,
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
sex between that girl and another man brings death by strangling. I think it is
interesting to note that within a couple of centuries after Yeshua's day, the
incidences of adultery during the betrothal period became so many that the
betrothal and marriage ceremonies were combined so as to eliminate the typical
1 year period in between the two to lessen the risk of a betrothed husband or wife
committing this grave sin that would demand their deaths.
Matthew says, with no further explanation, that Mary's pregnancy was a work of
the Holy Spirit. That it, it was miraculous pregnancy and she had done nothing
wrong. And the proof Matthew offers is that although betrothed, Mary and Joseph
were not yet living together. So strong were Hebrew traditions in the 1st century
(and before) about how the marriage process and timing worked, that there are
few recorded instances of a betrothed woman having a fling with a man that is
not her betrothed husband, and just as few flings with her betrothed husband
prior to them moving in together. It would have brought enormous shame upon
the woman's father's household as well as upon the betrothed couple. Thus while
it was no doubt quite a different story within the many pagan gentile communities
of the world such that they wouldn't really understand the gravity of the situation
or the seriousness of the Hebrew marriage contract, the Jews reading Matthew's
story would have immediately understood. It would only be an issue of whether
they would believe Miryam was pregnant by the Holy Spirit or not.
One other matter is also claimed and thereby settled. By Jewish tradition, even
though the unborn child is not Joseph's, he is the legal father. So there is no
conflict should Yeshua be called a son of Joseph; actual biological relationship is
not required when the father of the family accepts a child as his own.
The next verse says that when it was clear that his betrothed was pregnant,
Joseph made a decision not to pursue a public action but to quietly put her away.
The reason he did this is because (depending on the Bible version) he was either
a just or a righteous man. Very often just or righteous is, when preached about,
defined as being kind or merciful. Rather, for Jews just and righteous held the
meaning of law abiding. And law abiding meant being observant of the only Law
that mattered to Jews: the Law of Moses. Here is the biblical law that addresses
this situation.
CJB Deuteronomy 22:23-24 23 "If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man,
and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with
her; 24 you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
to death- the girl because she didn't cry out for help, there in the city, and
the man because he has humiliated his neighbor's wife. In this way you will
put an end to such wickedness among you.
The very public nature of an execution held at the city gate was to bring
maximum shame upon the criminals and their families. It is difficult to explain the
extreme level of trouble this brings to a family. We must not think that shame is
the same as "ashamed" or "embarrassed" as we think of it today. Shame was
(and remains in the Middle East) a detested social status, not an emotion. Having
gained such an undesirable status, ridding oneself or one's family of it was very
difficult and it dominated that family's daily life. Being shunned by most of the
community was but the beginning. Often the only way to atone for family shame
and regain family honor was to take revenge on the one or ones who were
deemed to have caused it. This could go on not just for years but for
generations.
So Joseph decided not to accuse his betrothed of marital infidelity, the remedy
being to out her publicly and to shame her publicly in order to avoid himself being
shamed. Rather he would quietly give a letter of divorce to Miryam's father (she
was still living at home) and end the betrothal, handling the matter discreetly and
privately. I want to comment here that while one of the several purposes of
Yeshua's speeches was to teach the Jewish people that while Torah observance
was the right and holy thing to do, doing it mechanically or woodenly, without love
and without understanding the spirit of the Torah laws, perverted it. This is why
when He was famously asked what the most important of the Torah Laws were,
Jesus quoted the Shema found in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Taken from verse 5
Christ said:
CJB Deuteronomy 6:5 5 and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your
heart, all your being and all your resources.
But He also included and quoted Leviticus 19:18:
CJB Leviticus 19:18 18 Don't take vengeance on or bear a grudge against any
of your people; rather, love your neighbor as yourself; I am ADONAI.
Joseph understood the spirit of the Law of Moses, and knew that even in this gut
wrenching circumstance he was to act in love and not vengeance; even so he
was to obey the Torah. So he risked his own reputation and having shame being
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
brought upon himself on account of his betrothed wife being pregnant without any
believable explanation. He acted exactly how the Lord wants us to act as we go
about trying to be observant of His laws and commands in our time. Not by
abrogating or ignoring them; and not by applying our own sense of mercy or
justice to any given situation. But rather by doing the commandments based
upon the foundational principle for all the commandments just as Yeshua said to
do.
Joseph, on older man, was not one to decide and act impulsively or strictly on
emotion. So verse 20 says that he was thinking about all this when he had a
visitation from an angel. I can only imagine all the thoughts flying through his
mind. Would this fine upstanding young country girl really commit adultery; and
right under her father's nose? Would she really come up with some lame lie that
while admitting being pregnant at the same time insisting she was still a faithful
virgin? What was the cost going to be to him personally if he more or less let her
off the hook? There was no hiding this; there is so much shame involved that
someone is going to have to bear it. And if he won't avail himself of the justice
system that would condemn her but at the same time leave him free from having
shame heaped upon himself, is that prudent.... or even fair?
In a dream the angel brought Yosef a message that had to be troubling in itself. I
suppose I have to ask myself the question: if I had a dream in which it seemed
that an angel spoke to me about a very troubling matter; and what he said
seemed too fantastic to believe would I believe it? Perhaps it's not a fair
question for our time. In Yeshua's day and in earlier times, divine revelations
given in dreams were well accepted and not particularly unusual. We read of
them in Genesis and in Daniel. We hear about them in relation to Job. The
Apocryphal books that were written after the close of the Old Testament and prior
to the writings of the New spoke about divine dreams and messages from God.
Perhaps it is our own modern skepticism that shuts the door to them in our time.
Or is it that the time for this experience is not right now? In fact there is biblical
evidence that we are currently in an era of dream, vision, and prophesying
dormancy, because in the Book of Acts chapter 2, we read that Peter tells the
crowd at that special Shavuot (Pentecost) when the Holy Spirit came in a most
spectacular fashion:
CJB Acts 2:17 17 'ADONAl says: "In the Last Days, I will pour out from my
Spirit upon everyone. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young
men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
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Lesson 2 - Matthew 1
Peter is actually quoting from the Prophet Joel because Peter must have
believed that what was happening indicated entry into those prophesied Last
Days. He was wrong in that he was not living in the time of this prophetic
fulfillment of Joel. But what I would like you to take away from this is that clearly
Joel's and Peter's statements seem to say that that which had not been
happening for a long time, will suddenly start happening when we enter the Last
Days. In other words, this is a divine sign we can be looking for.
Next week we'll begin by examining what the divine dream message was and
how Joseph dealt with it.
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 3, Chapter 1 Continued
In our previous lesson we studied at length the genealogy of Yeshua that opens
Matthew's Gospel. We discovered that Matthew seems to have created a
structure for his genealogy based on the numbers 3, 14, and 42. It is unknown by
Bible research scholars whether this was an original thought for Matthew or if he
merely found it in an earlier document and used it (all 3 Synoptic Gospels had to
have used earlier documents to draw from because none of the writers were
present with Christ). However no such earlier document with the same or a
similar genealogy for Jesus has been discovered; that one might exist is purely
conjecture.
An important point to keep in mind is that unlike in modern times when
genealogies are meant to be precise reconstructions of one's direct family tree,
that was not necessarily the goal of genealogies among the Hebrews in ancient
times. Their goal was to prove something; and what was meant to be proved was
flexible according to the author's agenda. So what we find in Matthew's
genealogy seems to be an emphasis on the mathematics that in that era were
considered somewhat mysterious and itself imparted a message. The scholarly
name for this focus on numbers and their meaning is gematria. Clearly: being
precise about Yeshua's ancestral tree was not the goal, because some
generational names are skipped.
Matthew honed in on the importance of Christ being the son of David. Drawing
upon that, we find that in Hebrew David's name consists of 3 letters, and the
gematria value of his name is 14. So accordingly Matthew structured his
genealogy by dividing up the long list of Yeshua's ancestors into 3 groups of 14,
with David's name being listed (not surprisingly) as the 14th in the first group.
1 / 11
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
When you multiply 3 times 14 the result is 42. Due to the ongoing occupation of
Rome, the bulk of the Holy Land Jewish population believed that they were either
living in the End Times or that it was imminent. And because the advent of the
Messiah was thought by most learned Jews in Matthew's era to be an End Times
event, and because the Book of Daniel was highly popular in that same era as
the source of End Times prognostications, then when we find in Daniel that in the
End Times 42 months plays a crucial role, the connection between all of these
numbers in a very numbers-conscious culture made complete sense. Keep in
mind that Matthew was a Jewish Believer and his Gospel was constructed
primarily for reading by other Jewish Believers.
Another interesting feature of Matthew's genealogy was the inclusion of 4 women
(something quite rare). But even more, every one of these women began life as
gentiles. He could have included more women (including Rachel), since she, too,
began life as a gentile, but he didn't. My speculation for why he didn't is that he
specifically wanted to arrive at the number 4 due to its meaning in gematria. Four
is meant to indicate universal inclusiveness; something that is wide spread if not
global. It is derived from the fact that a compass has 4 directions and the belief in
that era that the earth was flat, was more or less square, and had 4 corners.
Then there is the interesting matter of when we compare Luke's Gospel
genealogy to Matthew's. There has always been a Christian scholarly focus on
the exact names and their order of these 2 genealogies, and so various
explanations have been formulated to explain some obvious differences between
them. Yet those explanations and perceived differences are based on modern
Western thinking and not ancient Eastern thinking. There are two glaring
differences that seem to get overlooked, which are in line with how the Hebrews
thought about things. The first is that while Matthew lists his genealogy in typical
Hebrew descending fashion (that is, the genealogy begins with the oldest
ancestor and works backwards down to the person whose genealogy is being
presented), Luke's is an ascending genealogy that begins with the person of
interest, and eventually makes its way up to the oldest ancestor as the final entry.
Further, Matthew's genealogy lists Abraham as Yeshua's oldest ancestor, while
Luke lists Adam. This actually makes sense. Matthew was Hebrew and Luke
almost certainly was not. So for Matthew, the ancestral Father of Yeshua was of
course the Father of all Hebrews: Abraham.... not Adam. However for the gentile
Luke, his focus was on connecting Yeshua all the way back to the universal
Father of all humanity gentile and Hebrew.... Adam.
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
Thus we see how both Matthew and Luke had certain agendas in mind as they
each constructed their genealogies of Christ. Theirs was not "spin", nor was it an
attempt to distort or deceive. It was simply their personal worldviews, which
included how the purpose of genealogies was thought of in their era, and it was
part of the message that each Gospel writer was attempting to impart to his
readers.
Another important principle that we see woven throughout all the Gospels (and
the New Testament in general) was that Messiah was to be seen as the
inaugurator of a re-creation of everything; a second genesis. All was to be
remade new.
As Matthew begins to tell his story of Jesus' birth, he immediately brings up the
issue of Mary becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit. I want to pause for just a
moment to explain something. Often we hear the term "immaculate conception"
in regards to this event. In effect this is conflating two entirely different things.
The immaculate conception is purely Roman Catholic doctrine that has little to do
with the birth of Christ. Rather it is a doctrine held as a core belief that the Virgin
Mary was herself conceived by a divine miracle that made her free from sin. So in
many respects, the thought is that Mary conceived her son in the same way she
was conceived. In Roman Catholicism this allows for elevating Mary beyond
normal human status to the semi-divine.
Included in the story of Christ's birth is the matter of Mary and Joseph being
betrothed. For Believers living in modern times we need to think of betrothal more
as marriage than as an engagement. Even though during this period of betrothal
the girl still lived with her father, she was called "wife" upon her betrothal, and
called "widow" should her betrothed husband die. The reality is that for Jewish
readers of Matthew's Gospel the mention of Yosef and Miryam being betrothed
mostly meant that the time for her moving in with him hadn't come yet, and it
means that they were not yet permitted to have marital intimacy. Other than for
that, they are completely married as we think of it today. In fact for a betrothal to
be called off, a get (a divorce document) had to be issued by the man because
upon the betrothal a marriage contract between the man and the girl's father had
been drawn up and executed.
We left off at the point when Joseph was trying to figure out what to do about this
shameful dilemma of his betrothed's pregnancy and had decided that he would
not publicly denounce her or charge her with a crime that literally could end with
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
her execution. Rather, he'd merely handle things as quietly and privately as
possible, which meant he would end the betrothal by handing Mary's father a
divorce document. However as Yosef slept an uneasy sleep, he was visited in a
dream by an angel who brought him a message from God that gave him different
marching orders.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1. READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 1:18 - end
The angel brings an astounding message to Joseph in a dream. I'll admit upfront
that perhaps there was no angel involved at all. The reason I say this is because
the term angel in the Hebrew concept simply means messenger. The messenger
could take any form from the spiritual to the common human. But it also could be
a rather fuzzy term that adds a spiritual element to a human thought. We must
remember just how God-oriented people were in that era; life was not
compartmentalized into the spiritual and the natural. On the other hand there are
some Bible commentators who insist that this angel is not only a real angel, but is
the Angel of the Lord and not a regular angel. Although most of Protestant
Christianity does not accept the concept that the Angel of the Lord is an
additional manifestation of God Himself (because it would create a problem with
the Trinity Doctrine that God is entirely and only Father, Son and Holy Spirit), in
fact that is precisely what the Angel of the Lord is and good Bible scholars
acknowledge that reality. I find no evidence of this here in Matthew.
In the Old Testament, in Hebrew, the term for Angel of the Lord is Malach
Yehoveh (Yehoveh NOT meaning Lord, but rather it is God's personal name that
He first gave to Moses, better known in Christianity as Jehovah). That term is not
used in this verse. However to get around the problem, some commentators say
that in verse 21 where Joseph is told what to name this child in Mary's womb,
and because the verse concludes with: " because He will save His people from
their sins", that in fact the verse should say "because He will save MY people
from their sins". Therefore, it has the angel speaking to Joseph describing the
people to be saved in a possessive manner: that is, they are the angel's people.
So if the angel is claiming the saved people for himself then the angel must be
God the Angel of the Lord. But that is not what the verse says. The same
Greek word, autos, is used twice to end the verse. The first time it means "He"
and the second time it means "His" not "My". In Greek there are 2 words that
can be translated to "my": emos and mou. Neither are used. So this is a regular
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
angel, or perhaps it is a divinely inspired thought, that is being communicated to
Yosef by means of a dream.
Joseph was still deciding what to do. The angel tells him not to interrupt the
marital process but rather to continue on because Mary is innocent. She has
conceived a son by means of the Holy Spirit; that is, a divine miracle of God's will
has occurred. Joseph's first thought would not have been how that was
scientifically impossible (as it is today), but rather what the meaning of such an
amazing thing would be. Therefore the messenger tells him what this child will do
and that it shall be reflected in the child's name Yeshua, which means God
saves. At least that's what most Bibles will say. If ever there were reasons for us
to thoroughly understand the meaning of a name it is here as it involves the most
famous and earth changing name ever given. So we're going to cut away to a bit
of a detour to talk about it.
I want to begin by saying that the name Yeshua was, in Christ's day, actually
among the most popular of all male names given; hundreds, probably thousands,
of Jewish men were named Yeshua. Part of the reason for that is that Yeshua is
really just another way of saying Joshua. I'm going to borrow heavily from David
Stern's Commentary on the New Testament because I've not run across another
Bible scholar who has done such a wonderful job of research and of making an
understandable explanation about Yeshua's name. I'll also add some thoughts of
Professor David Flusser and a couple of my own as well.
In Hebrew the name Yeshua is spelled yud-shin-vav-ayin (in the English alphabet
we would say Y-S-V-A. It means the same as the Hebrew root word yoshia,
which means "he will save". However yoshia is a statement while Yeshua is a
proper name. Yeshua is actually but a common contraction of another Hebrew
name Y'hoshua; those 2 names mean exactly the same thing because they are
essentially exactly the same name. It is not unlike myself with the given name of
Thomas, but most often called Tom. Tom is a contraction of Thomas but it means
the same thing so the names are virtually interchangeable. Now please hear
me: Y'hoshua does NOT mean "God saves"; it means "Yehoveh saves". And
therefore so does Yeshua NOT mean "God saves" but rather "Yehoveh saves". It
makes the author of the saving transaction quite specific and quite personal. But
it also says something else that can produce quite a headache among Believers.
Even Christ's name says that it is not He who is the author of salvation, but rather
it is His Father whose name is Yehoveh.
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
Do not misunderstand me. I am in no way wavering from the fact that Jesus is
the one who died on the cross for our sins, thus atoning for them. Nor do I deny
that the Bible calls Him Savior. But Yeshua's name itself does throw the spotlight
back upon the Father, Yehoveh, rather than shoving the Father offstage and
focusing everything on Jesus as modern Christianity tends to do. Throughout the
Gospel accounts we find Christ deflecting attention and glory from Himself and to
His Heavenly Father. Listen to how Mary perceived what was going on inside her
womb and whom she glorified as her Savior.
CJB Luke 1:41-48 41 When Elisheva heard Miryam's greeting, the baby in her
womb stirred. Elisheva was filled with the Ruach HaKodesh 42 and spoke up
in a loud voice, "How blessed are you among women! And how blessed is
the child in your womb! 43 "But who am I, that the mother of my Lord should
come to me? 44 For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the baby in my womb leaped for joy! 45 Indeed you are blessed, because
you have trusted that the promise ADONAI has made to you will be
fulfilled."
46 Then Miryam said, "My soul magnifies ADONAI; 47 and my spirit
rejoices in God, my Savior, 48 who has taken notice of his servant-girl in her
humble position. For- imagine it!- from now on, all generations will call me
blessed!
Continuing with the name of the child: interestingly, the way that name was
pronounced was different in Galilee than it was in Judea. Different dialects had
developed between the two Holy Land regions, as well as a goodly number of
different traditions. In Galilee His name was pronounced Yeshu. That is, Galilean
Jews at this time dropped the "a" (ayin) at the end of a word or a name when
they pronounced it out loud. Let me include that when they wrote the name the
"ayin" would have been retained. So in Galilee the way His name was spoken
sounded like Yeshu, but in Judea it sounded like Yeshua. To make an example
for you lets use the word almond (the nut). In most of America the word is
pronounced all-mond; but in some parts of America the "L" sound is dropped and
it is pronounced ah-mond. But in both areas it would still be spelled with the L
included. That is the effect of dialect.
But in older Jewish society (well after the time of the Temple destruction), the use
of the name Yeshu became derogatory (there were no longer any Judean versus
Galilean dialects). Why derogatory? Because there is a Hebrew saying that
means "May his name and memory be blotted out." The first letters of each of the
Hebrew words used in the saying form an acronym that when spoken sounds
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
like Yeshu. Historically it is used by non-Believing Jews in a mocking way when
referring to Yeshua (Jesus). Oddly enough the word Yeshu no longer is used
universally throughout Jewish society in this same way, with many Jews today
rather innocently thinking that Yeshu is actually the proper Hebrew name for
Christ. Still, I highly advise that when talking with Jews about Christ (and when
you are in Israel) you avoid saying Yeshu because it can cause some conflict
depending on who you're talking to. Stick with Yeshua.
Let me add that there is nothing wrong using the name Jesus; it is the accepted
English name for Yeshua. I have heard all kinds of arguments against using the
name Jesus including that it is the English translation of the Greek word Zeus.
That is simply false. I prefer to use the name Yeshua because a) it was His given
name in His native tongue, and b) because English speakers can easily
pronounce it. We usually give foreigners the privilege of being called by their
given name in their native tongue except when it is so difficult to pronounce that
we English-ize it. My opinion is that, for the most part, we ought to give Yeshua's
actual birth name that same respect.... because we can. But it is not sinful or
pagan if we don't.
I think we've exhausted that subject, so moving on.... if we were to compare Luke
1:31 to Matthew's birth narrative we would find one of a few conflicts among the
Gospel accounts. Luke has it that it is Mary who is told the name for her child
while in our Matthew study it is Joseph. We needn't make too much out of this. In
Hebrew custom the male child was given his name at his circumcision ceremony;
and there was no real conflict over which Jewish parent gave the boy his name.
Besides, all things considered, it could well be Luke and Matthew aren't in conflict
at all; rather perhaps both Yosef and Miryam were told by God what to name the
child.
Let's discuss this statement in Joseph's dream that the reason for Yeshua's
name is because He is going to save people from their sins. I'm not sure exactly
how Joseph and others would have taken this. Yeshua was among the most
common male names in that era, and among the Jews the term "salvation" still
mostly meant deliverance from an earthly oppressor. In fact, the Jews nearly
universally believed that the hoped-for Messiah would deliver them (save them)
from the oppression of Rome. The more spiritual nature of the term as meaning
salvation from sins had to do with being healed from sickness. It is to be
remembered that there was no understanding of germs or bacteria so there were
few explanations for where illnesses came from. Mostly they were seen as
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
punishments from a god, and in Israel they were seen as divine consequences
for disobedience to Yehoveh sinning.... meaning to break the Laws of Moses.
Sin and sickness were closely tied together among Jews. We find instances
within the Gospel accounts of Christ's healing of sickness being perceived by the
observers as people being "saved" from their sins.
It is easy for us to look back and understand that it is Messiah's atoning death for
our sins, saving us from eternal damnation, that is in view in Joseph's dream; but
few Jews in his day would have comprehended it that way.
Verse 22 brings all that Mary and Joseph are experiencing into a Heavenly
orientation as opposed to a human orientation. That is, despite the terribly difficult
circumstances that the couple are facing, there is a reason for it that goes well
beyond their wants and needs. It is because God, through His Prophets,
prophesied that the Messiah would come into the world in just this way. And the
precise prophecy from 700 years earlier is quoted out of the Book of Isaiah.
CJB Isaiah 7:14 Therefore Adonai himself will give you people a sign: the
young woman* will become pregnant, bear a son and name him 'Immanu El
[God is with us].
Before we discuss this particular verse as the prophecy that Mary's pregnancy is
fulfilling, I want to highlight something that has caused a goodly portion of the
institutional Church to veer terribly off course in some ways. Perhaps more than
ever the Old Testament is shunned as being irrelevant for Christians. If it has any
relevance at all remaining, then it can only be for the Jewish people. The birth of
Christ essentially not only closed the book on the Old Testament, it abolished it.
None of this is true, and it actually defies Holy Scripture. But when this
fundamental doctrinal attitude is taken, it greatly tarnishes and diminishes the
Bible's divine authority and so we can easily lose our way.
Verse 22 directly connects the Old Testament to Mary's pregnancy. Yeshua's
birth, life, death, and resurrection are foretold in the Old Testament. In the New
Testament we have the record of those hundreds of years old prophecies coming
to fruition. The Old Testament is as much the foundation for the New as the
foundation of a building is laid so that something can be constructed upon it. But
once built, can the foundation then be removed? Can you imagine building a
house with the first step being to lay the foundation. Then atop it you construct
the living quarters, bring in furniture, decorate it, and move in. Once done, do you
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
call the contractor back and tell him that it is now time to remove the foundation
from under the house, because it is no longer needed? Just because the
foundation has become buried underneath it all doesn't make it obsolete. Yet, the
very prophecies of a Messiah along with where he'll come from, what his nature
is, what he'll do, and what his life and death will mean are all contained NOT in
the New Testament but rather in the Old. Those Old Testament prophecies are
the foundation and to remove it means the house will collapse.
David Stern claims that more than 50 messianic pretenders have come and gone
since just before Christ's birth. None of them fulfilled the Old Testament
prophecies; only Yeshua has. The latest one is a fellow named Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, a Rabbi who passed away in 1994. His followers so revered
this man that they declared that he was the Messiah and many still believe he is.
It matters not at all to his Orthodox Jewish flock that the Rabbi, a good and
decent man, fulfilled none of the Tanakh that they supposedly are learned in. Yet
despite the fact that Yeshua of Nazareth did fulfill all the prophecies about a
Messiah, these Orthodox along with almost all other Jews refuse to accept Him,
and prefer to wait for another.
Now as for Isaiah's prophecy.... notice that the CJB says that the "virgin" will
conceive and bear a son. We'll find the word "virgin" used in most English
translations. However that is not what is in Isaiah's prophecy. The Hebrew word
is almah and it means maiden or handmaiden of good reputation. It inherently
means a young, unmarried woman who is of child bearing age. In Hebrew society
such a woman was supposed to remain in a virgin state; but not all did. So the
idea of virginity was indeed in the background of the definition of almah however
that is not the main point of the word itself. It is meant to convey youthfulness and
the marriage eligibility of the woman. The Hebrew word for virgin, where virginity
is the point, is bethulah.
If we're still being intellectually honest about it, the context for this prophecy in
the Book of Isaiah was addressed to King Ahaz; it seems to be about the
eventual birth of a Davidic prince that was meant as a sign of hope for the
struggling Kingdom of Judah. There is no good evidence that later Judaism took
Isaiah's prophecy about the young woman conceiving a child to be a Messianic
prophecy nor that it involved a miraculous conception whereby the male seed
was actually God's. However, clearly, some among the Jewish people were open
to understanding it that way. Nonetheless, the prophecy of a prince coming from
David's line to rule over God's people fits right in with the son-of-David focus of
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and the ancient biblical prophecies that also
focused on the Messiah having to come from David's royal line.
It has been proposed by any number of Bible scholars that the concept of a
young girl giving birth as a virgin is pagan in its source. Yet when challenged to
come up with a parallel in the pagan world, it cannot be found except where a
male is somewhere involved in the conception process. Interestingly this same
concept is vague among any currently known ancient Jewish sources. So the
claim of a true virgin birth actually happening, with the Holy Spirit of God
substituting for the male seed, is essentially unknown until the Gospel of
Matthew; it is totally unique both in concept and event. For non-Believers this
makes the story even less believable if not silly; and for Believers this makes the
story all the more believable and wonderful; so you see the dilemma. Just as
trust in God and in Christ is a matter of faith, and faith itself is a divine gift and not
something conjured up by our own human will or soul, so are the Gospel
accounts' insistence that Mary's virgin pregnancy was quite real is a matter of
faith in the truth of the Word of God. Naturally to an atheist or agnostic, the story
is laughable, largely because it cannot be tested or reproduced in a laboratory.
But the Church has also fallen into a trap because more and more Bible
commentators and mainstream Pastors feel that all that we read of "miraculous"
events in the Bible must have natural explanations if they are to appeal to
modern well educated people. Yet to the human mind if a fully natural
explanation can be proven, then it is hardly a divine miracle and instead is but
ancient myth.
Therefore it is no longer unusual for professing Christians to at once claim to be
followers of Jesus, but at the same time dismiss the many miracles surrounding
His conception, birth, life, death, and resurrection. At the risk of offending, I warn
those who embrace such a dual mindset that you are likely not saved Believers
at all, but rather you merely practice a modern philosophy of Jesus that you think
He preached. Yet it is a philosophy that has been filtered, sifted, and picked-over
to rid it of anything divine, miraculous, or even authoritative in the modern world,
and leans more towards whatever is the current political correctness. Thus
sincere faith and trust is no longer required; just participation in a group of the like␂minded.
Verses 24 and 25 tell us that Yosef not only heard but also acted upon the
instructions within his dream. This is the very definition of the Hebrew concept
of shema.... hearing and obeying.... as opposed to the passive concept of
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Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont.
listening without action. Despite full knowledge by Yosef that this child was not of
his seed, he fully accepted Yeshua as his son. In the Mishnah, Bava Batra 8:6
we read: "If one says 'this is my son' he is to be believed". Even more, in the
Gemara this concept of sonship is expanded upon and says that this right is to be
extended even as it involves inheritance. This is important because since Joseph
is in the royal line of David, then Yeshua inherits the right to the throne from his
legal, but not biological, father Joseph.
So in the end Joseph did not issue Mary a get. Rather, likely somewhat sooner
than customary, he hurried to complete the betrothal period by having her move
in with him. Yet the consummation of the union was postponed. This passage
states frankly that they did not have sexual relations until after Mary's divinely
conceived child was born.
I want to sum up Matthew chapter 1 in this way: Matthew's purpose was
expressly to begin his Gospel by explaining who Yeshua is. He is the Messiah,
Son of David, Son of Abraham, brought into this world by an otherwise non␂descript, unimportant country girl. His unique conception was a direct work of the
God of Israel and none else. Believability and plausibility play no roles because
God doesn't bend His will or His ways to suit mankind's expectations. Even
Messiah's name is God-ordained because it says what He will do. Through
Christ's earthly father, Yosef, Yeshua is legally connected to the throne of David.
Through Christ's earthly mother, Miryam, his origin is divine.
We'll take up chapter 2 next time.
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 4, Chapter 2
We concluded chapter 1 of Matthew's Gospel last time, and I remarked then
that Matthew's goal was to begin his Gospel by explaining who Jesus is.
According to Matthew He is the prophesied Messiah of Israel; the Son of David,
Son of Abraham. The importance of Believers understanding this cannot be
overstated. Christ is a Hebrew; or more specifically a Jew. He was not and is not
some kind of generic universal human being. We must understand His
Jewishness and embrace His Jewishness in order to find the correct context for
understanding His words to us. And as we will read in chapter 2, He came for the
people of Israel.
Christ's one-of-a-kind conception was a direct work of the God of Israel, or more
correctly a work of the Holy Spirit. Matthew goes on to explain that the Messiah's
Hebrew birth name, Yeshua, was God-ordained because it explains what He will
do: He will act as the Father's agent to save the people of Israel from their sins. I
realize that including the Father in the salvation process sounds almost like
heresy to much of Christianity, so focused on Jesus of Nazareth is the Church.
But because a name in that era carried such weight in projecting the character,
destiny and purpose of a Jewish person, we must look closely at what Christ's
actual Jewish birth name, Yeshua, means. Typically Pastors and even Bible
scholars will say it means "God saves". That is not correct. Rather it means
"Yehoveh saves". Yehoveh is the formal name of the Father as first revealed to
Moses. It is most certainly true that by His death on the cross Yeshua atoned for
our sins, also that He is part of who God is (in some mysterious way that no one
has found a means to adequately describe), and that Yeshua is also our
Passover Lamb who is both our King and Lord. Yet, Yeshua is subordinate to the
Father, and the salvation plan of which He was the cornerstone is of the Father;
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
that much is made clear by the ancient Old Testament prophets, by Christ
Himself in the Gospels, and also by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation.
As we turn our Bibles to the 2nd chapter of Matthew we begin by encountering a
story that has caused both controversy and incalculable joy within Christianity. I
want to encourage you that although we are going to immediately take a
substantial detour that is pretty technical, everyone listening is perfectly capable
of understanding it both for the content and for its importance to followers of
Christ. You don't have to be highly educated or a theologian; God's Word is
meant for ordinary humans; not just the elite class. Thomas Edison once said:
"Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So the issue is not your ability
to comprehend; it is your determination and dedication to focus and learn (and
hopefully apply) what the Lord wants us to know.
Open your Bibles to Matthew Chapter 2.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 2 all
The first half of verse 1 concludes Matthew's story of the conception and birth of
Yeshua by saying that He was born in Beit Lechem (Bethlehem) of Judea.
Although Matthew doesn't go into detail by explaining the significance of the
place of Christ's birth, it was because the common Jew of his day would already
have known it (and as I'll occasionally remind you, Matthew was a Jewish
Believer whose Gospel was written to Jews). But for we Believers of the 21st
century (mostly gentiles), I'll explain that Bethlehem of Judea was also the
birthplace of King David. The direct familial connection between the Messiah and
King David is a must in the messianic prophecies (as demonstrated by Matthew's
genealogy of Yeshua in chapter 1), as well as the two figures (born many
centuries apart) sharing a common birth place.
The second half of verse 2 gives us an approximation of the date of Jesus' birth
based on the reign of King Herod. We know that by modern calendars Herod
ruled from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. So according to Matthew's timeline Jesus had to
have been born prior to 4 B.C. The last part of verse 2 also begins a captivating
story about a visitation of magi in search for this new king of the Jews; an
account that we find only in Matthew's Gospel. To be clear, this story about magi
coming and meeting with King Herod as part of their search, and of a mysterious
star that seems to move and then hover over Bethlehem in order to guide the
magi, appears in no other place in the New Testament than in the Book of
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
Matthew. Because we've just read the story of the visitation of the magi, we're
now going to begin our detour in order to better understand it because a
significant number of scholarly explanations about who the magi were and what
prompted them to make such a long journey, and of course about the
appearance of this mysterious star, have been set forth in Christianity and I think
we can probably shed a little more light on the subject and clear up some
misconceptions. Most explanations that we're all familiar with have been based
either on modern Western thinking, or they incorporate the mindset and
circumstance of an ancient era and region that does not properly represent the
era and place of Christ's birth.
I want to say in advance that I owe a debt of gratitude to the outstanding works
and research of scholars like Michael Molnar, Otto Neugebauer, Wayne Sayles,
Owen Gingerich, and others who have gone the extra mile to publish their
findings that shed such valuable light on the subject of the magi within the
context of the magi's beliefs and understanding of the celestial bodies as it was in
the 1st century at the time of Christ's birth. So here we go.
Who were these magi? The first thing to notice is that despite the many Christian
traditions and songs about them, and the countless Christmas programs that
always portray 3 magi, we are not told how many there were. So the idea
of 3 magi traveling to find the Christ child is entirely fictional and not supported by
the Bible or any other ancient source. Perhaps the next most fictional description
within Christian tradition is that the magi were "kings". So the famous song that
begins "we 3 kings of orient are", is wrong on just about every account.
The magi were highly respected experts in their field in which they used the
wandering lights in the sky to interpret current events and especially to determine
future events. Although they are said to have come from the east, there's an
awful lot of land mass to the east of Judea so their point of origin can't be
pinpointed (although there are some hints that might narrow it down a bit).
Perhaps the most important feature of the magi for us to understand is that they
were not astronomers as we might think of an astronomer today, and they were
not Babylonian astrologers; rather they were Hellenistic astrologers. What does
Hellenistic mean? It means those who have adopted the Greek language,
culture, thought, art, and religious views. In the 1st century it mostly meant to
assimilate into the Greek based Roman culture; so what the magi believed and
practiced was standard and universally accepted within the Roman worldview of
the Roman Empire. To say it another way: these magi did not practice some
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
ancient form of oriental Babylonian astrology as is typically portrayed. In fact that
particular form of astrology had ceased to exist shortly after the world-changing
conquests of Alexander the Great in the 300's B.C.
The other point that is fundamental for proper understanding is that Jews
(particularly Holy Land Jews) generally did not practice any form of astrology at
this time. They did not look to the skies for understanding events or for foretelling
the future. However understanding events and foretelling the future is exactly
what Hellenistic astrologers did, and so it is what the magi that we read of in
Matthew did.
There is an underlying historical context that greatly aids our understanding of
the role of the magi is Christ's birth story. First: Rome and the Holy Land were in
a constant state of confrontation and tension. The Jews felt offended by Rome's
overwhelming presence, and Rome was frustrated with these stubborn people
who refused all effort to assimilate. The Jews valued and insisted on keeping
their unique faith, culture, traditions and history while Rome wanted them to
abandon their heritage and instead conform to the progressive Hellenistic way of
life that the rest of the empire adopted. This festering hatred of the Romans led
the Jews to openly express their hope for a Jewish Messiah to deliver them from
Rome's heavy hand. In turn the Romans were very concerned about the Jews'
messianic prophecies of a charismatic deliverer, and so were on high alert for his
arrival. Interestingly, in both cases, the expectation was for a Jewish leader to
emerge that would defy and challenge the Romans militarily. The Jews of course
welcomed the notion, while Rome feared it.
The second element of the context for the influence of the magi on our story is
that astronomy was advancing at a high rate in the years leading up to Christ's
birth. It is ironic that while Hellenistic astronomers still thought of the earth as flat,
the sun as revolving around the earth, and they had a rather mistaken
understanding of the layout of our solar system, nonetheless their many years of
celestial observations enabled them to develop mathematical equations that
could fairly accurately predict the movement of the stars and planets. This will
play a role in our understanding of the famous star that the magi followed to
Bethlehem.
The third element is that there was no real distinction between astronomy and
astrology in this era (in fact those terms are modern and weren't in use in the 1st
century). The constantly progressing understanding of the movement of the
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
luminous objects in the sky that could now be predicted (something that we could
probably call science) made the development of astrology all the more credible
and exciting. The entire purpose of astronomical observations in that era was to
more accurately aid in the predictions that the cosmos was thought to reveal to
the magi. The belief that fate could be determined in advance of a future event by
means of observing and interpreting the movement of stars and planets was well
accepted throughout the Roman Empire (except by the Jews). Thus those highly
educated people who were expert star gazers (the magi) were greatly prized and
admired for their knowledge, and their wisdom was much sought after and
believed. They were anything but charlatans; they were convinced that the
movement of the stars and planets, when properly understood, was a gift from
the gods to help humankind navigate the present and to prepare for the future.
By the time of Christ's birth, the astrologers had devised a system of interpreting
the meaning of the lights in the sky that we might call the Zodiac. It consisted of
constellations of stars that were named and associated with living creatures. Very
interestingly the Hellenistic star gazers had determined that the constellation
Aries, the Ram, was the Zodiac symbol that had to do with the region of Judea.
Thus the magi from the east would have looked towards Aries to tell them about
events concerning Judea, among which could be indications of the death of a
current king or birth of a new king of the Jews. It is within that belief system that
we have to consider the fascinating Bethlehem Star.
One doesn't have to read too many biblical commentaries on the Book of
Matthew to see the wide spectrum of both theological and scientific views about
the star of Bethlehem. Among those views is that this star is just a fictional myth
meant to add drama and glory to the birth of Jesus. Another view is that there is
no point in trying to explain the star astronomically or astrologically or in any
natural terms; there indeed was a star but it was a supernatural event a rather
short lived divine miracle of God. Other views are usually about trying to find rare,
but natural, celestial events that coincided with the nativity. Recently some
scholars have argued that the appearance of the mysterious star is a Jewish
Middrash on the famous Old Testament account of the seer named Balaam; an
account that says that the appearance of a star would accompany the birth of the
Messiah. We read about this in the Torah, in the Book of Numbers.
CJB Numbers 24:15-17 "This is the speech of Bil'am, son of B'or;
the speech of the man whose eyes have been opened; 16 the speech of him
who hears God's words; who knows what 'Elyon knows, who sees what
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
Shaddai sees, who has fallen, yet has open eyes: 17 "I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not soon- a star will step forth from Ya'akov, a scepter will
arise from Isra'el, to crush the corners of Mo'av and destroy all
descendants of Shet.
Obviously Balaam's mention of a star stepping forth is being related by some
scholars to the star over Bethlehem. While I don't find this line of thinking
conclusive, it is hard to ignore the many parallels between the story of King Balak
with his hired gun Balaam, to the magi's journey to Judea and its back story.
1) King Herod's family was from Idumea (formerly known as Edom), and King
Balak was also from that same region.
2) Just as the magi ruined King Herod's plans to kill the Christ child, so did
Balaam ruin King Balak's plans to kill off the Israelites.
3) Balaam was, himself, a magi just as were the star gazers of the east who
came to find the new king of the Jews.
4) The magi came because a star announced the birth of new king of the Jews,
and Balaam mentioned a star that had to do with the arrival of a savior and king
that would come from among the people of Israel.
So on its face, we can't simply discard the idea of this connection between
Balaam's prophecy and the magi coming from the east as an explanation for the
Bethlehem star. So what would have been the significance for these magi of a
star appearing? Why would they or anyone pay attention to it?
During the time of King Herod's reign over the Holy Land it was not only the Jews
who were looking for a sign of a new figure to arise and fundamentally change
the circumstances within Judea. For the Jews the expected figure was a
Messiah; for the pagan star gazers the figure was a king. The sign the Jews were
looking for was not to be found in the sky, and yet the Jews in some ways didn't
seem to know for sure exactly what they should be looking for beyond their
current circumstances and their hopes for a charismatic military leader to
suddenly come upon the scene. But the sign the magi were looking for could only
be in the sky because that's where they believed all such signs appeared (they
were, after all, astrologers). The terms that more closely fit what the magi looked
for are "portents" and "omens"; terms more associated to the pagan worldview.
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
So those are the terms that I will use as we go forward as it relates to the magi.
Let's look again to the story of the magi and the Bethlehem Star that is in
Matthew chapter 2 verses 1 - 16. A close reading shows that the magi did NOT
go to King Herod and ask "where is the newborn king of the Jews?" Rather they
arrived in Jerusalem and began asking around of the common city folk. It was the
word of this inquiry that reached the ears of Herod because it so unsettled the
residents of Jerusalem. One can only imagine what this news did to Herod's
already paranoid and suspicious psyche. Herod was a brutal man who committed
terrible atrocities even upon his closest family members. It was not just his
brutality that distanced him from his Jewish subjects; it was also that Herod
wasn't even a Jew. His mother was Nabatean and his father Idumean (the Greek
name for Edom). Even though some time earlier Idumea had been forced to
accept Judaism as their authorized religion, Herod was not raised in a Jewish
household, but rather in a Hellenistic household where some combination of
Hellenistic and Jewish traditions were practiced.
Herod, then, was a Hellenistic tyrant, completely aligned with Rome and fully in
tune with Roman culture although in another sense he knew and adopted some
of the Jewish traditions taught to him in his childhood. Any inkling of danger to his
throne (real or imagined) was instantly dealt with murderously. He killed 3 of his
own biological sons thinking they might be plotting against him. He had so many
people killed (most of them innocent) that Augustus Caesar once commented
that it was safer to be Herod's pig than Herod's family. With thousands of Roman
troops trampling over the Holy City coupled with Herod's ruthless rule, it is no
wonder that the Jewish people yearned for a deliverer and thought that they must
be living in the prophesied times of the apocalypse.
Notice that the question the magi asked the residents of Jerusalem was not IF a
new king of the Jews had been born but rather WHERE. There was no doubt in
their minds that a new Judean King had been born because a celestial portent
had alerted them to it, and they fully trusted what they saw and what it meant.
Oddly enough the good people of Jerusalem, as well as Herod, were startled by
the magis' hunt for a new Jewish king; they were unaware of such an event. Yet
Herod understood the dire consequences of the meaning of the magis' message
because he believed that they were not talking about yet another of the many
rivals for his throne, but rather this new king would also be the Messiah. We are
left, however, with a couple of important but unanswered questions: 1) how
exactly did the magi know that this new king of the Jews had been born and 2)
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
what was it they saw in the sky that alerted them to it? Something that the very
people over whom this new king was supposed to rule were completely unaware
of, but pagan star gazers expected and found? Clearly the Star of Bethlehem
plays a key role in this mystery. Because the Bethlehem Star has mesmerized,
thrilled, and inspired millions and millions of Christians over the centuries it is
definitely worth our while to explore exactly what this star might have been and
where it might have come from.
Most of the theories about it are based upon how best to translate the Greek
word for star, which is aster. Matthew doesn't go to any lengths to give us much
help to understand the particulars of this star. But perhaps the main problem we
face is that the term aster could describe any number of heavenly bodies and
luminaries including comets. Therefore perhaps the most widely proposed
solution for the identity of the Bethlehem Star is that it was indeed a comet.
Because of their nature, comets can appear in the sky unexpectedly, hang
around for weeks or a couple of months, and then disappear. Here's the issue
with such a seemingly reasonable solution that the star was actually a comet: for
the pagan magi, a comet was a portent of disaster; it was a bad omen. It was
anything but something to be excited or joyful about. Comets were thought to
portend the death of a king... perhaps even an emperor as powerful as Caesar...
not his birth.
During the rule of Vespasian in 79 A.D., less than a decade after the destruction
of the Temple, a comet suddenly appeared in the night sky and he knew that his
subjects and rivals would believe that this was an astrological portent that the
end of his life was imminent. When such a thing is believed by the population in
general and his enemies in particular, it often became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It
gives them an opening to act upon a king and blame it on fate. So to deflate any
such hope for his demise, Vespasian's reaction and clever counter-move was
recorded by the historian Suetonius:
".......... He (Vespasian) did not cease his jokes even in apprehension of
death and in extreme danger; for when among other portents.... a comet
appeared in the heavens, he declared that it applied to the king of the
Parthians, who wore his hair long." So Vespasian declares that the comet's bad omen of death didn't apply to him,
but rather to the king of Parthia. What has long hair to do with it? It is because
the Greek term cometai (from which we get the English word comet) doesn't just
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
mean "comet"; it literally means "long haired stars" (because most comets have
long trailing tails behind them). Parthian kings customarily wore long hair and
Vespasian took advantage of this common knowledge to deflect any belief that
his death was imminent. However to end this short story I must tell you that after
a few months from the first appearance of the comet, the long haired king of
Parthia still hadn't died; but Vespasian did from what was probably dysentery. I
could offer you a few more stories and examples from Roman times about the
bad omen that comets symbolized, but time doesn't permit it. So I'll just sum it all
up by quoting Claudius Ptolemy, a famous Greek astrologer, from about 150 A.D.
",.......For these comets naturally produce the effects peculiar to Mars and to
Mercury: wars, hot weather, disturbed conditions, and the accompaniments
of these. And they show, through the parts of the Zodiac in which their
heads appear and through the directions in which the shapes of their tails
point, the regions upon which the misfortunes impend..."
The point is that comets were harbingers of death and calamity to the Hellenistic
astrologers of the first couple of centuries before and well after Yeshua's birth. So
the thought of modern Bible scholars that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet that
happily portended the birth of new king of the Jews to the visiting magis doesn't
pass muster. The Star of Bethlehem was no comet, and we can confidently
scratch that one off of our list of possibilities.
Modern astronomers, and the Bible scholars who consult them, have sometimes
come to the conclusion that the Bethlehem Star must have been a Supernova.
Nova means "new star". It is named thusly because all of a sudden a new light
appears in the sky that hadn't been there before and it hangs around for a few
weeks. For those among us who have interest in such matters, a celestial nova is
not an event revealing the birth of something new, but rather it concerns a
sudden change in something that is old. A nova is a star that has burned for
billions of years but is now in the late stages of dying. Without getting technical,
this star that had formerly been too faint to see but suddenly is so bright that it
can't be missed, occurs as it begins to run out of fuel and the result is essentially
like the violent meltdown of a runaway nuclear reaction. But there is also
something similar that scientists term a Supernova; it is even more spectacular
than a regular nova. A very bright new light in the sky suddenly appears and over
a period of a few months slowly fades into oblivion. There are many today who
mentally picture the Star of Bethlehem as a super bright object lighting up the
nighttime sky that suddenly appeared and then soon faded away. Thus the
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
thought by some Bible academics is that the birth star of Christ was actually a
coincidental Supernova event. It is interesting that it was Johannes Kepler, the
famous astronomer of the early 17th century, that first came up with this theory.
However in time he discarded it when the astronomical evidence from his own
research proved to him that this was not the case, and instead he opted for the
Bethlehem star being a divine miracle.
In the end, there is no historical evidence going back to the 1st century that
claims that a bright new star appearing (whether a nova or Supernova) was of
much interest to the astrologers. And it certainly did not portend the birth of a
king. So from the viewpoint of the magis a bright new object in the sky in and of
itself had no bearing on their search for a new king of the Jews. Let's move on to
the next theory.
The next most popular theory of the Bethlehem Star is that it was a somewhat
rare planetary conjunction. What is a planetary conjunction? A conjunction is
when any two or more objects in the sky appear to be very close together. A
conjunction could be of asteroids, comets, stars or planets (thus
a planetary conjunction as opposed to some other kind).
The reality, however, is that in the 1st century not a great deal of distinction was
made between stars and planets. They were all called aster what we translate
as stars. So for the astrologers of that day stars, aster, was a rather all
encompassing term applied to the many different kinds of lights in the sky
because they had no means to understand what they were or how they might be
inherently different from one another other than what the naked eye could detect.
It is fascinating that when Kepler was first formulating his Supernova theory
(which he later abandoned), that he also calculated that there was an event that
occurred in 6 B.C. of not 2 but 3 planets coming into conjunction (this has been
confirmed by modern math and science). Although he made note of this rarity, he
didn't associate it with the Bethlehem Star.
Here's the rub of what we've discussed thus far: whether comets, supernovas, or
planetary conjunctions, there is no historical evidence that these kinds of events
would have played any role in the perception of the magi about the Bethlehem
Star in and of themselves or would it announce the birth of a king of the Jews.
Further, when Matthew reports about the Bethlehem Star he in no way describes
it as a divine miracle. Rather what we must find (if possible) is some celestial
circumstance that would have conformed to the detailed and powerful
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Lesson 4 - Matthew 2
astrological belief system of the magi; not something that might tantalize us.
Some spectacular happening in the skies no doubt would have caught their
attention and they would have thought deeply about it. But the portent of the birth
of a king (in our case, a king of the Jews) would have had to fit an already well
established set of criteria in order for the magi to assign it that specific meaning.
Here's the thing to ponder as we finish today's lesson: what did the Magi see that
without any doubt whatsoever to their minds told them (correctly, by the way) that
a new king of the Jews was born in Judea? And yet the people in Judea certainly
didn't notice it. Jews may not have practiced astrology but that doesn't mean they
didn't pay attention to the movement of the stars, the sun, and the moon. They
used them to determine months, years, seasons and even the beginning and
ending of the some of their festivals. So they certainly would have noticed
something spectacular or unusual occurring in the sky. What this heavily implies,
then, is that whatever the magis saw in the sky that told them that a new king of
the Jews had been born, it had to be subtle and not obvious. Or even better: it
had to be something that learned star gazers would notice, but nobody else
would.
We'll pick up this topic again next time and see if we can discover what it was
that alerted the magi to the birth of Yeshua.
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 5, Chapter 2 Continued
We spent the bulk of our previous time together on the birth story of Our Lord and
Savior as we find it in the Book of Matthew; it is the only place in the New
Testament that we'll hear about the magi and the Star of Bethlehem. We have
spent some time understanding who the magi were, what their profession
actually was, and what it was that they saw that caused them to go on a long
journey to Judea in search of a new born king. We'll briefly review.
The magi were astrologers. We must not picture in our minds modern astrologers
who mainly produce horoscopes. Rather the magi were a combination of
astronomers and seers. They were experts in understanding the heavens,
tracking and predicting the movements of stars and planets, and then using those
objects' positions in the sky as omens and portents for the purpose of interpreting
the present and foretelling the future. These were not the ancient Babylonian
brand of astrologers because that practice had died out 3 centuries earlier.
Rather they were Hellenistic astrologers; that is, the brand of astrology they
practiced was the product of a Greco-Roman culture and so was seen throughout
the Roman Empire as valid and valuable except for the Jews who did not
practice or accept it.
Even though the Jews did not embrace the concept of the Zodiac or employ
astrologers to tell them the future, they did, of course, pay attention to the sky as
did all human beings. They were aware of the several constellations formed by
patterns of stars. The Book of Job is considered by most scholars to be the
oldest book in the Bible, written well before the time of Moses and the Torah. In it
we find this statement in which Job is describing the greatness of God:
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
CJB Job 9:8-10 8 He alone spreads out the sky and walks on the waves in
the sea. 9 He made the Great Bear, Orion, the Pleiades and the hidden
constellations of the south. 10 He does great, unsearchable things, wonders
beyond counting.
The Great Bear and Orion are constellations. The Pleiades (also known as the
Seven Sisters) is a star cluster that helps to form the constellation Taurus. Job
gives God credit for forming these stars into patterns. So even in Job's day these
stars and constellations were observed and named.
We spent the final half of our time together last week discussing the Star of
Bethlehem that appeared in the sky and what it might have been. Unfortunately
to explore this phenomenon we have to get a bit technical; but I think you'll find it
worth the effort. Some theologians believe the star was a comet. Others think it
was a Supernova. Another group surmises it was a planetary conjunction. We
examined each of these and found that none of these, of themselves, would have
alerted the magi that a new king of the Jews had been born. That falls in line with
the thinking of many Believers that the star was simply a divine miracle. We'll
continue the pursuit of the nature of this star as we continue with today's lesson.
Part of what we are dealing with is that when we compare the words of Matthew's
Gospel to what has become Christian Tradition and unquestionable belief by
millions of Believers, we find some inconsistencies. For instance the birth star is
usually pictured in illustrations as an unusually large and bright star that suddenly
appeared. Nowhere does Matthew suggest such a thing. In Matthew (the only
place in the New Testament where the star is mentioned) it is made clear that the
ONLY people who had any knowledge of a special star announcing a newborn
king of the Jews were the pagan magi; the Jews seemed to be completely
unaware of it. Even King Herod knew nothing of it and this paranoid man was
always on high alert for any sign of anyone that might represent the slightest
threat to his throne.
We read in Luke's Gospel that it was NOT the star that illuminated the place of
Christ's birth, but rather it was something else.
CJB Luke 2:8-11 8
In the countryside nearby were some shepherds spending
the night in the fields, guarding their flocks, 9 when an angel of ADONAI
appeared to them, and the Sh'khinah of ADONAI shone around them. They
were terrified; 10 but the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, because I am
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
here announcing to you Good News that will bring great joy to all the
people. 11 This very day, in the town of David, there was born for you a
Deliverer who is the Messiah, the Lord.
So it was the Glory of the Lord (the Shekinah) that accompanied an angel that
illuminated the area and informed the Shepherds of the birth of Messiah, not the
star. So what was the sign of how these Shepherds would know which child was
the long awaited Deliverer?
CJB Luke 2:12 12 Here is how you will know: you will find a baby wrapped in
cloth and lying in a feeding trough." So the sign that this was the Messiah was where the baby was located, and that
he'd be lying in a feeding trough (a manger). It had nothing to do with a star, and
interestingly, it was not a newborn king the Jews were to be looking for but rather
their Deliverer. Here's where things begin to get dicey.
After visiting Herod, and the magis being urged by him to find this newborn king
of the Jews and then to let him know right away, they continued their journey.
Here's how Matthew describes it:
CJB Matthew 2:9-10 9 After they had listened to the king, they went away;
and the star which they had seen in the east went in front of them until it
came and stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the
star, they were overjoyed.
A plain reading of these 2 verses seems to say that this special star that the magi
first saw, which told them that a new king of the Jews had been born in Judea,
actually moved and led them to where the child was; and then it stopped and
hovered over the place where Yoseph, Miryam, and Yeshua were. This defies
any natural explanation so it is no wonder that much of Christianity sees this star
as a miracle of God. It may well be that it was. However there's another
explanation that must be considered because Matthew in no way implies that the
star was miraculous or supernatural.
Various constellations of the Zodiac were thought by the magi to represent
different regions of the known world. The constellation Aries, the Ram, was
representative of the region under the control of Herod at this time, which
centered around Judea. So Aries is where these astrologers would have looked
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
for portents about Herod's kingdom. Vettius Valens of Antioch as well as Ptolemy
recorded that Herod's kingdom was ruled by the Zodiac sign of Aries.
Before we continue concerning the star I want to add one more piece of
information. In Luke 1:5 we're told this: 5
In the days of Herod, King of
Y'hudah, there was a cohen named Z'kharyah who belonged to the Aviyah
division. His wife was a descendant of Aharon, and her name was
Elisheva. This is the beginning of the birth story of John the Baptist, and we're
told that this took place during King Herod's reign, meaning it had to have
happened before 4 B.C. when Herod died. Luke 1:36 puts Yeshua's birth about
15 months following the conception of John the Baptist. We also know that Herod
was still living and ruling after Christ was born. Thus it is becoming more and
more agreed upon by biblical scholars that 6 B.C. is a very good candidate for
the year of Messiah's birth.
At this point the understanding of the Zodiac and the position of planets and stars
within each sign of the Zodiac enters greatly into the matter of what the magi
were looking for as a portent. It is well beyond our scope to get into much detail
about this, so I will just present you with some interesting bottom line facts.
Where stars and planets appear within a section of the sky that represents the
sign of a certain region on earth had much to do with what omen or portent was
being signaled. Of the many things these ancient Hellenistic astrologers were
looking for, was the sign of a king dying or being born since kings were very
powerful and greatly affected matters of importance. The position of planets in
the Zodiac had everything to do with determining a portent about a king. To quote
Michael Molnar: "Thus, for a horoscope to be undeniably suited for a royal birth it
must have a strong set of conditions for attendance". In other words: the magi
would have been looking for something very specific and technical about those
tiny dots of light in the sky that only they and other members of their profession
would have known to look for.
As the famous astronomer Kepler pointed out around 1600 A.D., there had
indeed been a somewhat rare (about every 60 years) conjunction of planets that
occurred in 6 B.C., the likely year that Christ was born. Using modern
mathematical and astronomical techniques, scientists have determined that
precisely on March 20, 6 B.C., a special conjunction of planets and the
movement of both the moon and the planet Jupiter occurred within the Zodiac
sign of Aries (the sign for the region of Judea). Might this have been what the
magi saw that alerted them to the birth of a new king of the Jews? It certainly fits
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
the scenario quite well. More importantly it fits within the mindset of pagan
astrologers, the magi, of the 1st century A.D.
But now what to make of the statements in Matthew about the mysterious
movement of the Star of Bethlehem? The first thing we must do is to attempt to
get outside our modern Western thinking and instead adopt the mindset, and
grasp the vocabulary, of Greek astrologers in the 1st century, which is also the
time at which the Book of Matthew was being written by a man who had no
choice but to consult with experts, eye witnesses, and written records in order to
gather the many details contained in his Gospel account that we are studying.
Verse 2 of the second chapter of Matthew has the magi asking the people of
Jerusalem this question: "Where is the newborn King of the Jews? For we
saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." What is the
meaning of the description of where it is that they first saw the star? Does it mean
that the magi were located in the east where they resided when they saw it? The
term "in the east" is taken from the Greek and the literal English translation of it is
indeed "in the east"; but what it sounds like to us isn't what it meant to these
ancient astrologers. For them "in the east" is a technical astrological term that
means "at the rising" (in fact, in recognition of this some Bible translations are
now saying "at the rising" instead of "in the east"). This term is referring to a
planet that rises over the eastern horizon of the earth before the Sun appears.
Thus what the magi saw was a morning star.
A few verses later in Matthew 2 we read:
CJB Matthew 2:9 9 After they had listened to the king, they went away; and
the star which they had seen in the east went in front of them until it came
and stopped over the place where the child was.
"Went in front" or "Went before" are also literal translations of astrological terms.
The technical term is proegeseis, and while it means in laymen's terms to "go
before", in astrological parlance it means "to go in the same direction as the sky
moves". The ancient Greeks thought that the regular direction in which a planet
moves is the same as the direction that the overall sky moves. For those of us
who live in the 21st century the idea that the sky "moves" is rather amusing. But
remember that we're talking about people who had incorrect views about the
structure of our solar system, believed the sun revolved around the earth, that the
earth was flat and had 4 corners, etc.). So the term "stopped over" or "stood
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
over" (that seems to us to describe the birth star becoming stationary over the
place where Christ was born) has a slightly different meaning in ancient
astrology. According to Ptolemy it more means "above in the sky". So allow me to
rephrase the meaning of Matthew 2:9 into its astrological meaning to reveal what
this verse is telling us.
"After they had listened to the king, they went away; and the star which they had
seen at the rising, which went in the same direction as the sky moves, came and
was above in the sky where the child was".
In the end what we have in Matthew regarding the Star of Bethlehem is that
either it was a celestial event that signaled a portent, appearing in the Zodiac
sign of the Ram (Aries), which only the highly trained magi would have
recognized; a very subtle sign that occurs about every 60 years, and one that
would indeed have been marked by a morning star that rises in the east and then
moves its position across the sky, and then at some point appears to stop (before
it makes kind of a looping turn) or we have a miracle of God. I cannot say with
certainty which it is. But as we ponder this event we also need to factor into our
thinking that the birth star was NOT a sign that God gave to the Jews, but rather
it was a celestial sign meant for pagan astrologers. As Luke chapter 2 explains,
the sign God provided for the Jews was that they were to look in Bethlehem for a
baby that was laid in a feeding trough. Would God actually give pagan
astrologers a sign (any sign) of the birth of a divine Jewish Messiah? We find
God interfacing with pagans on a number of occasions in the Bible and one of the
more famous encounters involved the pagan magi Balaam, in the Book of
Numbers, which we talked about in a previous lesson and may be prophetically
connected to the birth of Christ.
In Matthew 2:11 when the magi finally found the child: Upon entering the
house, they saw the child with his mother Miryam; and they prostrated
themselves and worshipped him. Then they opened their bags and
presented him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The magi worshipped the child as they would any king. Remember: the magi
were not looking for a Savior or a god but rather for a new born king of Judea.
Prostrating oneself before a king was usual and customary. Presenting
expensive gifts when visiting a king was usual and customary especially for first␂time foreign visitors.
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
My opinion on the matter is this: God in His amazing providence timed the birth of
His Son to coincide with a sign that pagan astrologers were looking for. A sign
that the Jews had no knowledge of, and a sign so subtle that the Jews never
noticed it (because they would have no reason to notice it). Gentile pagans
worshipped Miryam's child as a king, with no understanding that He was Israel's
divine Messiah. At the same time God gave His chosen people a) a miraculous
announcement of the arrival of their Messiah (as a human baby) by means of an
angel and the appearance of the Glory of God in the night sky near Bethlehem;
and b) He also gave them a sign in order for them to positively identify this child
by saying He would be the one laying in a feeding trough in Bethlehem. So God
introduced His Son to the world as both King and Messiah; king to the pagans,
and Messiah to the Jews. And He did it in ways that each could identify with and
using means that each could accept. Let's keep that in mind as we carry out our
commission to introduce Jesus Christ to our unbelieving friends and family.
OK; let's return from our extensive detour and put the narrative of Matthew
chapter 2 together. Several pieces of information are given to us in rapid fashion
in the 1st verse. First, the name of the child (the Deliverer) is given: it is Yeshua.
Second, the place of His birth is provided: it is in Bethlehem of Judea. There
were a number of "Bethlehems" in the Holy Land so the addition of the words "of
Judea" was necessary. Third, Christ's birth occurred during the reign of King
Herod (meaning it had to have happened before 4 B.C., and the most likely year
for Yeshua's birth is 6 B.C.). Fourth, magi from a foreign land came to Jerusalem
looking for this new king of the Jews. Why Jerusalem? Because it was the seat of
government in Judea and so it seemed logical to them that this is where the new
king would be found. When they asked the local townspeople where this king
was they weren't asking in terms of what city or town he might be in; rather they
fully expected him to be somewhere in Jerusalem. Turns out, they were in the
wrong place because we've already been told that He was born in Bethlehem
(something they did not yet know).
When in verse 2 the magi say they have "seen his star", it more means that they
have identified an astrological portent that indicates a king has been born in the
region of Judea. Most Bibles have it that they say the reason they came was "to
worship" him. While that is not wrong, to the Western mind "worship" is reserved
for deities. However from an old English standpoint, worship means to pay
homage (usually to a king or aristocrat). Therefore some Bible translations such
as the NAS use the word "homage" (this projects a much more correct image to
we moderns because what the magi intended was in no way religious).
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
Verse 3 says that it didn't take long for Herod to hear about these magi asking
the townspeople about a new king of the Jews. Naturally this caught his attention
and the townspeople knew full well that the homicidal and brutal Herod would not
take this news lightly, so everyone got upset right along with him. Herod did what
any experienced king would do: he called for experts to come and give him
council. We are told that the chief priests (plural) came, and so did the Scribes of
the people (or as the CJB has it, the Torah Teachers).
We discussed in the Introduction to Matthew that at this time in history the Jews
operated under a dual religious system consisting of the Temple and the
Synagogue. These institutions were completely separate and run for different
purposes by different sets of authorities. The Levite priests ruled the Temple, and
the Scribes (who were not Levites) ruled the Synagogues. There was one
Temple but there were scores and scores of Synagogues. Also notice that when
the Chief Priests of the Temple were summoned, this was not speaking of the
High Priest but rather the most senior regular priests. Herod wanted to know
exactly where the Messiah was to be born, and seemed to understand that since
His advent was prophesied such information would be found somewhere in Holy
Scripture. Without hesitation (because those who knew Scripture knew the
answer) the priests and Scribes said it was to be Bethlehem of Judea because
the prophet had recorded it. The prophet they were speaking of is Micah, and
what they quote is essentially Micah 5:1 or 5:2 depending on which Bible version
you are using.
CJB Micah 5:1 But you, Beit-Lechem near Efrat, so small among the clans of
Y'hudah, out of you will come forth to me the future ruler of Isra'el, whose
origins are far in the past, back in ancient times.
So in the mid-700's B.C. (the time of Micah) it was foretold that the Messiah
would be born in Bethlehem. But now around 5 B.C. Herod wanted to know
WHEN the magi first saw this star that sent them on their journey because from
this he could judge the child's current age, which would be useful in identifying
him. Please notice that Herod had no doubt that the magi were correct. Herod
was fully a Hellenistic king and so bought in to pagan astrology. We're not told
how the magi responded to him; only that Herod bade them go to Bethlehem and
find this new king. And once they did, report it back to Herod so that he, too,
might go and pay homage to him. Yeah, right. The magi were intelligent men;
they understood that King Herod was not about to go and pay homage to his
potential replacement. The magi of course behaved as though they were obeying
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
Herod and set out towards Bethlehem. We are told that the star led them there,
but as we discussed earlier that's a misunderstanding of terminology. First of all,
they didn't need to be led to Bethlehem. The road to Bethlehem was well marked
and well traveled, and it was no more than a half-day's walk from where they
were. Second, Bethlehem was a small place and the process of finding the Christ
child wouldn't have been difficult. Nonetheless, they were excited beyond
measure that the star had indeed given them the correct information, and inside
the house they found Miryam and her child the new born king of the Jews.
It has become a Christian tradition that Miryam gave birth to Yeshua not in a
house or an inn, but rather in something like a barn or a cave. Verse 11
specifically says "house"; it can't be translated any other way. This tradition of a
cave or barn comes from the mention of the child being laid in an animal feeding
trough. But in that era (and it is still that way in parts of the Middle East) animals
are brought in at night to a courtyard that is part of the residence, and the
residents will sleep nearby to the animals. The purpose was to protect these
valuable animals from predators and from thieves. So naturally there was a
manger (a feeding trough) inside the courtyard. No doubt where the holy family
stayed was very lowly (it wasn't usual to put a child in a feeding trough as a bed).
According to Matthew it was a house and I feel certain that it was.
The magi paid homage to the child-king, giving him gifts of great value. How old
might this child have been by the time the magi found him? It is difficult to
ascertain. The description seems to be of an infant. And yet the timing says the
child might have been about a year old. So we'll just have to leave that an open
question. I'll repeat what I said earlier; to the magis' minds they were not
worshipping this child from the religious sense even though Christian Tradition
makes it seem so. Rather they were paying the typical homage due to a king.
Honoring even a baby if it was born regally was not at all unusual.
After paying homage the magi began the long journey back to their homeland (it
is not stated where that is), but they were warned in a dream not to return to
Herod. As seers they were sensitive to dreams and visions. Did they really have
a dream or was it really their instincts that told them that Herod was obviously up
to no good?
In verse 13 the magi now completely exit the story but the issue of Herod's
clearly murderous intent towards this child remains. We are told that an angel of
the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph to warn him to take his family and flee to
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
Egypt because Herod wants to harm the child. There is disagreement among
Bible versions about whether this is "the" angel of the Lord or he is "an" angel of
the Lord. The first suggestion makes this a unique angel, or even the Lord
Himself. The second suggestion ("an" angel) makes this an unidentified angel of
which there were others like him. I opt for "an" angel for a couple of reasons.
First: when we find the phrase "the angel of the Lord" in the Bible, invariably the
original language word isn't actually "Lord", it is Yehoveh... God's name. However
here Lord means Lord; God's name isn't used. There is only one Angel of the
Lord (Angel of Yehoveh) because this Angel is but another manifestation of God.
Yet a complication is that we have this angel speaking in the first person; he uses
the term "I" when he says to go to Egypt and stay there until I tell you to return.
Second: usually when the first person is used by an angel described as the Angel
of the Lord, that Angel is God. However here the wording is such that it could be
that God will again send this particular angel to Joseph in Egypt once it is safe for
them to go home (and the angel is aware of this fact). However the unusual way
Matthew phrases this indeed leaves room for doubt.
Verse 14 explains that Joseph obeyed the angel in his dream, and then verse 15
presents us with a sticky problem. The angel says that the overriding reason
Joseph, Mary and Jesus were to go to Egypt was so that the prophecy of "Out of
Egypt I called my son", would be fulfilled. This prophecy is taken from Hosea
11:1. Context is everything in the Bible, so listen to the entire verse.
CJB Hosea 11:1 "When Isra'el was a child, I loved him; and out of Egypt I
called my son.
So Matthew is applying to Yeshua a prophecy that specifically named Israel as
the child that God calls "my son". So the original context in Hosea is the exodus
of Israel from Egypt as led by Moses. Israel is called God's son as far back as
Exodus 4:22, going so far as God insisting that Israel is His firstborn son. So is it
right of Matthew to make such application by switching the subject of the
prophecy from Israel to the Messiah? It seems much like allegory for him to do so
rather than revealing straightforward biblical history and truth. While we could
camp here quite a while I'll hurry us through it.
Again remembering that Matthew is a well educated Jewish Believer, who (as we
will see as we move through the chapters) is equally knowledgeable with the
biblical Torah as he is with Jewish Tradition, he is likely employing what is called
the remez method of Bible interpretation. I've taught this before, but briefly: there
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
were 4 standard and accepted means of interpreting the Bible among the Jews of
Christ's era and it has more or less remained so to this day. The first
is p'shat that means "simple". That is, it is the plain, literal sense of the biblical
words. The second is remez that means "hint". That is, the biblical passage hints
at a truth a bit deeper than what we read in the p'shat (the simple, literal sense).
The third is drash, from which we get the Hebrew word midrash. It allows a
person to make application of what is said in the Scriptures in a way similar to
(but not quite the same as) allegory. That is, drash depends on God guiding the
human interpreter to truths not necessarily directly stated by the biblical words.
The Apostle Paul was a master at drash. Fourth is sod, meaning "secret". It is
the mysterious meaning behind the plain meaning. Gematria (the use of
numbers) to reveal less apparent truth is part of sod. Might Matthew be making
use of one of these 4 methods when he connects Hosea's prophecy to Christ?
Probably. I would speculate that he is employing the remez method of
interpretation; that is, Hosea 11:1 speaks directly of Israel as God's Son that He
calls out of Egypt, but in fact it also hints of a prophetic future calling of His Son
Yeshua out of Egypt.
Such a concept makes a direct and intimate link between Israel as God's Son
and the Messiah as God's Son. Christ and Israel are as one. Yeshua represents
the ideal Israel. This idea is sprinkled throughout the prophets and especially in
Isaiah 49. Essentially we have Jesus repeating Israel's experience by being
called by God the Father to come out of Egypt.
Herod died in 4 B.C., so we can assume that it was in that same year when the
angel returned to Joseph and told him his family could safely return to the Holy
Land. They probably were in Egypt for about a year. However shortly before his
death, Herod went into a paranoid rage when he realized the magi had tricked
him. They had gone to Bethlehem as instructed, but then went home without
returning to him with the information he had sought. In response Herod ordered
all children (probably only the males) 2 years of age and under who lived in
Bethlehem and areas nearby to be slaughtered. Apparently in their visit to Herod
the magi had told him when it was that they first saw the star. However their
seeing the star didn't necessarily mean (to him) that it represented the specific
date the child was born; it could have a little earlier or a little later. Since he
wasn't certain of the date he killed a wide range of ages: the children who were 2
years old and younger. Here we see the continuing connection with Egypt
because Pharaoh did something similar to the Israelite children 1400 years
earlier.
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Lesson 5 - Matthew 2 Cont.
CJB Exodus 1:15-22 15 Moreover, the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew
midwives, one of whom was called Shifrah and the other Pu'ah. 16 "When
you attend the Hebrew women and see them giving birth," he said, "if it's a
boy, kill him; but if it's a girl, let her live." 17 However, the midwives were
God-fearing women, so they didn't do as the king of Egypt ordered but let
the boys live. 18 The king of Egypt summoned the midwives and demanded
of them, "Why have you done this and let the boys live?" 19 The midwives
answered Pharaoh, "It's because the Hebrew women aren't like the
Egyptian women- they go into labor and give birth before the midwife
arrives." 20 Therefore God prospered the midwives, and the people
continued to multiply and grow very powerful. 21 Indeed, because the
midwives feared God, he made them founders of families. 22 Then Pharaoh
gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born, throw in the river;
but let all the girls live." We'll close for today and pick up Matthew chapter 2 next week and then move
into chapter 3.
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 6, Chapters 2 and 3
As we drink in and deeply reflect on the beauty, salt, and light that the Book of
Matthew provides us, let us also be reminded of something about the author
himself. Our Jewish Matthew was not an eyewitness to anything he was reporting
nor does he claim that he was. The disciple Matthew was a tax collector, while
writers of Gospels were usually literary experts, often making a living from it as a
profession, even if that wasn't their only occupation. So all indications are that
this is not the same Matthew that was an original disciple of Christ. Therefore,
Matthew the Gospel writer had to do extensive research of documents for
information about Yeshua's life and ministry, and also would have conducted
interviews with some folks who may have been eyewitnesses to it. He would
have had to familiarize himself with some matters of which he didn't personally
have any expertise, so he would have sought out those who were knowledgeable
in the field. And before I say another word I would be remiss if I didn't credit the
Holy Spirit and divine inspiration for leading and directing Matthew's writing (who
was probably mostly if not completely unaware of God's hand upon him) to
provide us with the truthful and invaluable information that we have before us
today.
Because he was a Jewish Believer who probably lived in the Holy Land near to
the Temple and also to synagogue leadership; a man who we will soon see had
considerable depth of Torah knowledge as well as a solid grasp of Jewish
Tradition, he would have had little to do with pagan astrology because such a
thing was shunned within the more strict segments of Jewish society. Thus in his
birth story of Jesus, wherein he placed considerable relevance on the visitation of
the magi (the other Gospel writers never even mention it), he would have had to
seek out those who practiced astrology for their knowledge on the subject.
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
I point this out because I was (and perhaps you were, too) quite struck with
Matthew's use of technical astrological terms and phrases that only a few experts
would have known; terms and phrases to help describe the magis' discovery of
the heavenly portent of a new king of the Jews being born in Judea; a portent
known in Christianity as the Star of Bethlehem. I suspect that Matthew might not
have been all that surprised that pagan star gazers from a distant land had
received knowledge of Christ's birth. While it is true that the magi didn't in any
way think of this child as divine or as a Messiah, but rather as an earthly king,
nonetheless it was not a mere coincidence that in using the celestial Zodiac and
astrological reckoning they were, by Matthew's account, the first to know of
Chris's advent even before the Jews did! While that might seem odd to us the
biblical pattern may just reveal that for His own good reasons, this is how God
had always intended it.
When I look at a listing of Old Testament prophecies put together by the classic
Christian scholars that predict the coming of a Messiah, I have yet to run across
one that includes the story of Balaam and Balak in the Book of Numbers. And
yet Jewish sages and scholars have for millennia emphasized this story, and
especially Balaam's speech in Numbers 24, as a clear and powerful prophecy
about a Messiah for Israel that will come from the tribe of Judah that seems to
even include a celestial portent.
CJB Numbers 24:15-17 15 So he (Balaam) made his pronouncement: "This is
the speech of Bil'am, son of B'or; the speech of the man whose eyes have
been opened; 16 the speech of him who hears God's words; who knows
what 'Elyon knows, who sees what Shaddai sees, who has fallen, yet has
open eyes: 17 "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not soon- a star will
step forth from Ya'akov, a scepter will arise from Isra'el, to crush the
corners of Mo'av and destroy all descendants of Shet.
Balaam was a pagan magi, just as were the magi who visited the Christ child. In
Numbers we have Balaam making this incredible prognostication that one would
think would only come from the lips of a great Sage of Israel or perhaps a
venerable Hebrew prophet. But no; this comes from the mouth of a pagan magi.
So why does Matthew give so much attention to the magi when none of the other
Gospel writers even mention them? And why doesn't Matthew wonder out loud
about the seemingly ironic reality that pagan astrologers were the first to learn of
Messiah's coming and this due to some confluence of stars and planets in the
sky? I can only speculate that because of the Jews' belief that the Balaam
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
speech was prophetic of a Messiah, which even included the mention of a star
a Torah account that the learned Jew Matthew was no doubt quite familiar with....
that it was Matthew who put 2 and 2 together and saw the relationship between
the magis visiting the Christ child in Bethlehem and the Balaam story.
Later in Matthew chapter 2, Matthew again exposes his Jewish mindset and Bible
knowledge by connecting a prophecy found in Hosea 11:1 with Yeshua. There
we read:
CJB Hosea 11:1 "When Isra'el was a child, I loved him; and out of Egypt I
called my son.
But one must ask: how does Matthew legitimately transfer the meaning of
Hosea's words, which clearly has Israel in mind, to Yeshua? We discussed last
week that the Jews used (and continue to use) 4 different methods for
interpreting Holy Scripture, and one of those standard methods is called remez,
meaning hint. Only an educated Jew like Matthew would be aware of these kinds
of interpretation techniques and be able to deftly apply them to the situation of
Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fleeing to Egypt to avoid being murdered by King
Herod. So here is early evidence in the Book of Matthew that Matthew was
determined in his Gospel to show his readers something of supreme importance.
Something that has been all but lost within Christianity: it is the proper
relationship between Christ and the Torah and the Prophets. And at the same
time (as we'll see later) questioning (if not rejecting) many of the views and
teachings of the synagogue authorities of that era: the Scribes and the
Pharisees. Why? Because so many of those views were based on manmade
traditions and customs that were not founded on actual biblical truth. So taking
Matthew's lead, we'll continue today to do our best to put on a Jewish mindset in
order to understand what the Jewish Matthew is telling us, but also to take the
Bible for what it says and avoid filtering those words through long held Christian
traditions.
We ended our study last time with the death of King Herod in 4 B.C., about 2
years after Yeshua's birth, and with Herod's unconscionable slaying of the
children in Bethlehem and nearby areas because of his paranoia that the magi
were right: a new king of the Jews had been born and so that meant Herod's hold
on power might be challenged.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2.
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 2:16 - end
Before we move on, it is important that we notice something else about
Matthew's Gospel that supplies an important backdrop for his presentation. It is
that there is a strong connection present in Matthew between Moses' life and
Yeshua's. I don't think it is too strong to say that Matthew makes Jesus a kind of
second Moses. And while that thought might at first unsettle us, when we look at
the matter from the 30.000 foot view it makes sense. To begin with, in the Torah
we hear these words from Moses:
CJB Deuteronomy 18:14-19 14 For these nations, which you are about to
dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners; but you, ADONAl your God
does not allow you to do this. 15 "ADONAl will raise up for you a prophet
like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay
attention to him, 16 just as when you were assembled at Horev and
requested ADONAl your God, 'Don't let me hear the voice of ADONAl my
God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will
die!' 17 On that occasion ADONAI said to me, 'They are right in what they are
saying. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their
kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I
order him. 19 Whoever doesn't listen to my words, which he will speak in my
name, will have to account for himself to me.
The biggest error that the Hebrews of old, and Believers today, make regarding
understanding prophecy is that they (and we) don't take it literally enough. When
we look back at the prophecies that have already been fulfilled, invariably they
have hit the nail on the head including details that may have seemed improbable
or not comprehensible until these fulfillments finally occurred. The near universal
tendency in Christian academic circles of teaching prophecy allegorically
(because the scholar can't see how the event can happen literally as the Bible
predicts) takes Believers on wild goose chases or builds false expectations that
are completely unnecessary. Some of this is due to our impatience to know the
outcome of a prophecy in advance and rather than waiting for it to actually
happen. The result is that speculation is substituted for fact and then it is adopted
by the eager student or congregation member as a settled matter.
When Moses said that God would raise up "a prophet like me" from among
Israel, it happened exactly as said. So it should be no surprise to anyone that the
Messiah would be that prophet, and that the similarities between he and Moses
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
would be extensive. One of the reasons I address this with you is because many
modern Bible scholars and the commentaries they write (commentators who are
usually skeptical of the ancient biblical records) take the many similarities
between Jesus and Moses as an indication that the entire story of Christ is
suspect and contrived because it bears such resemblance to Moses and his
experiences completely ignoring that such resemblance is exactly what was
prophesied by Moses in the Torah!
I have explained in previous lessons that perhaps Christ's overriding and
underlying theological purpose is to inaugurate a re-Creation. Genesis opens
with the first heavens and earth, and the Book of Revelation ends with the re␂Creation of a new heavens and new earth, and Yeshua is at the center of it all.
Therefore it should not be surprising that while Moses was God's first Mediator,
and brought God's Word in stone to God's people, Yeshua was God's second
and better Mediator and was Himself God's Word in the flesh brought to God's
people. Moses was the Father's agent of redemption for God's people in one
capacity, and Jesus was the also the Father's agent of redemption for God's
people but in another and greater capacity. I could go on with the many
similarities but time doesn't permit. So just be acutely aware of the
Yeshua/Moses connection that Matthew has in mind as we study his Gospel.
Verse 17 explains that the mass homicide King Herod perpetrated upon helpless
children simply because any Jewish boy under 2 might have been the new king
the magi came to find, was itself a fulfillment of prophecy according to Matthew.
He quotes from Jeremiah 31:14 (or 15 depending on your Bible version).
CJB Jeremiah. 31:14 14 This is what ADONAI says: "A voice is heard in
Ramah, lamenting and bitter weeping. It is Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no longer
alive."
Matthew connects Rachel weeping and refusing to be comforted because her
children are no longer alive with the mass slaughter of Jewish children by Herod
that would have devastated the entire Jewish community. However context is
everything and so as good students of God's Word we need to continue reading
in Jeremiah.
CJB Jeremiah 31:14-16 14 This is what ADONAI says: "A voice is heard in
Ramah, lamenting and bitter weeping. It is Rachel weeping for her children,
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no longer
alive." 15 This is what ADONAl says: "Stop your weeping, and dry your
eyes, for your work will be rewarded," says ADONAl. "They will return from
the enemy's land; 16 so there is hope for your future," says ADONAI. "Your
children will return to their own territory.
When we add in more context we see that although Rachel is weeping
uncontrollably at the moment, God tells her to stop weeping because there is
hope. Be aware that when Jeremiah mentions Rachel (who was one of Jacob's
wives), it is using her name as representative of some or all of Israel. Many
Christian scholars scratch their heads over Matthew 2:18 because the connection
between Rachel weeping and the murder of small children in Bethlehem shortly
after Jesus' birth is weak if not irrelevant. So what's Matthew's intent? It seems to
me that once again we see Matthew's Jewish mindset at work because he
employs one of the 4 Jewish methods of Bible interpretation
(perhaps remez although in this case it could be the drash method) in order to
connect the Jeremiah prophecy to the horrific murdering of Jewish children by
Herod. In other words, Matthew sees a firm relationship between the two events
that occurred far apart in history.
On the surface Jeremiah's prophecy is not a Messianic prophecy but rather it's
about return from exile for Israel. Jeremiah lived at the time of the Babylonian
conquest of Judea that included the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the
exile of most of Judea's population. Genesis 35:19 explains that Rachel died on
the way to Ephrath; interestingly Ephrath was an early name for Bethlehem. Yet,
Jeremiah's prophecy can't be primarily about the Babylonian exile because
Rachel's children are Joseph and Benjamin (plus Dan and Naphtali through her
handmaiden, Bilah). While in Egypt, Rachel's son Joseph fathered 2 sons of his
own: Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim and Manasseh together represent the
bulk of the 10 northern tribes of Israel that were conquered by Assyria around
720 B.C. and scattered all over their empire. The territory of Benjamin was like a
buffer state between the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of
Judah, so there were mixed loyalties among the Benjamites. The part of
Benjamin that was loyal to northern kingdom went into exile with them, and the
part that was loyal to the southern kingdom remained in the land but would
themselves be exiled upon the Babylonian conquest about 130 years later. So
God seems to be telling Rachel to stop weeping because all the exiles of Israel
(both the northern and southern kingdoms), and perhaps even the dead ones,
will eventually return to the Holy Land.
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
Notice the common elements of Matthew's narrative that include Egypt,
Bethlehem, and the murder of Israelite children. All of these apply both to
Rachel's children and to Christ's birth story. In the end, despite the gut wrenching
disasters associated with the two exiles and the murder of the innocents, God
says there is hope; so hope is the theme. The underlying connection seems to be
that there is hope for Israel's return from exile and there is also hope that it is the
Messiah that will manifest that return. The Good News is that Messiah has been
born. A Jewish reader in the 1st century might catch on to this; but a gentile
reader would have found it most difficult to understand what Matthew is getting
at. But now you know.
Starting in verse 19 we're told that once Herod died an angel came in a dream to
Joseph as he and his family were still in Egypt, and the all-clear was given to him
to return home. However when Joseph heard that it was Herod's son Archelaus
that replaced his father, Joseph decided to go the Galilee instead of returning to
Judea. It seems that Archelaus assumed control over Judea, Samaria and
Idumea. Joseph 's decision to avoid Judea was a wise one because Archelaus
turned out to be at least as brutal as his father. In fact his cruelty so alarmed
Rome that they finally stepped in and replaced him with a Roman governor in 6
A.D. and from then forward only Roman governors ruled Judea and the region.
Galilee, where Joseph took his family, and neighboring Perea were put under the
control of another of Herod's sons, Antipas. He was a somewhat more
reasonable ruler and so the area was generally peaceful and secure.
Now for verse 23. Frankly this verse is problematic and there is little way around
it. The first half of the verse is simple enough in that it identifies Nazareth as the
town that Joseph and his family settled in. Nazareth, like almost all of Galilee,
was agricultural. It was a small and insignificant place; perhaps Joseph chose it
just for that reason so that they could be inconspicuous as a protection for his
son Yeshua. The problem part of the verse is the second half. Matthew claims
the fulfillment of a yet another prophecy and supposedly quotes Scripture from
some unnamed prophet that says that the Messiah will be called a Nazorean or
in Hebrew, a Natzrati. No known Scripture or combination of Scriptures does
that. Several possibilities to solve this dilemma have been suggested that I'll
briefly go over. First, is that the intention was to say that Christ became a
Nazarite. Nothing in the New Testament or in His actions imply that He took the
vows of a Nazarite. Second is that the meaning is that a Nazorean is what a
resident of Nazareth is called. And third is that the word comes from the Hebrew
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
term nezer, which means "branch" and thus it connects Yeshua to Isaiah 11:1.
CJB Isaiah 11:1 But a branch will emerge from the trunk of Yishai, a shoot
will grow from his roots.
I sort of favor the simplest solution. In John's Gospel 1:44 - 46 we read:
44 Philip was from Beit-Tzaidah, the town where Andrew and Kefa
lived. 45 Philip found Natan'el and told him, "We've found the one that
Moshe wrote about in the Torah, also the Prophets- it's Yeshua Ben-Yosef
from Natzeret!" 46 Natan'el answered him, "Natzeret? Can anything good
come from there?" "Come and see," Philip said to him.
The point is that Nazareth was apparently a town that was often the brunt of
jokes for some reason. So people who lived there were considered to be living in
a worthless place, therefore any resident of Nazareth took on the same worthless
character as the town. Therefore to be called a Nazorean (or a Natzrati) identified
a person who lived in a place unworthy of mention. To me that fits well with the
characterization of Yeshua as a humble man from a humble place; a Messiah
and king who was anything but prominent, aristocratic, or charismatic in
appearance all things that humans tend to value but God doesn't.
Let's move on to chapter 3.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 3 all
In this chapter Matthew quickly turns from the birth of Messiah and all the
circumstances that surrounded it, to John the Baptist. In fact, Matthew suddenly
jumps over about 30 years; that is, Christ's entire childhood is not discussed. The
Gospel of Mark does the same. Only Luke's Gospel spends any time with
Yeshua's youth and if you'd like to know more about it read Luke 2:21 - 52. Most
scholars attribute this curiosity to Matthew essentially copying Mark's interests
and style. We've already discussed that the historical record provided by the
earliest Church Fathers is that whatever copying was done was done by Mark,
since Matthew's was the first Gospel account written according to those same
Church Fathers. But I think that what we need to be focusing on is that Matthew
was certainly a Jew, and nearly as certainly so was Mark. Luke, on the other
hand, was just as certainly a gentile (he was Dr. Luke who accompanied Paul on
some of his journeys). So for the Jews Matthew and Mark, Yeshua's youth was
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relatively unimportant; it's His adult life that mattered. But for the gentle Luke,
who thought and wrote as a gentile and for gentiles (remember how he
constructed Christ's genealogy not as Hebrews did but rather as gentile Romans
did in his era), Yeshua's youth was an important part of his story and his mostly
gentile readers (and probably his patron) would have wanted to know about it.
Verse 1 begins "In those days" or "During those days". This is an indefinite term
that simply means some amount of time has passed and entirely new
circumstances are about to be discussed. In this case the time that has passed
from the end of chapter 2 is 3 decades, plus or minus a couple a years. The new
circumstance involves a very strange, yet passionate, man called John the
Baptist. "John" of course was not his birth name; rather it is an English-ized
version of Yochanan. In Hebrew Yochanan means "Yehoveh shows favor"
(NOT God shows favor).
Matthew characterizes John as a preacher, and his starting point of preaching is
said to be the wilderness of Judea. For anyone who has been to Israel,
Jerusalem, and the south, it quickly becomes apparent that wilderness does not
mean densely forested hills and valleys but rather stark and mysterious desert.
Matthew also always refers to John as "John the Baptist"; not just "John" as Mark
tends to do. An interesting feature in this chapter is that just as Matthew jumped
completely over Yeshua's youth, he does the same with John the Baptist. It is
often stated in Christian commentaries that this omission assumes that John (and
Yeshua) were already well known in the Jewish community, as were their birth
circumstances, so there was no need to mention it. Perhaps. However my view is
that in Jewish thought and writing, unless the point of a biblical narrative is about
a person's time as a youth (such as when David as a teenager faced down the
menacing Goliath, partly as a humiliation of the adult Israelites who were too
scared to do it) then the Hebrew cultural value system of placing more value on
mature adults than on infants and children was what was at play. Further, since
all the Gospels are about a religious matter, and since in Jewish society a man
had to be 30 years old to be considered eligible to be a religious authority, then
for Matthew what those 2 men did as youth wasn't particularly relevant. When we
consider that Yeshua grew up in distant and tiny Nazareth, and John was a
strange man who lived the later part of his youth in a desolate desert, then
whatever encounters the Jewish public may have had with these two as youth,
must have been few and far between. So it is difficult to imagine the local Jewish
society being familiar with Yeshua's and Yochanan's infancy and youth.
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Lesson 6 - Matthew 2 & 3
It is significant for us to gain what the term "baptize" meant to Jews in the 1st
century A.D. because whatever we find in the New Testament about baptize and
baptizing is meant to be taken in that context. We'll discuss this at length to begin
our next lesson. What I can tell you for the moment is that Christian Tradition has
altered the meaning of the term and the means of performing it.
John the Baptist brings two critical messages to the Jewish public: repent for your
sins, and the Kingdom of God is near. They are at once two different things, and
yet intimately related. As David Sterns aptly says in his New Testament
Commentary, the idea of repenting because the Kingdom of God is at hand
mostly conjures up a picture of some weirdly dressed guy, standing on a
makeshift box, at a busy street corner, shouting to no one in particular, and
people avoiding looking at him. So even in the Church, the idea of repenting
because the Kingdom of God is near can bring a communal wince upon the
congregation members. So much so that the most popular of TV evangelists try
to avoid using those terms.
John doesn't say to repent; he says to turn from your sins. However the English
term repent is an excellent word to abbreviate John's words. The Hebrew
word teshuvah embodies this concept. Literally it means to turn or to return. In
its Jewish religious sense it means to turn from one's sins AND to return to God.
So it doesn't only mean to quit your bad behavior; it also includes sincerely and
personally recommitting one's life to the Lord and to His ways. An atheist can
notice his or her bad behaviors and stop them; but that is not biblical repentance.
Reforming one's relationship with the God of the Bible is the other necessary
ingredient. Further, Jews rightly acknowledge that even this act of the human will
is set into motion by God. We can only truly repent by God's grace. All else is but
a short-lived emotional response to our conscience.
The second part of John the Baptist's message is that the Kingdom of God is
near. What, exactly, is the Kingdom of God and what does he mean that it is
near? And further what relationship does that have to repentance? We'll discuss
that and more next time.
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 7, Chapter 3 Continued
If we were to do a deep comparison between the 4 Gospel accounts that open
the New Testament, it would become evident that each Gospel writer approaches
the matter of the advent, life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah with his own
unique mindset and perspective, and that he has a specific purpose and
audience for his Gospel in mind. For instance Mark expresses zero interest in
Yeshua's background as a youth, and only speaks about Him starting with the
day Christ's ministry begins. He also outlines Christ's life and actions in an
orderly but rather abrupt way that in my opinion reads like a biography. Luke is
trying to please his customer and patron, Theophilos. We don't know who
Theophilos was, but his was a Roman gentile name. Luke doesn't seem to
expect Theophilos to know much about Jewish Tradition or history and so takes
the time to explain certain things Matthew wouldn't have because Matthew was a
Jew writing to other Jews and so most Jewish concepts needed no clarification.
John also expected his readers to be mostly Jewish and thus familiar with Jewish
Tradition and the Holy Scriptures. Therefore the opening sentence of his Gospel
speaks of the uniquely Hebrew concept of "The Word" without further
explanation. Most Jews would know what the term "The Word" was pointing to,
but the vast majority of gentile Believers would not. "The Word" was familiar
among Jews; it was the Hebrew notion of the Memra. The Memra represented a
mysterious manifestation of God that had to do with the power of speech (as in:
God "spoke" the Universe into existence). The term itself comes from the Hebrew
root word 'amar, which means "to say". The Hebrew Memra was translated to
the Greek Logos, which has to do with speech and speaking. But
while Memra had a spiritual connotation within the Jewish community, logos did
not have such a connotation with the Roman gentile community.
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
Matthew, like John, wrote in a way that had certain expectations of his readers
that included knowledge of Hebrew history and custom; but Matthew seems to
have expected even more of his readers than did John. Therefore, as we
discussed in the prior lesson, Matthew wrote with the ever present backdrop of
Yeshua being the second Moses; something Jews would have related with. More
specifically Yeshua was the "Prophet like me" that Moses said in the Torah would
eventually come. Matthew at times also made somewhat obscure connections
between words of the ancient Prophets and certain events within the life of
Jesus. Even a well educated gentile would have a rough time trying to
understand how Matthew could legitimately make some of these associations
such that Jesus (or an event associated with Jesus) became the prophetic
fulfillment of the Prophets' words. However a Jew of that era (probably a more
studied one) would understand that Matthew was using one of the four different
methods of Bible interpretation that the Scribes and Sages employed in order to
make his point. Again, such knowledge would have been outside the scope of
what gentiles (including Believers) could typically have understood.
Since we are 20 centuries distant from the writing of Matthew's Gospel and the
cultures that existed at that time, we are going to step through Matthew's Gospel
at a careful pace, and I'm going to do my best to help you climb into the mindset
of a 1st century Jew in order to understand where Matthew is coming from and
what he meant by what he said. We're going to discuss a number of terms, some
of which are rather standard in Christianity (such as Baptism and The Kingdom of
Heaven), because often we'll see that what that meant to 1st century Jews is not
exactly how the Church has come to define it.
As we began Matthew chapter 3 last week John the Baptist was introduced to us.
We'll re-read the entire chapter to have a good foundation for today's teaching.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 3.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 3 all
The first verse proclaims that John the Baptist began his ministry in the desert of
Judea. Since there are a few Johns in the New Testament, recognize that this is
not John the Apostle, an original disciple of Yeshua, who is also the writer of his
own Gospel and of 3 more letters 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. This is a very
unique John whose story begins in other Gospels, but not in Matthew's, when he
was still in his mother's womb. The desert of Judea is speaking of the southern
end of the Jordan River valley and extending all the way past the Dead Sea and
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
down to that finger of the Red Sea known today as the Gulf of Aqaba, over which
Moses miraculously led the Israelites through parted waters as they fled Pharaoh
and his army.
There were several religious communities that lived in that desolate region in the
1st century, seeking peace and separation from both the Romans and the corrupt
Temple authorities. None was larger nor more famous than the sect of the
Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, the discovery of which in the mid-20th
century opened an entire new vista of understanding and study of the Old
Testament and of Jewish history. It is nearly impossible to imagine John not living
among one or more of those communities during his years of preparation in that
barren desert. So today there is much speculation about his possible involvement
with the Essenes of Qumran. Perhaps the greatest evidence of his involvement in
Qumran is that he uses very similar terms and phrases that are found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls in the section known as the Community Documents. My
opinion is that John the Baptist indeed spent significant time with the Essenes,
although he didn't become one of them. Still we're not going to spend any of our
time with this matter because it really doesn't advance our study of Matthew nor
is there any firm evidence either way to hang our hats on.
John's twofold message that he brought to the Jewish community was that
people needed to turn away from their sins and return to God, and this was in
preparation for the imminent coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. In verse 3
Matthew once again connects an ancient prophetic oracle with the events
surrounding the advent of Yeshua; this time it is about John the Baptist. He
quotes Isaiah 40:3.
CJB Isaiah 40:3 A voice cries out: "Clear a road through the desert for
ADONAI! Level a highway in the Aravah for our God!
Different Bible versions will quote this passage differently, but they all amount to
the same thing: someone coming from the desert of Judea is going to announce
the arrival of God or someone God is sending. The differences among Bible
versions come mainly from taking Isaiah's quote either from the Hebrew Tanakh
or from the Greek Septuagint. Although it is agreed by Judaism and Christianity
that this passage is prophetic of the coming of a Messiah, in reality at the time it
was written the context was of the return of the Jews from their captivity in
Babylon. I've taught you before that it is the Jewish way (a way we find often in
the New Testament) to quote only a few words (or perhaps a couple of
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
sentences) from an Old Testament book, expecting the reader to know the
remainder. In other words, Jews knew the context of the brief quote.... but
gentile Christians usually didn't and still don't! It is worth our time to see the
context for ourselves so open your Bibles to Isaiah 39; we'll start at verse 5 and
continue through Isaiah 40 verse 11. READ ISAIAH 39:5-40:11
We see that this passage, in context, is related to the Jews' return from Babylon.
Yet clearly from the way those verses are written, the fullest fulfillment of this
prophecy is much wider and more grand than only the Jews coming home from
Babylon. From a Jewish viewpoint Matthew would say that the remez of the
passage speaks of the Messiah, even though the p'shat is about returning from
Babylon (go review the previous lesson if you are not clear about the
terms remez and p'shat). It was also understood among Jews that the person
who is crying out, the one who is preparing the way for the Lord, is Elijah.
Speaking of John the Baptist, Matthew says in chapter 11:14:
CJB Matthew 11:14 Indeed, if you are willing to accept it, he (John the
Baptist) is Eliyahu, whose coming was predicted.
Elijah's return was a prediction found in Malachi.
CJB Malachi 3:23 Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the
coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAl.
Let me point out that depending on your Bible version, this verse could also
appear as Malachi 4:5 or 4:6.
It is here that we need to pause and take a couple of brief detours to explain
some terms. Because John is called the Baptist, or in terms more familiar to the
minds of Jews, "the immerser", I'd like to discuss the concept of baptism.
For Jews to be immersed (or baptizein in the language of the Greeks) was
meant in the same sense as one might dye a piece of cloth. That is, one dips a
cloth into a vat of colored dye and when removed that cloth has taken on the
characteristics (the color) of that dye. However for Jews, this dipping and
absorbing of characteristics was also meant in a religious context that revolved
around ritual purity. Before a Jew could present his offering at the Temple he first
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
had to be immersed in one of the several Mikvehs that were located either in or
near the Temple grounds. This immersion was in obedience to several passages
in Leviticus, which prescribed this immersion and washing to remedy any of a
number of causes for the worshipper to have become ritually impure.
I think the most important thing to notice is less the exact method of immersion,
and more what the immersion is about. Historically for Jews, immersion was
about ritual cleansing from spiritual impurity. But John said (and would amplify on
this later) that this new immersion that he brought was NOT for cleansing from
ritual purity but rather it was a cleansing from sin. Let me impress upon you that
impurity and sin are two entirely different things and cause two entirely different
human conditions and outcomes. Impurity is not sin. Impurity could almost
always be set right with what I call a wash and a wait. That is, most of the
reasons for becoming ritually impure could be solved by the worshiper immersing
him or her self in living water and then waiting until a new day began (which was
at sunset). So the remedy for impurity was usually quick and painless, and
theoretically cost nothing (a few of the more serious reasons for impurity required
more extensive procedures and a longer wait time). But the remedy for sin
always involved an animal sacrifice upon the Temple altar, which ranged from
inexpensive animals like birds, all the way up to the hefty price tag of a mature
bull. Impurity was cured with water; sin was cured with the blood of an innocent
animal. Jews were acutely aware of this difference.
Let me be clear: it is NOT that (according to John) an immersion in water now
itself atoned for sin. Rather it is that when one trusted in the One that John was
preparing the way for, immersing in the water now was symbolic of taking on the
characteristics of the One who atoned for sins. We'll soon see that it was
symbolic of identifying with the Christ. This also did not mean that immersion in
water to remedy ritual impurity would end. Rather, it was that one would have to
declare what the immersion was for.
While many Pharisees and Scribes would argue from the position of Jewish
Tradition that there was indeed a kind of supernatural nature in the living water of
a river or lake or in a Mikveh that had an actual physical effect upon the human
body sufficient to remove the toxic impurity, others of the more learned and
enlightened Jews understood that the effect of immersion was symbolic on the
one hand, but also it was in obedience to the command of God on the other. So
whatever physical effect that ritual impurity there might be on the body or soul
was erased by God in response to righteous obedience to the Law of Moses; it
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
was not because water literally washed it away like dirt coming off the body when
taking a bath.
It is interesting that although the term baptizein (baptize) means "to immerse",
hundreds of years ago within the Church the practice of sprinkling began. How
sprinkling can be seen as the same as immersing I don't know except that my
suspicion is that as with nearly everything else in early gentile Christianity, goal
number one of the Bishops was to separate gentile Christians from Jewish
practices, including those that were biblically ordained. David Sterns notes that
in the 16th and 17th centuries some in the Church revolted against this rather
dubious substitution of sprinkling for immersion, and the first groups to break
away appropriately called themselves "Baptists".
As to the actual immersion process, so far as the ancient documents tell us, a
Jew was not "dunked" by another person. Rather it was a self-immersion. Even
today there is often a supervisor at a mikveh to make sure that a person is 100%
unclothed, or has no open wound on them, or that every last hair became
submerged, and they watch for a few other violations as well. We do read that
John is said to have baptized people, and this is usually taken to mean that he
physically immersed worshippers. But his role was probably that of a supervisor,
and to have the immersion candidate publicly declare what their immersion was
meant to accomplish.
While I advocate for self immersion with supervision (it is, after all, the way it was
done among the Jews who invented the process), I also don't take the position
that if a person is "dunked" by another that such baptism is inferior or invalid. But
as for sprinkling? I have a stronger position against that except in the case where
a person lives in a primitive place where water is so scarce that immersion is
simply not an option. Having a few drops of water flicked on you is not
immersion, and therefore it is not baptizing. Neither is the practice of baptizing
infants or small children efficacious because they have no choice of the will in the
matter. If you are one who was sprinkled or perhaps baptized as a child before
the age of accountability, my advice is to be properly baptized as soon as
possible.
As a somewhat shorter detour, I now want to briefly talk about the term "The
Kingdom of Heaven". This term has essentially the same meaning as, and is fully
interchangeable with, "The Kingdom of God". So I will alternate those two terms
throughout our study of Matthew. The reason that some Jews preferred the term
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
"Kingdom of Heaven" is because they didn't want to use the word "God" due to a
taboo of saying His name that began around 300 B.C. I think it is fair to say that
the more strict Jews no doubt many of the Holy Land Jews as opposed to the
Diaspora Jews.... more carefully avoided using the term "God" in any context. It
is noteworthy that Matthew is the one Gospel writer who almost exclusively uses
the term "The Kingdom of Heaven" instead of "Kingdom of God" because as for
the other 3 Gospel writers, it is the reverse. It is all the more reason that I view
Matthew as not only the most "Jewish" of all the Gospels, but also that Matthew
himself was a learned and pious Holy Land Jew.
The term "Kingdom of Heaven" or "Kingdom of God" is directly connected to the
concept of ultimate restoration of God's Creation. Christ is quoted as saying:
CJB Luke 17:20-21 20 The P'rushim asked Yeshua when the Kingdom of God
would come. "The Kingdom of God," he answered, "does not come with
visible signs; 21 nor will people be able to say, 'Look! Here it is!1 or, 'Over
there!' Because, you see, the Kingdom of God is among you." The CJB along with the majority of Bible translations say that the Kingdom of
God is "among you". It implies that Christ Himself is the Kingdom of God, which
is not biblical. The word being translated is entos, which the various Greek
Lexicons says means "within" or "inside". It does not mean "in the midst" and
certainly not "among". In other words, The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place or a
time. Rather it is a state of being. It is a state of being whereby all has been
restored to the original perfection. All is new and the Universe is forever free from
sin and death. In the biblical context it also means that all living beings quite
naturally glorify God as the ruler over all things.
But what does John the Baptist mean by the Kingdom of Heaven is near? First, it
doesn't indicate proximity since the Kingdom of Heaven isn't a time or a place or
a creature. Rather it is that the arrival of the state of being called the Kingdom of
Heaven is a process that involves many stages. John the Baptist's presence and
ministry is its beginning because he is the one who will prepare the way and
announce the arrival of God's agent, Yeshua, who will eventually bring it about.
The Kingdom of Heaven will only be in a partial state of being until The Devil and
his minions are no more, and the new heavens and new earth arrive. Even the
Millennial Kingdom (the 1000 years reign of Messiah) will not be the fullest
fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven because we know that sin and death and
even rebellion against God will occur during that span of time and especially at its
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
end.
For now, in our day, by trusting in Our Savior Yeshua, we can have the Kingdom
of Heaven, such as it currently is, within us. That is, its ideals and goals, its
hopes and helps, will be present within us. We can choose to live holy lives that
reflect the perfection of the Kingdom of Heaven, in determined obedience to God,
as we wait for the Kingdom in all of its completeness to arrive universally. Let me
say this another way; for now only in Believers hopefully you does the
Kingdom of Heaven exist on earth.
Verse 4 says that John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around
his waist. In 2Kings 1:8, we read this about the Prophet Elijah.
CJB 2 Kings 1:8 "He was a hairy man," they answered him, "with a leather
belt around his waist." He said, "It was Eliyahu from Tishbe."
Interestingly other Bible versions say:
NAB 2 Kings 1:8 They replied, "He wore a hairy garment with a leather belt
around his waist." "It is Elijah the Tishbite!" he exclaimed.
I cannot prove which is the correct translation. However since Matthew seeks to
connect Elijah and John together, with John as essentially the new Elijah, it can
be no coincidence that John's appearance was described as hairy and with a
leather belt, just as was Elijah's.
Eating locusts and wild honey is not the Jews' regular diet, yet it was survival
food. But as the ascetic monk that John was, that this is what he was said to
have eaten fits his persona.
Certain kinds of locusts were considered kosher food for Jews (Leviticus 11
spells this out). It may not sound particularly appetizing to us, but the Hebrews
weren't, and aren't, the only culture that finds eating certain insects to be an
acceptable addition to their diet. What is the "wild honey" that John also lived off
of? Probably it is bee honey taken from colonies of bees that made hives in trees,
in carcasses of dead animals, etc.; in other words bee hives that were not
cultivated by humans. I say this because until the last couple of years it was
believed that man-made bee hives and bee husbandry was a relatively late
development. However about 3 years ago, in an archaeological dig in Rahov in
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
northern Israel, a large cache of man-made beehives was discovered and dated
to about 900 B.C. (just after the time of King Solomon). These are by far the
oldest beehives ever discovered anywhere in the world. So it seems that the
current scholarly take that the biblical term "honey" meant a sweet extract taken
from dates is going to have to be revamped. And therefore there truly was
cultivated honey and there was also wild honey, both a product of honeybees,
just as we might find it today.
The point is this: John the Baptist lived a life not connected to regular Jewish
society, and he did it by choice and by divine inspiration. He wore the outfit of an
ancient prophet no doubt to identify himself with that profession, if not the actual
person of Elijah. In fact I think it is reasonable to ask ourselves what the
attraction was to John such that in verse 5 we read that people from Jerusalem
and all Judea went to him to be immersed. Their purpose, we're told, was to
confess their sins. This was in no way symbolic (at that moment) of a conscious
identity with Christ because Christ hadn't yet begun His ministry. It seems
probable to me that many people in the Holy Land region in and around
Jerusalem thought that John indeed was the prophesied return of Elijah. He
looked like it, dressed like it, and acted like it. What is it they say? If it walks like a
duck, quakes like a duck, and looks like a duck it's probably a duck.
It has long been known (and can be easily gleaned from the New Testament) that
common everyday Jews in that era felt so oppressed by Rome that they were
certain they had to be living in the prophesied End Times. And since the Prophet
Malachi said that Elijah would come before the Day of the Lord meaning that
Elijah would re-appear in the End Times then it makes sense that John would
be seen as Elijah, whether he confessed to it or not. In fact when directly
confronted about it as recorded in John 1:21 The Baptist famously said that he
was NOT Elijah. I suspect that in the same way Yeshua would be so elusive at
first about admitting whether or not He was the Messiah, so it was that John was
elusive enough about whether or not he was Elijah that even when he answered
"no", it didn't matter to many of the people. They were convinced that he was the
2nd coming of Elijah. That of course is only my opinion.
It is difficult to understand exactly why the people came to be immersed if it
wasn't to see Elijah. It doesn't help much to read the other Gospels on this matter
because they each give the meaning for folks wanting John's baptism as
something a little different. One says it was for forgiveness of sins, another says
it was for repenting, and Matthew says in one verse it was for confession and in
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
another for repenting. John the Baptist is also quoted as saying it was for
avoiding God's wrath. This is probably (at least partly) why the next verse has the
religious authorities from Jerusalem suddenly coming to investigate. If this was
indeed Elijah, or just another holy man who wanted to gain a following, they
needed to know.
In verse 7 we find representatives of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to
John to question him. John obviously did not welcome them, calling them vipers
to their faces. But he also sarcastically asked who had warned them about the
soon coming of God's wrath, implying that they didn't know about it or weren't
ready for it. There's so much to untangle here. First let's grasp that we have
representatives of both halves of the Jews' dual religious system of that era
showing up. The Pharisees represented the Synagogue system and the
Sadducees the Temple system. The Pharisees and Sadducees were uneasy
rivals, but they weren't enemies. They were certainly unified in the motive of
wanting to guard their religious territory and authority; so the growing flocks of
people seeking out John sent up a red flag. That John characterized the two
representatives' visit as trying ot avoid God's coming wrath once again plays right
into the Elijah and End Times scenario because Elijah was believed throughout
Judaism to appear shortly before the Day of the Lord when God would indeed
pour out His wrath.
So apparently the common folks coming to John believed they were living in the
End Times. Without doubt the Apostles Paul and Peter believed they were living
in the Last Days and taught it to anyone who'd listen. The people were fearful of
it and so possibly came to participate in a ritual immersion from this very strange
man (who many thought was Elijah) in order to perhaps avoid God's wrath in
some way that just isn't clear. Would any of us or our neighbors be much
different?
I have no doubt that when all * breaks loose and the arrival of the End of Days
becomes apparent to those who at least harbor some measure of religious
interest, people will want a speedy way to purchase some kind of personal
protection against God's wrath. You can bet they will be accommodated by
throngs of unscrupulous Pastors, Priests, and Rabbis all too happy to take their
money in return for a ritual, an amulet, a special prayer, a large donation,
anything that gives those frightened folks false comfort.
In no way am I suggesting that this is what John was doing; but I suspect that a
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
good portion of the crowd was coming in belief that they were going to get to see
Elijah and they didn't want to miss an opportunity to be made right with God in
those perilous times. There were plenty of charlatans seeking profit in John's
day, playing upon the fears and vulnerability of the Jewish people, even though
he wasn't one of them. But there is sufficient historical proof that these folks of
the 1st century were not unlike Westerners of the 21st century that will go and
seek out any number of religious sounding people who claim they have the
antidote to fix their finances, to cure illnesses, to predict the future, and to protect
from eternal damnation.
Verse 8 is one that needs to connect deeply within our souls especially in these
turbulent times we live in. It has John saying to the Pharisee and Sadducee
representatives that if they are sincerely coming to confess or repent then they
need to bear fruit to prove it. This concept of fruit, meaning works and deeds, as
the necessary proof of one's faith in the God of Israel is stated several times in
various of the New Testament books. But the one statement that is perhaps the
most well known is found in James.
CJB James 2:15-18 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and
daily food, 16 and someone says to him, "Shalom! Keep warm and eat
hearty!" without giving him what he needs, what good does it do? 17 Thus,
faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead. 18 But someone will say
that you have faith and I have actions. Show me this faith of yours without
the actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions!
Felling sorry for people in need is not the same thing as taking action to help
people in need. Good fruit is not our nice thoughts and well wishes; it is physical,
tangible deeds that we do to alleviate people's sufferings. While James uses this
good fruit as proof of our faith, John uses it as proof of our sincerity. John then
takes it one step farther by telling these religious authorities that simply being a
Hebrew descended from Abraham (the Father of all Hebrews) is not good
enough to be in good stead with God. That is, being a Jew doesn't negate the
need for personal forgiveness of sins, restoration and redemption.... or for
performing good deeds. The take away is that sincere trust in God can only be
proven by one's outward deeds and actions, which obviously begins with
obedience to God. One's affiliation to a group or one's family heritage does not
include or exclude anyone from having peace with God. However, if there is no
obedience, and there are no good deeds and works to go along with a professed
faith actions and fruit as prescribed by the Holy Scriptures.... then one's faith
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Lesson 7 - Matthew 3
is to be legitimately doubted. This doesn't just concern a doubt of your true faith
by the people in your social circle. The lack of good fruit ought to first and
foremost be an alarm signal to one's self that perhaps we've been deceiving
ourselves all along.
As our Messiah so soberly warned us:
CJB Matthew 7:19-23 19 Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut
down and thrown in the fire! 20 So you will recognize them by their
fruit. 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will enter the Kingdom
of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven wants. 22 On that
Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy in your name?
Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform many miracles in
your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never knew you! Get
away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 3 next time.
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 8, Chapter 3 Continued 2
As we re-open Matthew chapter 3, we left off with verse 7, the mention of
Sadducees and Pharisees coming to John ostensibly to be immersed by him, but
in reality it was to investigate this strange man who seemed to have developed a
large following nearly overnight. Let's re-read beginning with verse 8.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 3:8 - end
John immediately discerned that the Sadducees and Pharisees who came to him
were not coming with trueness of heart. He knew this not because he had some
divine ability to read minds or hearts but because he well knew what the
Sadducee and Pharisee leadership believed and taught, and that it was
fundamentally in conflict with Holy Scripture and therefore in conflict with what
John's baptism was all about.
The Sadducees were Jewish aristocrats who ruled over the Temple. Not since
the Maccabees had succeeded in taking the Temple back from the pagan gentile
Antiochus Epiphanies and his army (about 190 years earlier than John the
Baptist's time), was the Temple leadership structured or occupied by the Levite
clans that God had ordained in the Torah. Rather, unauthorized priests (not of
the correct priestly lineage) were put in charge, and then later those who became
even the High Priests literally purchased their way into their prestigious and
powerful positions.
To understand what a mockery of the Temple system these Sadducees were,
one must try to piece together what it is that they believed and taught. To begin
with, the Sadducees were complicit with Rome in their handling of the Jewish
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
people since the only thing that actually mattered to them was holding on to their
wealth and authority. Notice carefully what they denied: they did not believe in
resurrection, and refused acceptance of the existence of any kind of afterlife.
They believed not in human free-will, or even God's will per se, but rather in the
thoroughly Greco-Roman concept of Fate. These doctrines would set them on a
path of irreconcilable differences with the teachings of the man for whom John
was divinely sent to prepare the way: Messiah Yeshua. Interestingly, the
Sadducees also denied the authority of Oral Torah, also known as Jewish Law,
Tradition, and Halakah.
Sometimes it can be difficult to trace why a religious sect believes what they do
and denies what they do. But in the case of the Sadducees denying the authority
of Halakah the reason is rather obvious: it was as a result of their political and
religious rivalry with the Pharisees. Halakah (Tradition) was the center and focus
of the teachings of the political/religious sect of the Pharisees. Recall we have
discussed on a couple of occasions that there was a well ordered dual religious
system in place in the 1st century A.D.: the Temple system and the Synagogue
System. The common Jews and many of the wealthier Jews were attached to
one synagogue or another and that was where they obtained their moral, ethical,
and religious instruction. Much of their social life revolved around the synagogue.
The Temple system was where the common people went when they needed
legal justice (the Sanhedrin being the highest court), and it is also where they
followed God's laws concerning sacrificing, tithing, and observing the ordinances
of the appointed times including the biblical feasts. The Temple was also where,
according to the Torah, the people were to go for direct Torah instruction from the
Levite priests; but that practice had long ago died out.
I want to point out Matthew's acute awareness of this dual religious system and
the position and place each of these systems inhabited within Jewish religious
and social life, as well as the authority structure of each. It might surprise you to
know that even though Jewish scholars give no credence to the New
Testament's claim of Yeshua of Nazareth as being the Messiah, they readily
acknowledge that the most complete (nearly the only) record of the history,
practices, and beliefs of 1st century Judaism is found in this same New
Testament. Paul's letters and the Book of Matthew more than any others seem
(from my personal interaction with Jewish biblical scholars) to be the ones they
consult the most and I think for good reason. Paul was a highly trained and
learned Pharisee and a prolific writer who dealt with both Holy Land and
Diaspora Jews, and Matthew was clearly a well-educated Jewish Believer who
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
had been deeply immersed into the Jewish culture of the 1st century and so
understood many of the cultural nuances.
John the Baptist knew upfront that what the Sadducees believed and much of
what the Pharisees believed were not compatible with what he believed and with
what he strongly felt he must teach in advance of, and soon alongside, the
ministry of the Messiah of Israel, Jesus. He knew that nothing he said was going
to change their minds, and in fact they didn't honestly come to him as seekers of
truth, but rather they came to intimidate the people who were flocking to John
and to try to find fault with him.
It has been a common Christian teaching for centuries that the Pharisees and
Sadducees as depicted in chapter 3 are representative of all Israel, and the
sincere people coming to John to be baptized are representative of the Church.
Later in verse 9 when John says that mere descent from Abraham is not
sufficient to prove one's distance from sin, he adds that God could raise up sons
of Abraham from stones. So it has been an equally common teaching that these
stones are representative of gentiles. The early Church Father Jerome (from the
4th century) used as his belief that the stones in this passage meant gentiles by
pointing to Ezekiel 36. In his commentary on Matthew Jerome says this:
"God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham." He calls
the Gentiles stones because of their hard hearts, We read in Ezekiel: "I will
revive their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh".
Yet when we go to Ezekiel 36, which Jerome used to validate his point, we find
that it was pertaining directly to Israel, whose people were to be gathered out of
all nations and sent back into their ancestral land. This habit of cherry picking
verses out of context and applying them willy-nilly to try to confirm or create a
desired doctrine has been something of a plague within our Christian institutions,
which (as did the Sadducees and Pharisees) lead the people to many false
doctrines that blinded them to the truth. By no means was verse 9 referring to
gentiles but rather the reference to the stones was simply an expression meant to
indicate that although to be born to a Jewish mother was sufficient enough for
one to be considered part of the covenant people of God (the Hebrews), and
therefore to be considered a son of Abraham, it was the faith of Abraham that
had to be appropriated and not merely his blood line.
Fellow Believers, it is important that we realize that there is biblical truth and
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
there is NOT biblical truth; and there's little in between. All too often Christians
fold when confronting a fellow Believer who plainly misunderstands some of the
most basic biblical truths, or when facing the sharp rebuttal of a person of
another religion. In the 21st century that other religion is almost always Islam. We
shy-away because, we claim, we value peace and harmony over disagreement.
While it is not that we should all be as bold or as lacking in tact as John the
Baptist (or Paul for that matter) by calling people snakes or stupid, nor should we
be unyieldingly rigid on biblical and spiritual matters that are at times challenging,
highly nuanced, and not so cut and dried (an attitude of my way or the highway),
we also must not compromise on the weightier matters of critical importance such
as the enduring relevance of God's laws and commands, and the supremacy of
Christ's sacrifice on the cross above the central figure and doctrines of all other
faiths.
Many Believers are reluctant to defend their faith because outside of a handful of
bumper sticker sayings they learned in Church, they realize that they can't make
a reasoned argument for their faith. Or they know that the outward evidence of
their faith (the fruit) is lacking and they don't want to be embarrassed by
someone who points it out. So often we hurriedly just disengage by telling the
non-Believer or the deceived Believer that we respect their faith, and we move
on....relieved. I don't think we should do that. Rather we can make it clear that we
respect the person. But to tell them we respect their questionable faith is nothing
we'll find any Apostle, John the Baptist, or even Christ saying because to do so
validates in that deceived person what may be a very wrong faith that leads them
further into darkness instead of into light. So what do we do? We all instinctively
know when someone is coming to us for an honest inquiry, hopefully as a
teachable person, versus when they're coming to trap us or simply wanting to
engage in a dispute. Honest inquiry deserves an honest and well-mannered
answer; but a person who comes only to be divisive or means to ensnare us or to
display anger, deserves only to be given a polite "good bye". At the same time,
we must equip ourselves with sound biblical truth, earned by serious Bible study,
so that we can give a sincere person an honest and reasoned answer, and also
know God's Word well enough to discern when we should take more time to
explain versus when we should walk away. John the Baptist was doing exactly
that when he called out those Sadducees and Pharisees who came to him with
insincere motives.
In verse 10 John tells the Sadducees and Pharisees what happens to the
insincere... like them. He uses the metaphor of an axe chopping down a tree that
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
doesn't produce good fruit and then destroying the felled tree with fire. The tree
represents a person who is a member of God's covenant community: an Israelite.
The fruit is the product of that person's life that is, his actions and deeds. It is
what is seen outwardly that is a window into that person's character; it reveals
what that person dedicates his life to. So bad fruit comes from bad character and
good fruit comes from good character. But in the context of religious Judaism
bad fruit means evil deeds or lack of good deeds, and good fruit means doing
righteous deeds and works. I stress: everything that we're reading so far in this
chapter has John applying it to his fellow Jews; and in this particular instance it is
especially aimed at Jewish religious leadership that he sees as having bankrupt
character thus producing only wicked fruit.
It is true that later on in Matthew's Gospel, Yeshua makes use of the same
statement that John used; but more likely the reason for using it is that it seems
to have been a rather standard Jewish expression of that era. Yeshua says this:
CJB Matthew 7:16-20 16 You will recognize them by their fruit. Can people
pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every
healthy tree produces good fruit, but a poor tree produces bad fruit. 18 A
healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, or a poor tree good fruit. 19 Any tree that
does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire! 20 So you
will recognize them by their fruit.
Christians of all branches have allegorized these words of Christ to make all
kinds of applications. But in this quote, Christ is referring to ONE THING ONLY!
Listen to the verse that precedes what I just quoted to you.
CJB Matthew 7:15-16 15 "Beware of the false prophets! They come to you
wearing sheep's clothing, but underneath they are hungry wolves! 16 You
will recognize them by their fruit. Can people pick grapes from thorn
bushes, or figs from thistles?
So who exactly was Yeshua referring to? It was false prophets. His admonition
certainly was not being aimed at every Israelite in general. This use of the term
false prophets meant false teachers of God's Word. By the 1st century it is not
that the term "prophet" had lost its meaning as one who tells us of future events
or consequences. In the New Testament unless the term prophet is referring to
one of the prophets of old, nearly always it means a person who teaches
the Tanakh (the Old Testament, the Bible). So we have 2 important take-aways
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
from this. First: biblical context must always be preserved. John was NOT making
some vastly generalized statement about a tree not producing good fruit being
cut down. He was applying it ONLY to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came
to investigate him and to bother the people who came for John's baptism. And
Christ was not making some vastly generalized statement about a tree not
producing good fruit being cut down. In this case He was applying it only to those
who claimed they were teaching or preaching God's Word but in fact were not.
And second, in both uses of this Jewish metaphor the result of bearing no fruit or
bad fruit is the same: eternal destruction.
Those who learned Torah with me will recall that in the Bible God uses fire mostly
for two purposes: either purification or for destruction. Purification is to burn off
the dross of sin and imperfection, but it leaves the core element not only intact
but pure. Destruction is to take a wicked thing and end its existence. From John's
message the leaders and teachers of the Temple and the Synagogue are who
are being warned; and from Christ's message the teachers of God's Word are
again being warned only this time the warning is being more broadly applied to all
Israelites who would claim they are teaching the biblical truth or are bringing "a
word from the Lord" to others; but in fact they are not and instead they are
twisting the truth in order to deceive.
In verse 11 Messiah is more formally introduced by John. His statement in the
CJB is:
CJB Matthew 3:11 It's true that I am immersing you in water so that you
might turn from sin to God; but the one coming after me is more powerful
than /- I'm not worthy even to carry his sandals- and he will immerse you in
the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire.
It's more familiar form is found in the KJV.
KJV Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he
that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
These two translations express exactly the same thing so there is no conflict.
However the KJV translation is the better one to help us deal with what it means
to be baptized in water unto repentance (repentance meaning, as the CJB
properly explains, to turn from sin to God). The Theological approach is to say
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
either that it means that the water itself actually brings about our repentance, or
that it summons repentance within us. However there is another alternative
meaning that far more fits with the Bible in general. It is that immersion in water
(baptism) expresses our already repentant condition. This position makes
repentance a joint venture between the worshipper and God whereby an act of
God's will places the needed faith within us in order that we can accept His truth,
thereby enabling a response of the human will to sincerely repent. Thus until God
moves upon a human the human does not move. Therefore even in our
repentance God gets all the glory.
While John calls for an immersion in water that amounts to a public profession of
the worshipper's act of repentance, he says that the One who is coming (Yeshua)
will immerse this same repentant worshiper in the Holy Spirit, and with fire.
Immersion in water is only ritually symbolic in one sense, but yet is done as an
obedience to the commandment of God. However immersion into the Holy Spirit
actually changes the very nature of that same person. This change is expressed
by the words that follow "Holy Spirit, which are "with fire". Remember what we
just discussed: fire is used for purification or it is used for destruction. The "fire" of
the Holy Spirit brings divine purification to the worshipper, stripping that person of
the uncleanness caused by a life time of sinning, and making him or her
acceptable to God; rather than that person remaining unclean and unacceptable
to God, thus suffering the divine destruction that will come to those who refuse
the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Let me simplify that: acceptance of Our Savior
allows us to be immersed into the Holy Spirit of God, which brings on a
completely changed nature within us. Those who refuse it (Jew or gentile) will
face the consequence of complete eternal destruction.
I want us to be very careful as we encounter phrases such as "immersion into the
Holy Spirit", immersed in "fire", and so on. The writers of the Bible, under God's
inspiration, use metaphors and illustrations and cultural situations of the physical
world that they were familiar with in order to help describe and explain the
otherwise inexplicable. But the physical is not the spiritual so we must not carry
the illustrations and comparisons out too far. One of the main obstacles for
Believers in the 21st century is to grasp what these metaphors and illustrations
and cultural situations used to impart spiritual understanding meant to these 1st
century Jews, because it is the meaning within that context that is the most
correct.
Verse 12 presents the contrast to the last words of verse 11. In verse 11 John
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
speaks of the repentant worshipper being immersed into the Holy Spirit and in
the fire (of purification); that is, to use the vernacular of today, what happens to
the Saved. Verse 12 now speaks of the alternative; what happens to the
unsaved. Notice how this illustration shows what happens when this same wheat
from the same harvest is winnowed. Winnowing is a process of separation. In the
winnowing process a winnowing fork is used to toss the harvest up into the air,
and the breeze carries away the lighter part but the heavier part falls to the
threshing floor. The usable wheat kernels are in this way separated from the
waste part. The grain is saved and put away, but the unusable chaff is gathered
up and burned up. The winnowing is another metaphor used to illustrate the
consequence of those who have refused the baptism offered by Christ; a baptism
that John says he cannot offer. Notice thus far how the saved and the unsaved
will experience fire. The Believer's experience with fire will not only not hurt us or
harm us, it will purify us. The non-Believers' experience with fire destroys them.
Now notice something else. Backing up just a bit, the opening words of verse 10
are: "Already the axe is at the root of the trees". And the beginning of verse 12 is:
"He has with Him His winnowing fork". What would these 2 phrases say to you if
you were a Jew living in the 1st century? To me they would say "imminent". They
would say "any day, now". But those words would certainly not say to me "it will
happen in some distant future". John, and then Jesus, were not the ones to raise
the alert of the Apocalypse. They were living in the times of the expectation of it
and their presence and message also seemed to validate it. The belief that the
Jews were already in the End Times was well established, and it was further
believed with each passing year of Roman occupation and each new atrocity
perpetrated upon the Jews.
In a sudden turn of events, verse 13 changes the entire tone of what has been
happening when Jesus comes to John to be immersed. Notice that we are finally
definitively told where the baptisms of John had been taking place: at the Jordan
River. I'll take a brief detour here to ask a question: why was John baptizing in
the Jordan River and not at one of the many Mikvehs scattered around
Jerusalem? More than likely it is because the Temple authorities never would
have allowed it since whatever witness to purification immersion was required, it
would have been under Temple rules and supervision. We've already established
that John was a not a welcome figure to the Temple or the Synagogue, so he had
to baptize at someplace where they held little or no control. The solution was the
Jordan River.
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
Interestingly, the place where John was regularly baptizing and living at that time
may have been found. Dr. James Tabor, Professor of Ancient Judaism at the
University of North Carolina, and Shimon Gibson, head of the Archaeology
Department at the University of the Holy Land feel the evidence is strong that this
place has been discovered. And, right where one might expect it; east of
Jerusalem at the Jordan River. It includes a cave where John lived, because we
are told that he was in the desert. He needed to keep a certain distance from the
Jewish religious authorities, and indeed this place would have provided that
distance.
When Yeshua arrives at the Jordan River, John of course balks at the suggestion
that he should baptize this man because he has already said that he is not fit to
carry the sandals of the One who is coming (Yeshua); and yet Yeshua insists.
The controversy and doctrinal debates that surround Yeshua's immersion by
John is hard to overstate. I have personally found 9 different explanations for
Jesus seeking this baptism and I know there are more. I am not sure I agree with
the conclusion of any of them.
It is my opinion that what leads to these many (and sometimes strange) doctrines
about Yeshua's baptism is because of trying to vault Him from His 1st century,
Jewish culture and environment into our present age, with Christ leaving behind
His Jewishness and becoming a Christian.
When we deliberate about this event (that in any case is not without its mystery)
and take into account the very Jewish nature of it, some aspects of it become
more clear. For one thing: this was hardly Yeshua's first immersion. He would
have been immersed hundreds of times by this point in His life, just as any
observant Jew would have been; especially a Jew that lived in the Holy Land as
opposed to one who lived out in the far flung Diaspora.
I spoke to you before about what, exactly, John's baptism was meant to do. And
how even among the 3 synoptic Gospel accounts, it isn't entirely clear. I think
then when we look at them as a whole from the long view and not the
microscopic, the meaning comes into better focus: it is about repenting from sins.
I think this because typically immersion (baptism) had to do with being purified
from some sort of ritual uncleanness. It was as a required preparation for
entering the Temple grounds, for example. Jews well understood that water didn't
atone for sin; sin required the spilling of innocent blood at the Temple altar. So
John's immersion had to do less with purification and more with declaration. And
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
the declaration was that the candidate had decided in his or her heart that they
were a sinner, they were sorry for offending God, and that they no longer wanted
to sin but rather they wanted to turn back to God and His ways. No doubt the
undercurrent of the times in which the Jews thought they were living in the End of
Days drove many to search themselves inwardly and question whether they were
indeed right with God or not. When we look around at the world we live in
today, does it not send up some red flags indicating that we ought to be doing to
same and perhaps with the same motive?
But then the question becomes: if Christ was born sinless, and had remained
sinless all of His life, then why His insistence that He be baptized for "repentance
of sins"? His answer to that question helps only a little bit. In verse 15 Yeshua
tells John it is to "do everything righteousness requires". But what does that
mean? Again, there is little scholarly consensus. I'd like to offer this as a solution:
virtually every suggestion proposed by Bible scholars to interpret this passage
that I've ever seen assumes that the righteousness being spoken of is human
righteousness OUR righteousness. Rather I think this is speaking of God's
righteousness. Instead of spending a great deal of time explaining this, on your
own please read the Torah Class lesson #21 on the Book of Exodus. There this
matter is dealt with in detail. For today I will only give you the bottom line: it is that
God's righteous is all about salvation. God's righteousness is a saving
righteousness. God's righteousness is His will to bring about righteousness in
humans according to His plan. And His plan involved a Messiah that was as
human as He was divine.
Thus in Yeshua's eyes, He journeyed the long distance down the Jordan Valley
from his home in the Galilee to obey His Heavenly Father and to begin to carry
out His part of The Father's plan of salvation. In this way, Yeshua achieved the
righteousness of God. So much so that at that same moment we're told that the
Holy Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove. This does NOT mean that a
supernatural dove lighted upon Christ. Rather this describes a spiritual
happening in physical terms, and physical terms and illustrations are all we have
to use. So let me say this another way: God's righteous is what Yeshua was
referring to not human righteousness.... but of course humans benefit from it.
God's righteousness is His will to save. Yeshua is the focus and fulfillment of
God's plan to save, and thus since Yeshua is God, He too carries within Him
God's righteousness. The Holy Spirit coming down from Heaven is meant as
visible proof of this since Yeshua was also a readily identifiable human being who
grew up in Nazareth of the Galilee. And then a voice from Heaven clearly the
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
Father's voice since Christ was chest deep in the River Jordan at the time
said that this man was the Father's Son whom He loves and in whom He is well
pleased.
Let's back up a bit. One of the things we see happening here (when Jesus comes
to John) is that we have a contrast developed between John and Jesus. Jesus is
supreme and above John. This might sound simple and obvious to us today. But
there is no doubt that this was not necessarily how John's followers took it. One
such example takes place in Acts 19. Recall that John by this time was long
dead.
CJB Acts 19:1-7 While Apollos was in Corinth, Sha'ul completed his travels
through the inland country and arrived at Ephesus, where he found a few
talmidim. 2 He asked them, "Did you receive the Ruach HaKodesh when you
came to trust?" "No," they said to him, "we have never even heard that
there is such a thing as the Ruach aKodesh."
3 "In that case," he said, "into
what were you immersed?" "The immersion of Yochanan," they
answered. 4 Sha'ul said, "Yochanan practiced an immersion in connection
with turning from sin to God; but he told the people to put their trust in the
one who would come after him, that is, in Yeshua." 5 On hearing this, they
were immersed into the name of the Lord Yeshua; 6 and when Sha'ul placed
his hands on them, the Ruach HaKodesh came upon them; so that they
began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 7
In all, there were about
twelve of these men.
So there were independent groups of John's disciples who had developed their
own sense of what baptism meant, what should happen afterwards, and still
maintained something that could only be called John's baptism. However, John
never claimed that his baptism brought salvation; only that it was for repentance
of sins. Repentance is not the same as trust in Christ. Repentance is a necessary
step towards salvation, but it is not salvation.
Good New Testament scholars note a particular tension that grew between John
and Jesus, and between their separate groups of disciples. We learn of the
ambiguity in John's mind about Yeshua in another part of the Book of Matthew.
CJB Matthew 11:1-3 After Yeshua had finished instructing the twelve
talmidim, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns
nearby. 2 Meanwhile, Yochanan the Immerser, who had been put in prison,
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Lesson 8 - Matthew 3 Cont.
heard what the Messiah had been doing; so he sent a message to him
through his talmidim, 3 asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or should
we look for someone else?"
Some time after John's immersion of Yeshua, and after Yeshua had chosen His
12 disciples and was well into His earthly ministry, John was not certain about
who Yeshua was. Therefore, no doubt John's own flock wasn't certain either. And
the story in Acts 19 says that as much as 30 years after Yeshua's death and
resurrection, there remained groups of John's disciples who still didn't understand
who Yeshua was, and what it meant to receive the Holy Spirit in Yeshua's name.
Even so, were these disciples of John saved? No they were not. Because it is the
receiving of the Holy Spirit that is both reward and proof of our salvation.
We'll begin Matthew chapter 4 next time.
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 9, Chapter 4
As we work our way through the Gospel of Matthew and discover so many
important details buried in the text, and also discover those present in Christian
traditions and just as importantly in the ancient Jewish traditions, we are regularly
going to step back and review what we've studied from a more panoramic
vantage point. Therefore before we open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 4, let's
briefly sum up the first 3 chapters.
Matthew opens with an extensive, but purposeful, genealogy of Yeshua. Because
Matthew is a well educated Jewish Believer, and because he is well versed in
Jewish Tradition as well as in the Hebrew Bible, all that we uncover from here
forward will have a decidedly Jewish flavor and worldview. The genealogy he
presents, then, is given in a particularly Hebrew style; it is given in descending
order with the oldest ancestor named first. In this case that oldest ancestor is
Abraham. Why did Matthew start with Abraham? Because Abraham is the Father
of the Hebrews and Matthew's intent is to prove Yeshua's fundamental Hebrew
connection.
The next point to recognize is that King David is central to Christ's genealogy in
order to prove His right to royal inheritance, but also to prove His credentials as
the Messiah. David's name consists of 3 Hebrew consonants that have a total
gematria value of 14. Thus, the genealogy is given to us in 3 sets of 14 names
each, with David's name as the 14th in the 1st set. The list is not complete and
exhaustive; some generations are skipped not because Matthew didn't know they
existed or who those people were, but because he needed to have his list add up
to 42 (3 times 14 equals 42) to match with Daniel's extensive use of the number
42 in his book of prophecy that was highly popular at this time. Interestingly, 4
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
women are included in the genealogy (it's not usual to include women), but even
more stunning is that the 4 women mentioned all began their lives as gentiles. In
this way, Matthew is showing that while Jesus is thoroughly Jewish, a connection
to gentiles exists in His underlying biology and so cannot be overlooked.
About halfway through the 1st chapter Matthew tells the story of Yeshua's birth
circumstances, beginning with the odd, if not shameful, situation of his biological
mother not having a completed marriage with his non-biological father. In typical
Jewish courting and marriage custom, Joseph is betrothed to Mary. However
soon thereafter Mary turns up pregnant and the scandal cannot be contained
because Joseph knows it's not his child. Biblically, betrothal is closer to marriage
than it is to engagement as we think of it today. A marriage contract between the
husband and the woman's father is executed at the time of betrothal. As of that
moment the man is called husband and the woman is called wife. Still the woman
remains with her father's household for a time, usually about 1 year. At the end of
this time the woman moves out of her father's home and into her husband's
home where consummation occurs. The marriage is only then fully completed.
Mary being pregnant while still living with her father brings a loss of honor to all
parties, and by the Law of Moses it is a crime that demands the death penalty to
the girl. Joseph doesn't want that for Mary, so he decides to divorce her quietly;
but an angel comes in a dream and tells him not to do that. Rather he is to
continue on with the marriage process. In faith and trust in God, he obeys.
Joseph is told that Mary was not pregnant by normal human means but rather the
male seed is supplied by the Holy Spirit. The son that will be produced is to be
named Yeshua, which means "Yehoveh saves". We are also to notice that
Joseph did not have sexual relations with Mary (meaning he did not consummate
the marriage) until after the child was born. So by every Jewish standard, Christ
was born to a mother whose marriage was incomplete.
Chapter 2 begins by explaining that Mary's child was born in the small town of
Bethlehem of Judea, during a historical time when Herod the Great ruled. Now
unfolds the story of some non-specified number of pagan magi (astrologers)
coming to Judea. They say they know that a new king of Judea has been born
and this is because they have seen the portent of it in the sky.
They arrive in Jerusalem and begin asking around where this new king is,
because in their minds where else would a Jewish king be located other than in
2/12
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
the capital city of Jerusalem? The news of these magi reaches Herod, he is
alarmed by it, and calls together his advisory council; he asks them where the
Messiah would be born. They respond: in Bethlehem. Herod immediately
summons the magi, sends them to Bethlehem, and tells them to report back to
him exactly who this child is.
Notice: the pagan magi are the first to be aware of Christ's birth, even before the
Jewish people. Also notice that they come to Judea looking for a king and not for
a Messiah or a god. The magi's purpose for their visit is purely political. Herod's
concern makes the leap from the political to the religious. He knows enough of
the ancient prophecies (and the hopes of his people for a Deliverer) to realize
that perhaps this child the magi are searching for could be the foretold Messiah.
And if true, then it presents a real problem for him hanging on to his throne.
The magi leave for Bethlehem. It is short 3 or 4 hour walk on a well traveled trail
from Jerusalem. The text says that a star led them to Bethlehem and to the
house where the child was located.
We spent some time investigating what it was that these pagan astrologers saw
that convinced them to make a long journey to find this new king. In the end we
discovered that Matthew had researched enough to use astrological language in
his report about the magi such that it seems that these seers had observed the
placement of a conjunction of 3 planets in the Zodiac sign of Aries. Aries was
believed by them to represent the region of Judea. This conjunction of planets
was, for astrologers, an unmistakable omen that a new king had been born there.
They wanted to go and pay homage to this new king (realizing, of course, that
this new king was but a baby). But such was the politics of the day that it usually
paid off to make such a connection with a future king as soon as possible.
The magi knew before they left their homes that they were traveling to Judea,
and just as obviously to the seat of government of Judea if they were going to
find this new king: Jerusalem. The Jews on the other hand, because they
shunned astrology, had no hint of the event the magi came for and were
confused and startled when the magi began inquiring of them about it. However,
in the fields of Bethlehem the Glory of God burst upon some humble Jewish
shepherds, producing a blinding light, and an angel vocally announced the birth
of their Deliverer the long promised Messiah. The Shepherds went to the
house in the village where the Messiah lay in a feeding trough, because that was
the sign that the angel gave to them as a means to find and positively identify
3/12
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
him. The year of Our Lord's advent was likely 6 B.C. by our modern calendars,
since Herod the Great died a couple of years later in 4 B.C. (the year of Herod's
death is well attested).
The magi also locate the child, believe him to be the new king their astrological
portent had revealed, honor him with very expensive gifts, and leave for home
without reporting back to Herod. Herod soon realized they weren't coming back to
him with the information he wanted and so in a homicidal rage, taking no
chances, he ordered all male children in and around Bethlehem to be murdered
so that which ever of these children this Messiah might be, he wouldn't survive.
Before the slaughter began an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him to
flee with his family at once to Egypt and there to await word from this same angel
for when the family could return to the Holy Land. They were in Egypt for
probably around a year before this same angel returned with the good news that
Herod was dead and the danger had passed. Even so the succeeding king, one
of Herod's sons, was about as bad as his father and ruling over Judea, so
Joseph decided it would be the safer choice to go to the Galilee and live in
Nazareth, a small and remote country village.
As we entered chapter 3, the subject turned to John the Baptist; therefore several
years passed from the end of chapter 2 to the beginning of chapter 3 perhaps
as many as 30 years. John was a desert dweller, and apparently dressed much
like the prophets of old, wearing a camel's hair garment with a leather belt around
his waist. There is little doubt in my mind that he thought of himself as a
successor to Elijah, and the Jewish people believed he might be the return of that
ancient prophet.
John's message to the Jews was twofold: 1) the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,
and 2) people should prepare for it by turning from their sins to God. He is called
John the Baptist because those who heeded his message also came to be
ritually immersed by him in the Jordan River. Although the Gospel accounts don't
entirely agree on the exact purpose of John's baptism, it seems to me that it was
mostly about a public declaration of repentance and the immersion was a symbol
of cleansing from the old and putting on the new. During this era, due to the
ruthless and painful occupation of the Romans, the Jews generally believed they
were living in the End Times. So when a Prophet comes along who declares that
the Kingdom of God is about to appear (something that was thought to
accompany the End of Days) many pay attention if for no other reason than out
of fear and self preservation.
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
Apparently the number of people flocking to John was substantial enough to
alarm the religious leadership of both the Temple and the Synagogue. Holy men
who gathered enough disciples could present a challenge to their authority, or
worse upset Rome, and so the Pharisee and Sadducee leadership came to John
to investigate. John knew they didn't come to him sincerely, and so he didn't
welcome them. In fact he chided them, saying that they were snakes, and that
their heritage of Abraham as their ancestral father was in no way sufficient to
protect them from God's wrath. John went on to explain his own purpose as the
one who was to prepare the way for the emergence of a great man; a man who
was far greater than himself. And when this great man comes, one of the things
he will do is to identify the righteous from the unrighteous and separate them the
way a winnowing fork separates the wheat from the chaff.
We hear not one word about Christ's youth. It is now that Yeshua, as an adult,
enters the picture as He comes from Galilee to John in Judea to be immersed.
John balks at such a notion, feeling that he is not worthy to do so. Yeshua insists
and upon immersion the Holy Spirit in some visible, detectable form descends
upon Him in dove-like fashion. A voice booms from Heaven that can be none
other than the Father. He says that this is His son, and that He is well pleased
with Him. What comes next is the subject of Matthew chapter 4. Open your
Bibles to that chapter.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 4 all
The theme for chapter 4 is the beginning of Yeshua's ministry. Interestingly the
first thing Matthew deals with is a string a 3 temptations Jesus faced,
orchestrated by Satan. It is curious that we are told that it was the "Spirit" that led
Yeshua into the wilderness (the Judean desert that John the Baptist called
home). The Spirit has to be referring to the Holy Spirit; so it is God that guided
Christ into the desert to have an encounter with the Devil. The term "The Devil"
comes from the Greek word used here, which is diabolos. It is an attempted
translation of the Hebrew term Satan, which itself means adversary. So these
several terms for the evil arch enemy of God like Devil, Satan, Evil One,
Adversary, and others are equal and referring to this same evil spiritual being.
Sometimes we can forget that Satan, like all other beings or objects, was created
by the only Creator that exists: The God of Israel. Naturally, even though he
wants to be, Satan is not equal to his Creator. The Bible makes it clear that Satan
is the source of all evil, all degradation, and thus the underlying cause of all sin.
5/12


Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
Let me state without hesitation that those who say there is no God, and that as
humans they are the superior beings of this planet (if not Universe), are operating
in the image of the Adversary. Those who in English are called atheists are the
most dangerous creatures on this planet because they embody the very essence
of the Devil: those who oppose the Creator, see themselves as equal to Him, and
desire to take His place.
We won't find a great deal of information in the Bible about the realm of the Devil,
nor much about the realm of God. This is because the writers of the Bible didn't
know much about those 2 realms and because they assumed that their readers
(at the minimum) accepted the idea that there exists two opposing spiritual
regimes: those beings that are loyal and obedient to God the Creator who
represents light and perfection, and those beings that are loyal and obedient to
Satan, God's adversary, who represents darkness and evil. So there is no need
to explain it.
Please notice that of the 3 temptations the Devil offers Yeshua, Yeshua rebukes
them all by quoting Scripture. And the Scripture He quotes is from the Torah;
specifically Deuteronomy 6 and 8. One of the reasons these particular passages
are appropriate is because of something we discussed in an earlier lesson: Jesus
is being depicted as a kind of second Moses, and thus Jesus is echoing Israel's
experience in the wilderness: the Exodus. As Davies and Allison so eloquently
put it:
"Having passed through the waters of a new exodus at his baptism, he
enters the desert to suffer a time of testing, his 40 days of fasting being
analogous to Israel's 40 years of wandering. Like Israel, Jesus is tested by
hunger. And like Israel, Jesus is tempted to idolatry".
In Deuteronomy 8 we read this that was spoken to Israel as they navigated the
trials of the wilderness and were about to emerge into the Promised Land:
CJB Deuteronomy 8:2-3 2 You are to remember everything of the way in
which ADONAl led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing
you in order to know what was in your heart- whether you would obey his
mitzvot or not. 3 He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry, and
then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever
known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone
but on everything that comes from the mouth of ADONAl.
6/12
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
God led the fleeing Israelites through the desert; He did so intentionally in a way
to achieve a specific purpose: to teach them, through testing and humbling, that
what was hidden in the deepest recesses of their hearts would pour out in
response to their circumstances. One of those humbling experiences they faced
was that they became hungry, and God's purpose for them enduring this was to
teach them that God's people don't live on food alone, but rather on what pours
forth from His mouth that is, His Word. His truth. His laws and commands.
Yeshua, as a sort of second Moses, would now face similar trials.
Indeed as verse 2 says, out in the desert Yeshua went without food for 40 days
and nights, and of course He became hungry (a rather significant
understatement!). For the Jews, the desert was not just a dangerous place it was
also a scary place. Even in the God commanded observances of Yom Kippur,
one of the rituals involved the Scapegoat. One of the goats was killed, and the
other was set free to wander in the desert and face evil.
CJB Leviticus 16:8-10 8 Then Aharon is to cast lots for the two goats, one lot
for ADONAl and the other for 'Az'azel. 9 Aharon is to present the goat
whose lot fell to ADONAl and offer it as a sin offering. 10 But the goat whose
lot fell to 'Az'azel is to be presented alive to ADONAl to be used for making
atonement over it by sending it away into the desert for 'Az'azel.
There has always been mystery associated with this 'Az'azel. However the
general consensus within Judaism is that 'Az'azel was a powerful demon whose
earthly realm was the Judean desert. Notice in Leviticus how of the two goats,
one goes to God, the author of good, and the other goes to a demon, the author
of evil. And sure enough, out in the lonely desert, the starving Jesus (the One
designated to become our sin offering) encounters the Evil One. And what does
the Evil One do? He tempts Yeshua.
I want to inject here that what the Devil did towards Yeshua he does to us all,
even to Believers. At our weakest and most unexpected moments he tempts us
to go against God. Yeshua gave us the formula for resisting the Evil One. Satan
knew, of course, exactly who Yeshua is and what God's purpose is for Him. And
yet it didn't deter him whatsoever from attempting to pervert Yeshua's destiny
and mission.
Yeshua was beyond famished after 40 days and nights of not eating: His body
was literally deteriorating. It is interesting that Matthew says the fasting lasted for
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
40 days and nights and not just 40 days because adding in the "and nights" is
not usual when speaking of periods of time in the Bible. Not surprisingly there
were a couple of famous Bible characters who came before Yeshua that spoke of
periods of time in the same way. Moses said:
CJB Deuteronomy 9:9 9
/ had gone up the mountain to receive the stone
tablets, the tablets on which was written the covenant ADONAI had made
with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights without eating
food or drinking water.
So here we again see the connection between Moses and Christ, and the idea
that Christ is reliving the experience of Israel and the exodus. But even more
there is another important connection that is being made.
CJB Jonah 2:1 ADONAI prepared a huge fish to swallow Yonah; and Yonah
was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. 2 From the belly
of the fish Yonah prayed to ADONAI his God;
Everyone in ancient times understood that a day meant one entire sun and moon
appearance; daytime and nighttime in sequence. So the addition of the phrase
"and nights" is not a usual Hebrew expression but rather is rare. When something
is rare in the Bible, we need to pay attention. Later in His ministry Christ will
make use of this rare phrase and it's prophetic connections:
CJB Matthew 12:38-40 38 At this some of the Torah-teachers said, "Rabbi, we
want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39 He replied, "A wicked and
adulterous generation asks for a sign? No! None will be given to it but the
sign of the prophet Yonah. 40 For just as Yonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the depths of the earth.
It is the addition of the phrase "and nights" that is the connecting tissue that pulls
all of this together.
Although I've never experienced hunger to the level that Jesus was experiencing
it, I'm told it is painful. The Devil, however, has an easy solution for Him; he tells
Yeshua that IF He is really the Son of God, then turn the stones that are laying all
around Him into bread. The Devil of course is trying to sow self-doubt into Jesus.
IF....what a big word IF is; it is word meant to describe uncertainty. Have we all
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
not heard deep within our minds: "If you are really saved, you would not have
had that bad thought or done that bad thing". "If you really love Jesus, He would
enable you to live a perfect life and do everything God wants you to do". At the
same time, this temptation of IF happens early in Christ's ministry and there is
ample biblical evidence that He indeed is still struggling with exactly who He is,
where He fits in His Father's plan, and how to justify or perhaps balance His
humanness with His divineness. I suspect that most of us will, similar to Yeshua,
struggle our entire lives to understand and balance our new Godly nature with
our old corrupted human nature. It is to be expected; and yet it is also fertile
ground for the Adversary to strike us at any moment. What do we do? We follow
Our Savior's example.
Yeshua responded to this attack by quoting the Bible; and as we discussed
earlier in the beginning of today's lesson, it was from the Torah that Yeshua
spoke to rebuke the Devil. He says from Deuteronomy 8:3: a person does not
live on food alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of
ADONAI.
This verse was of course spoken 1400 years earlier by Moses. The circumstance
was even similar. Listen to the entire passage:
CJB Deuteronomy 8:3 3 He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry,
and then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever
known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone
but on everything that comes from the mouth of ADONAI.
God provided starving Israel with manna, but they grumbled and complained
about it, endlessly. They were thankful only for a moment. Would Christ, The Son
of God (remember, God also called Israel Son of God), behave as Israel did in
the wilderness? Or would he be faithful? As the second Moses, He quotes Moses
and passes the test. So far Yeshua is, indeed, the ideal Israel and not the
unfaithful one.
Next in verse 5 the Adversary takes Jesus to Jerusalem and the Temple. Note
that it was God who took Yeshua to the desert for testing (just as God took the
Israelite refugees to the desert for testing); but this time it is The Devil that takes
Yeshua to the holy city of Jerusalem for testing. He takes Him to the pinnacle of
the Temple and once again tries to sow seeds of doubt. He says "IF you are The
Son of God then jump." Will Yeshua have the faith to do the most fearful thing
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
one can imagine? Will He jump and trust His Father to somehow, miraculously,
catch Him, saving His life? Wouldn't that be the result IF He was actually the Son
of God? Satan goes so far as to quote Scripture to Jesus in order to convince
Him to take the leap.
Instead of trying to prove Himself or prove God by throwing Himself off this high
place, He quotes Scripture to the Devil in response to the Devil using Psalm 91 to
make his point. There we read:
CJB Psalm 91:11-12 11 for he will order his angels to care for you and guard
you wherever you go. 12 They will carry you in their hands, so that you
won't trip on a stone.
This is legitimate Scripture Satan is using. Even the context for it (which is about
God caring for His own) seems correct. Yeshua's response is more than
appropriate, it is a caution to us His disciples. Many of us are very good at
remembering Scripture passages. And sometimes when we encounter a difficult
or stressful situation or a tough decision, we can find ourselves hearing one of
those biblical passages in our minds telling us to do something challenging or
even frightening. But then we have to remember a principle that Jesus teaches
right here:
CJB Deuteronomy 6:16 16 Do not put ADONAl your God to the test, as you
tested him at Massah [testing].
Let me give you a quick Hebrew lesson. While often in English translations we
see the idea of testing or tempting used twice in this verse, in fact that's an
illusion because it is three times. The Hebrew actually makes a play on words. In
the first use of the word test or tempting, the original Hebrew
is nacah (pronounced naw-saw). The 2nd time we see test or tempt in this verse
the original Hebrew is the same: nacah. But the 3rd use is Massah, and it mostly
means a place of tempting. In fact, nacah in this context is not best translated as
tempt or test as it is in many translations; rather nacah is meant in a judicial
sense, like putting someone on trial. So what this passage in Deuteronomy is
meaning is to not put God on trial, as Israel tried to put God on trial at the place
of tempting. God took Israel to a place to tempt them, thus putting their faith on
trial. But Israel tried to turn it around and put God on trial. We are never to put
God on trial; we are never to judge Him. And jumping off of a tall building trying to
prove to someone (perhaps even to yourself) that you have faith in God (because
10/12
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
God is certainly able to catch you if He wants to) is to put God on trial and that is
never right.
I cannot tell you how many emails I get from sincere persons who are assured in
their minds, and backed-up with a Scripture verse, that they are to do something
that seems abundantly foolish, but they think they should do it for God. They are
among the hardest to persuade that what is really happening is that either the
Devil or more likely their own evil inclination is putting them in a losing situation,
which when it fails they will blame on God or at least they will lose a substantial
measure of faith and trust in Him. It is that they are certain that God's will for
them is to do something that appropriate Scripture teaching, in context, tells them
to do otherwise. And almost always it is because they so badly want to do what
their own will wants to do, they are blind to the error of it.
Yeshua rebukes this test of Satan by recalling the Massah incident during
Israel's exodus from Egypt.... once again providing connection between He and
Moses.
In verse 8, again the Devil leads Yeshua to a high place; this time even higher
than the pinnacle on the Temple. It is to a mountain top in order to gain a wide
vantage point so that Satan can dramatically make his offer. Notice how we go
from a low place, the desert, to a high place, the pinnacle of the Temple, to the
highest place a mountain top. And in lockstep with the ascending geography
is the ascending temptations. Now the Devil offers Christ the world that he lays
out before Him. He makes it clear that he has the ability to give Messiah all the
world's kingdoms for Him to rule over. The price? Bow down and worship him.
The point is not hard to see. It is Satan's attempt to replace God. I don't know
whether Yeshua, at this point in time, already knows that He is God's agent to
rule the world, or not. Nevertheless the world belongs to God because He is the
Creator of it. It is His and His alone to rule over, or to assign the rule to another.
Interestingly the Devil's offer of Christ worshipping him in exchange for world rule
uses the same word in Greek that the magi used when worshipping
Yeshua: proskuneo. It is better translated as homage. That is, just as the magi
paid homage in the political sense to the Christ Child (who the magi saw as a
king), so is the Devil telling Yeshua to pay homage in the political sense and
much less so in the religious sense because the Devil sees himself as ruler (king)
of the world. Satan is proposing a role reversal since we know from other Bible
passages that God has designated Yeshua to be the ruler of the world, with
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Lesson 9 - Matthew 4
Satan bowing down to Him.
Yeshua again rebukes the Evil One with Scripture.
CJB Deuteronomy 6:13 You are to fear ADONAl your God, serve him and
swear by his name.
The next words of this Gospel of Matthew are: "Then the Adversary left Him
alone". At that moment the Devil's hopes were crushed. The testing was over;
there was nothing left to test. He had failed to shake the faith of Our Messiah,
The Son of God.
We'll continue with chapter 4 next week.
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 10, Chapter 4 continued
The Early Church Father Chrysostom said this about the temptations of
Christ: "The devil begins with the temptation to indulge the belly. By this
same means he cast out the first man, and by this means many are still
cast down."
In our study of Matthew chapter 4, immediately Yeshua is led into 3 temptations.
As Chrysostom comments, it is not a coincidence that Yeshua and the first man
Adam (or better, first couple) were tempted with food by the Evil One. Food is a
powerful need in humans and therefore can be a powerful force in swaying
humans. And yet Chrysostom sees that there is more to food than only the
nutrition and calories that it necessarily provides.
For those who have studied the Torah with me (and I hope you all have because
you'll get so much more out of any study of the New Testament), you'll recall that
Adam and Eve were originally given, by God, what I call "a one-law Torah". And
what was the first and only law God gave to them while they were still being
allowed to inhabit the Garden of Eden? Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. And, of course, they broke that law. The breaking of
that law is known in various Church doctrines as the Fall of Man, the Fall from
Grace, and a few other titles. So the first law ever given to mankind involved diet:
food. And the breaking of a law about food completely redirected the destiny of
all of humanity in innumerable and painful ways that would require a Redeemer
to fix it. Centuries later, at Mt. Sinai, God would give Israel a more extensive set
of laws regarding diet; laws that have come to be popularly known as Kosher
food laws.
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
Nearly all of the Earliest Church Fathers whose commentaries on Matthew's
Gospel have survived, noticed this connection between Adam and Christ, and
some of them noticed this matter of food as the object of a temptation they both
faced. In Adam's case he had an abundance of food in the Garden. And still
when the Devil tempted him by making this one specific food off-limits, Adam
succumbed to it. While in Christ's case of the temptation in the wilderness He had
no food, this starving man was also tempted by the Devil by telling Him to turn
stones into food to satisfy His gnawing hunger (which, apparently, Yeshua could
have done as He did not dispute Satan on the matter except that He should not
do such a thing). Yeshua resisted the temptation and was victorious.
I find it instructional that the Early Church Fathers were so very aware of the
relationship between Adam and Yeshua's temptations, and that food was the
object of the first temptation for both of them. But then these same Church
Fathers seem to ignore or rationalize away that God goes on in the Torah to
carefully lay out what the diet for humans ought and ought not to be. That is,
what God ordains as permissible for eating versus what is forbidden. One could
argue that this God-commanded diet was only meant for Hebrews, or perhaps
that gentile Believers in Yeshua are also to be included along with the Hebrews. I
would respond that all mankind was meant to eat this way. However it is logical
and it is human nature that only those who trust in the God of Israel and believe
His Word would think to follow the food laws. All others would find such
instructions as irrelevant to them.
So, fellow Believers and followers of Jesus of Nazareth, what say you? I say
unequivocally that we are to eat biblically kosher. Is it sin not to follow those food
laws? Of course it is. The definition of sin is to disobey God's commandments.
Note I say biblically kosher food commandments because I don't accept the large
body of manmade Rabbinical Tradition about kosher eating that has taken but
one chapter in Leviticus concerning food and turned it into scores of pages of
arcane eating rules.
It is a curious truth that even in the secular world of medical science, it is said
that "we are what we eat". It has been understood for a long time that our diet
plays a significant role in our lives. Although Doctors, scientists, and nutritionists
are speaking only of our physical biological lives, God views diet as affecting
primarily our spiritual lives (and that didn't start at Mt. Sinai but rather in the
Garden of Eden). In the spiritual realm the Lord is the first to tell us that in His
eyes "we are what we eat". On the surface the matter of food is a rather simplistic
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
one: God has set down what is food for humans and what is not. Edibility is not
the point of the food selection process, and for the most part neither are health
benefits. God, in His supremacy and perfection, has deemed and commanded
the proper human diet. As Believers in Him, then all that is left for us to decide is:
will we obey or not? Yes, the issue is obedience versus sin and nothing else.
Don't be searching for scientific rationale for whether you should or should not
follow the biblical food laws; lots of things we could eat are no doubt delicious
and physically healthy. Rather be considering your position before the Lord, and
whether you want to be seen by Him as faithful or not. God did not set the food
laws down as an option for us; Adam found that out the hard way, and we've all
been affected by that rebellious act ever since. Yeshua, in the most stressful and
painful of circumstances, chose to trust and obey His Father and so refused to
take the Devil's bait in order to satisfy His want of food. We've all benefited by
that faithful act of Our Savior ever since.
The second temptation of Christ involved Satan taking Him up to the highest
point of the Temple in Jerusalem, and inviting Him to jump off. Taunting Him
that IF He was truly God's Son, His Father would send angels to catch Him. The
Devil was trying to sow seeds of doubt into Yeshua by employing the "if" word.
But He swatted that one away by quoting God's commandment in Deuteronomy
6:16 that man should not put God on trial by doing such a foolish thing as
jumping off a high place and expecting God to catch us. The Early Church Father
Hilary of Poitiers, at about the turn of the 3rd to the 4th century, made this
fascinating observation in his commentary on Matthew. Hilary says: "He (the
Devil) set Him (Christ) on the pinnacle of the Temple, as if towering over the
laws and the prophets". In other words, Satan indeed was trying to put himself
above God's laws and commandments, which by definition means he was trying
to put God on trial. Let that gestate for a few seconds. When we think that we...
mere created beings.... can set aside our Creator's laws and commands by
manufacturing new doctrines and commands that please us better, we are
putting God on trial. We are putting ourselves towering above God, towering over
His laws and commands, thus behaving exactly as the Devil did in this second
temptation of Christ.
In the very next chapter of Matthew, which begins Yeshua's Sermon on the
Mount, Yeshua makes sure that His followers understand what I just told you.
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
So even Christ did not put Himself above God's laws and commands such that
He could add to or subtract from them. Even though the vast bulk of the
institutional Church has for centuries not been faithful or truthful on this matter,
and instead has instituted new manmade doctrines that has told billions of
Christians that for them God's laws and commands are dead and gone because
Christ did away with them, Christ Himself said otherwise. In Matthew 4 when
Yeshua fights the Devil He specifically uses Scripture passages from the Torah
as His weapon. Now, why, if His purpose was to abolish the Torah would He use
it as an example for us to follow? Why would He soon follow up in His Sermon on
the Mount and specifically declare that not only didn't He come with the purpose
of abolishing the Torah and the Prophets, but also warning that whoever might
think to disobey these laws and commands of the Torah and teach others to do
so is going to find him or her self occupying the lowest possible rung on the
Heavenly Ladder in God's Kingdom society. It pains me to no end that the
Church has done such a damaging and unscriptural thing primarily with the
purpose of trying to achieve gentile superiority over the early Church's Jewish
leadership. It has led to nothing but disobedience and a weakening of Christian
faith. But now you know the truth, and you are seeing it for yourself in God's
Word. So how you respond to this scriptural knowledge will have much to do with
your personal eternal future and where you might be placed within God's
Kingdom structure.
The third temptation of Christ was that the Devil offered Yeshua rulership over
the entire planet in exchange for bowing down to him. Jesus's response to him
was "away with you Satan" or more popularly "get behind Me, Satan". Next we
read: "Then the Adversary let Him alone..." In an anonymous Christian
commentary on Matthew, written sometime in the 5th century; a work that has
been labeled by Theologians as The Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 5, its
unknown writer offers us this uplifting perspective about what happened with
Yeshua and how this applies to us.
"He (Christ) put an end to the Devil's tempting when he said 'Get behind me
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
Satan!". The devil could progress no further with his temptation. But we
can rightly understand and reasonably ascertain that he withdrew not as
though in obedience to the command. Rather it was the divinity of Christ or
the Holy Spirit in Christ who drove away the Devil. This gives us great
consolation, for the Devil cannot tempt God's people as long as he wishes.
He can tempt them only so long as Christ or the Holy Spirit who is in them
allows him to." What a wonderful and important point of view for us to grasp. It is not the
mechanical quoting of Scripture passages that blocks the Devil, just as it is not
the mechanical doing of God's laws and commands that satisfies the Lord. When
we are saved, and Christ or the Holy Spirit (however we choose to phrase it)
dwells within us, and when as Believers we find occasion to rebuke the Devil's
temptations by speaking God's Word to him, it is the power of God within us that
the Devil flees from; not from our human ability to remember and quote it.
So now let's move on in Matthew chapter 4 to learn about what follows the
temptation of Christ. Open your Bibles to Matthew 4.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 4:11 - end
I'd like to remark here that the implication that after Satan withdrew and let Jesus
alone that angels ministered to Him, is sort of mysterious to me. How, exactly, did
angels minister to Him? Did they bring Him food? Did they comfort Him in some
way? Did they congratulate or praise Him? Why couldn't regular humans, instead
of angels, do most of this for Him? I don't think I have a solid enough answer to
this because there is simply no further information provided to us. Yet let's not
overlook the plain matter that apparently Yeshua, Himself also being
God, needed to be ministered to. It can be very complicated and challenging to
either separate or combine Yeshua's humanity with His divinity and speak of it
and think of it in some orderly and comprehensible way. Since God has no
needs, then in this case it can only be that Jesus, the human being, did.
We're not told how long it was between each of the 3 temptations or if they
occurred in rapid succession. After a person has not eaten in 40 days, a couple
of hearty meals doesn't bring a person back to good health. So perhaps a time of
regaining His physical strength had something to do with the ministration of the
angels. I suspect that it also had to do with His spirit and His emotions. I cannot
even imagine the stress He was under and the physical exhaustion that
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
accompanied it; He knew the weight of the world, and the eternal fate of
humanity, rest upon His shoulders. The Devil tried to take advantage of this fact; I
think the angels came to give Jesus rest in a way that can only come from
Heaven.
Verse 12 shifts the subject. Here we learn that John the Baptist has been
arrested but we're not given any particulars about it. Later in chapter 14 Matthew
will address this in more detail as kind of a flash-back. Nonetheless John's arrest
occurred while Yeshua was in Judea and so it became a signal to Yeshua that
He needed to leave and go back home to the Galilee. Some commentators see
what Yeshua did as fleeing because He is so intimately connected to John that
He thinks He'll be the next to be arrested. And yet the Galilee isn't all that far
away and if Antipas really wanted to find Yeshua and arrest Him it wouldn't have
been terribly difficult. Others think that the arrest of John, and Jesus going back
to the Galilee, are not necessarily linked. It's just that Matthew is only telling us
two separate things: 1) John had been imprisoned, and 2) Jesus went back to the
Galilee to begin His ministry. I'm not at all sure which is the case. However the
next verse may give us some more information that gives us a clue about it.
Verse 13 says that He went back to His hometown of Nazareth, but then moved
to Capernaum. Was He doing this to evade the authorities? Perhaps. But
Matthew says in verse 14 that the reason for this move was in order to fulfill a
prophecy of Isaiah. In other words, some of the things Christ did, He did
purposely for little other reason than to fulfill ancient Messianic prophecies
concerning His coming and His mission as Israel's Messiah.
Capernaum is an English translation of the Hebrew K'far Nahum, which means
"the village of Nahum". The village was located on the Sea of Galilee (and it is
still there), so a goodly part of its economy depended on fishing. That Matthew
tells us that the village was near the border between the tribal territories allotted
to the tribes of Zevulun and Naphtali further indicates that Matthew resided in the
Holy Land and that he was quite studied in the Hebrew Bible because in no way
were those tribal territories meaningful any longer even to most Jews. Once the
Assyrians conquered the north of Israel towards the end of the 8th century B.C.,
and then 130 years later when the Babylonians conquered the south, the tribal
territory names (other than for Judah) were mostly erased and whatever
boundaries they had been given by Moses and Joshua disappeared. This all
happened centuries before Christ's era. So mention of the tribal territories of
Zevulun and Naphtali solidifies that Matthew's intended audience was Jews
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
because the old tribal geography and those old tribal names would have had no
meaning outside of the Jewish population.
Next Matthew quotes the pertinent section of the prophecy that he says Jesus is
fulfilling by His moving to K'far Nahum, and it comes from Isaiah chapters 8 and
9. Most Believers have heard this passage in Matthew a number of times.
However remembering that this came from a Prophet that lived 7 centuries
earlier, and the circumstances of his day were entirely different than they were in
Christ's era, I want to take the time to put this prophecy in context because it
becomes all the more meaningful. So let's read all of Isaiah 8 and then the first 6
verses of Isaiah 9. Turn your Bibles there, now, and read along with me.
READ ISAIAH CHAPTER 8:1 - 9:6
The mention of Ashur at the beginning is speaking of the Assyrian Kingdom that
Isaiah says will conquer the 10 northern tribes of Israel and carry them off.
History shows that they were scattered all over Asia and Northern Africa. This
exile from their land is judgment upon all Israel by Yehoveh for their idolatry and
unfaithfulness. And at the same time, while the Lord has prepared and drawn in
gentile nations to be the earthly sword of God's judgment, He's going to shatter
them for being so hard on His people. So God sort of says to these gentile
nations: go ahead and laugh now, because you won't be laughing later.
The people of Israel, however, are oblivious to their own rebellion and idolatry
and the coming consequences, even though God has sent Prophets, including
Isaiah, to warn them. The 12 tribes are like a disabled ship bobbing around on a
churning sea having lost its rudder. Each man is doing what is right in his own
eyes. The 10 northern tribes, especially, have been blatantly bowing down to
other gods along with insincerely worshipping Yehoveh for some time; and the 2
tribes that form Judah are being slowly drawn into the same destructive behavior.
Finally the breaking point is reached; what Isaiah describes next is the Israelites
reaching out frantically in all directions for the solutions to their growing
frustrations, misfortunes and overwhelming problems. They try pressuring their
Prophets into contacting the dead for answers. They try sacrifice to other gods
hoping for their favor. They quit consulting God's Word for direction and look to
others or to themselves. There is only one word to describe the condition of Israel
at this time: confusion.
Starting in Isaiah 8:11 the Prophet says that God told him that even through
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
these are Isaiah's own people, he is not to join them in this nonsense. Don't listen
to the conspiracy theories and don't buy in. Don't dread what the people dread,
don't fear what the leaders fear. In other words, don't listen to all the noise of a
disjointed society and become as anxiety driven as they are. What perfect
wisdom that is for us, God's Believers, in our day. What Israel was doing 2700
years ago sounds amazingly similar to what the entire world is doing today. And
it has led to a state of confusion and chaos that even the Church has not
escaped. Hear and do what God says to us, His worshippers. We have no choice
but to observe what is occurring all around us but we don't have to participate.
Even more, we are to seek the Lord God of Israel and not other gods for answers
and for wisdom. We are not to run after the gods of other religions, the gods of
science and technology, the gods of prosperity, the gods of government and
political ideology, nor the gods of self and self pleasure. The only remedy for the
ever shifting sands of confusion is to reverse course and return to the safety of
the Rock.
Then we arrive at Isaiah 8 verse 23. Time passes God's people wait for their
deliverance.... they wait....more time than the people of Israel thought would pass
drifts by at glacial speed. Naturally they hoped that what Isaiah told them was
going to happen might play out in months, maybe a few years. But no.... 700
years goes by to the point that the people now living in the lands of Zevulun and
Naphtali (in Yeshua's time known best as the upper Galilee) are barely aware
whose tribal lands they stand upon. In fact, it's not the tribal members of Zevulun
and Naphtali who live there anymore, because during Yeshua's day those tribes
had still not returned to their land but rather they remained in exile. Those other
people consist of not just a few gentiles, and they don't know the land's history.
As we have arrived at the biblical passage that forms verses 15 and 16 in
Matthew chapter 4 and we compare it to Isaiah 8 and 9, we note first of all that
Matthew paraphrases Isaiah's prophecy for his own purpose and applies it to
Capernaum and the surrounding areas, and to Yeshua as the Messiah (another
use of remez or perhaps drash in Bible interpretation). Those areas that the
Isaiah prophecy describes are in Christ's era the several Jewish lake front
villages ("lake" is a term that is used to this day in Israel when speaking about
what gentiles call the Sea of Galilee). The passage also describes areas on the
east side of the Jordan River (because in 700 B.C. Israel still held substantial
tribal territories there, but that was no longer the case in Yeshua's time). And
then finally we hear of the Galilee of the Gentiles because so many gentiles
occupied areas around the west side of the Sea of Galilee, and even more so on
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
the east side. The reality is that Rome was in charge of that entire region.
All of these areas around the Galilee that Isaiah describes are home to the
people he says have been walking "in great darkness"; but now these same
people have seen a "great light". In Hebrew the word "darkness" as used in
Isaiah's prophecy is choshek. This is not a word that speaks of the darkness of
nighttime or of a darkened room. Rather choshek is used to describe obscurity,
oppression, and deception. So the great darkness is a
great spiritual darkness.... evil ... shared by Israelites and gentiles alike. And the
great light that Isaiah prophesies about is in its original Hebrew owr. It is a type
of light that is not the kind that comes from the sun, or from a torch or a light bulb.
Rather owr means enlightenment truth.... revelation; the qualities of good that
are the foundation of God's (and Messiah's) nature. These are the same words
used to describe various aspects of Israel's experience in Egypt. Matthew takes
the term "great light" in Isaiah's prophecy to mean the Messiah (and I have no
doubt that is exactly what Isaiah was prophesying). When we hear about those
living in the region as living in the shadow of death, I think the ultimate meaning
is the shadow of eternal death a spiritual death is being contemplated much
more than a physical death that all humans will experience. Also because thus
far in Isaiah's prophecy the terms concerning the dark condition of the people
and then the arrival of the great light are spiritual terms.
In verse 17 we have Yeshua using the same words that John the Baptist used as
he called people to his baptism: turn from your sins to God, and the Kingdom of
Heaven is near. He used the same words as John because that is exactly what
His purpose was for His coming. Those same words are not on the lips of the
Prophets that prepare the way for Yeshua's return at the End of Days, nor are
they what Yeshua will speak when He comes back in power and glory. This is
because upon His first appearance He came as His Father's agent to redeem.
The next time He comes (His return), He comes as His Father's agent to carry
out God's wrath and vengeance. First coming: salvation. Second coming:
judgment. Therefore the message is that God's Kingdom on earth has just been
inaugurated, and the only means to gain membership is to sincerely repent.
Why? Because the Kingdom of Heaven (or of God) is not a place; it is not like an
enormous Shangra La. Rather it represents God's rule that itself is expressed in
the lives of human beings. If you are a Believer, the Kingdom of God is already
within you. And while that Kingdom is, for now, fully spiritual in nature, in time it
will transform and become the spiritual AND physical condition of the new
heavens and new earth.
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
This is why the concept that we find playing out in Matthew that the Kingdom of
Heaven is present, it is coming, and it is also future can be so confusing and the
subject of several varying Church doctrines that usually focus on but one,
perhaps two, of those three aspects of it. Although I'll have more to say about it
as our lessons in Matthew continue, for now just know that it was John the
Baptist who inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, it is Yeshua and later
with the help of His disciples (then and now) who are expanding the Kingdom by
means of spreading the Good News, and then finally the Kingdom reaches it's
completed form when the old heavens and old earth pass away to make room for
the new heavens and new earth. I'll say this another way: the Kingdom of
Heaven does not belong only to a moment in history, but rather it consists of its
establishment by means of a series of events over a period of time. That time
period is not precisely specified, however the so-called End Times prophets
(such as Daniel and Ezekiel) together with the Book of Revelation give to us the
major milestone events and some semblance of their order.
Before I move on to the next verse I also want to say how fortunate we are and
continue to be. We still live in an extended era that began around 30 A.D.
whereby repentance and sincere trust in God and His Son deliver us from the
coming wrath of God. We still live in an extended era when we, as God's
worshippers, can tell others.... some who we know and love, some who we don't
know at all about Yeshua and the Kingdom of Heaven, and they still have the
opportunity to repent and be delivered from the coming wrath of God. The time is
coming when this option and opportunity ends with no exceptions.
Versei8 speaks of when Yeshua began His ministry in earnest, and He did so by
choosing some disciples. We are told that he walked along Lake Kinneret; or as
the Greek manuscripts have it "the Sea of Tiberias". English versions call it "the
Sea of Galilee". Kinneret is based on the Hebrew word kinnar, which means
harp; the lake was harp shaped in Jesus's day. Calling it the Sea of Tiberias is
because Tiberias was the name of a large city located near the lake's
southwestern shore. And the Sea of Galilee was called that for the obvious
reason that the large lake was located in the Galilee. Yeshua spotted a couple of
brothers, fishermen who were fishing at the time, and offered to make them
fishers of men. One was called Andrew, the other in English is Simon Peter. In
Hebrew Simon Peter is Shimon Kefa. Kefa is actually an Aramaic word that
means rock. In Greek the word rock is petros. Petros became Peter in English.
Sometimes we'll see his name as Cephas.
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Lesson 10 - Matthew 4 cont
We're told that these 2 brothers didn't hesitate. They left their net and followed
Yeshua. As the 4 Gospels tend to do, they agree on substance but not always on
detail. The Gospel of John has Yeshua gaining His first 2 disciples slightly
differently than how Matthew frames it.
CJB John. 1:35-42 35 The next day, Yochanan was again standing with two of
his talmidim. 36 On seeing Yeshua walking by, he said, "Look! God's
lamb!" 37 His two talmidim heard him speaking, and they followed
Yeshua. 38 Yeshua turned and saw them following him, and he asked them,
"What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi!" (which means
"Teacher!") "Where are you staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come and see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and remained with him the
rest of the day- it was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two
who had heard Yochanan and had followed Yeshua was Andrew the
brother of Shim'on Kefa. 41 The first thing he did was to find his brother
Shim'on and tell him, "We've found the Mashiach!" (The word means "one
who has been anointed.") 42 He took him to Yeshua. Looking at him, Yeshua
said, "You are Shim'on Bar-Yochanan; you will be known as Kefa." (The
name means "rock.")
So John's Gospel has it that Yeshua was walking near John the Baptist and 2 of
John's disciples. John says "Look, God's Lamb" and quickly John's 2 disciples go
after Jesus. They caught up to Him and ask Him where He was staying (it was
Capernaum at this time). One of the two was Andrew, who took Christ to his
brother Shimon Bar-Yochanan where Yeshua said he'd be called Kefa (the
rock) from here on. So what we find is that Andrew was first a disciple of John the
Baptist; but he left him to become one of Christ's original 12. We don't know what
happened to the other disciple of John who had tagged along. And according to
John, it was Yeshua who gave Simon his nickname of Kefa Peter.... the rock.
Next week we'll continue with Yeshua calling His first disciples and then move
into chapter 5.
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 11, Chapters 4 and 5
Our previous lesson in Matthew chapter 4 left off at a time when Christ was
gathering His first disciples. Teachers and Holy Men gathering disciples was
nothing new; in fact John's Gospel says that Andrew was John the Baptist's
disciple before he became one of Yeshua's first two disciples.
An interesting feature about disciples and their Masters in the 1st century was
that it was always the disciples that chose their Masters. There were many
teachers and Holy Men to choose from if a Jewish man wanted to go that route
and choose the lifestyle or cause that one of these many Masters advocated.
That was the case with the disciples of John the Baptist as well. But as we see,
Yeshua (the Master) chose His disciples; they didn't choose Him.
Since it is seems apparent from the writings of the New Testament that the Jews
believed they were living in the End Times, then the belief of Elijah reappearing
and playing a significant role in those turbulent times was ever present. Thus we
see that many hundreds of years earlier, in other turbulent times, that it was
Elijah who spotted and then chose Elishah (the Master chose the disciple) and
not the other way around as it normally was. In 1st Kings we read:
CJB 1 Kings 19:19-21 19 So he (Elijah) left and found Elisha the son of
Shafat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he himself was behind
the twelfth. Eliyahu went over to him and threw his cloak on him. 20 He left
the oxen, ran after Eliyahu and said, "Please let me kiss my father and
mother good-bye; then I will follow you." He answered, "Go; but return,
because of what I did to you."
21 Elisha stopped following him. Then he took
the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them, cooked their meat over the wooden
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people to eat. Then he got up, went
after Eliyahu and became his servant.
In his Gospel, the Apostle John reiterates the same principle about who does the
choosing when he writes of Yeshua saying to His disciples:
CJB John 15:16 16 You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have
commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever
you ask from the Father in my name he may give you.
Let's pause and re-read a section of Matthew 4.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 4:18 - end
Before we talk about some other men that Jesus recruited, notice that the
candidates are not recorded as asking "why" they should follow Him. The
wording makes it as though there was immediate acceptance and they just stood
up and left with Him. In fact, what Jesus offered was not an invitation but rather it
was a command. The logical question is: why would these men obey and follow
Him?
The answer to this question centers around just who these soon to be 12
disciples, and the many other Jews who would seek after Him, thought He was or
what it was that He represented to them. In order to try and shed light on this
issue let's take what I think you'll find to be an interesting detour.
In Yeshua's day there was a kind of Jewish man called a Tzadik. While literally it
means "righteous one" or "righteous man", to the Jews of that time it more
indicated a "Holy Man". These Holy Men were miracle workers who, among
other things, healed sicknesses, disabilities and wounds in the name of the God
of Israel. Professor David Flusser has done some excellent research about the
important place of these Holy Men in ancient Jewish society and he points out
Rabbinic literature that says that a few years prior to 70 A.D., before the
destruction of the Temple by Rome, 4 of these Holy Men were well known and
respected in the Holy Land. Interestingly 2 of them were from the Galilee. One
was named Hilkia and the other was Hanina Ben Dosa. It was believed by the
Jewish community that these Tzadikkim were divinely gifted and much closer to
God than the average man.
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
Recall that in Christ's day the belief of Jews was that the era of prophets (of the
Old Testament variety) was over. Prophets were the miracle workers of that
bygone era and now around the beginning of the 1st century the miracle workers
were these Tzadikkim (Holy Men). There doesn't seem to have been very many
of them. It is difficult to know, exactly, when this era of the Tzadik arose, but it
must have been at least as early as 65 B.C., because the legend of Honi the
Circle Drawer is from that time. The Babylonian Talmud tells the story of Honi
sleeping for 70 years and then dying soon after he awoke. The story refers to him
as a Tzadik ... literally a righteous man; but to the Jews that meant Honi held the
honored position as a Holy Man. While the story itself is highly unlikely, the point
is that Honi did actually exist at that time and was indeed considered a miracle
working Holy Man.
Scribes being the chiefs and main authorities of the Synagogue system (the elite
of the Pharisees), they were highly revered. As such they had egos and so
tended to see an itinerant Holy Man as competition because the common folks
flocked to a Tzadik in hopes of being healing of their various ailments (something
the Scribes certainly couldn't do); so there was a natural tension between the
two.
It is further known of these few Holy Men that they practiced poverty. This was a
refreshing difference between them and the aristocratic Sadducees or the well to
do Scribes; so of course the common Jew (who was generally anything but rich)
felt more of a connection to these Holy Men who had no possessions and held no
pretenses. It was also more or less the norm that these Tzadikkim would
perform their healing miracles in private, and often in secret, in order not to glorify
themselves. I ask you now to think; who might this sound like in the New
Testament? Of course: it sounds like Christ. We see Him characterized in the
Gospels as a Jewish Holy Man (acknowledging that He was far more than that in
reality). We read of Yeshua constantly healing the sick, exorcizing demons, and
generally hanging out with the ordinary, the poor, and the lame. In fact, it was
His deeds of miracle working that attracted people to Him by the hundreds and
that gained Him such a following among the common folk. But it also brought Him
the ire of the religious authorities who couldn't do what He could do and therefore
they saw Him as a threat.
These miracle workers are described by later Rabbis as being viewed as "sons of
God". Not "son of God" in the Christian sense that we think of Jesus Christ as a
literal God-on-earth Son of God, but more in the Jewish cultural sense of this rare
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
person having a mysterious closeness to God that the average Jew could never
hope to attain. It is not unlike how some will refer to pastors or priests as "men of
God". We don't mean that they are part human and part God; we merely mean
that they have devoted their lives to God and He has responded by giving them a
special relationship, ability and position to do God's work on earth. So the term
"sons of God" was a sort of honorary title meant to explain the otherwise
inexplicable about how and why they were able to perform the miraculous
healings that they did.
Only in the later part of the 20th century did we discover that these
enigmatic Tzadikkim of Jesus's day and earlier had a personal awareness that
the extraordinary powers of healing they had been gifted with were because for
some unknown reason God had chosen them and made them "sons of God".
We read Jesus saying this in Matthew 11:
CJB Matthew 11:25-27 25 It was at that time that Yeshua said, "I thank you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you concealed these things from the
sophisticated and educated and revealed them to ordinary folks. 26 Yes,
Father, I thank you that it pleased you to do this. 27 "My Father has handed
over everything to me. Indeed, no one fully knows the Son except the
Father, and no one fully knows the Father except the Son and those to
whom the Son wishes to reveal him.
This seems to us like an extraordinary proclamation by Yeshua who here
announces His self-awareness of just who He is and because of that He has
been given revelations concerning the mysteries of God, some of which He
passes along to ordinary folks. And yet, upon the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, we find that the underlying premise of an especially righteous man, a
Holy Man, being given a glimpse into the mysteries and power of The Father was
not new. So Christ's pronouncement had the effect upon most Jews of confirming
their view of Him that he was a Holy Man. Found among the several so-named
Thanksgiving Hymns of that incredible treasure trove of scrolls we find several
Essene hymns. The preface to this particular hymn says: "his message will be
prudence to the simple". That is, the message of this hymn speaks of
a Tzadik saying something profound, but it is meant for the ears of the ordinary
person and not the elite. Listen closely, because it very nearly sounds like the
passage I just quoted to you from Matthew 11 that came from the mouth of Our
Messiah. I'll repeat: what I'm about to recite to you comes not from Scripture, Old
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or New Testaments, but rather from an anonymous writer of the Dead Sea
Scrolls who can only be writing from the position of being a Holy Man.
Through me Thou has illuminated the face of many, and has shown Thy
infinite power. For Thou has given me knowledge of Thy marvelous
mysteries, and hast shown Thyself mighty with me through Thy
marvels. Thou has done wonders before many for the sake of Thy
glory, that they may make known Thy mighty deeds to all the living.
Here is the point: this Essene hymn speaks of the attribute of God working
wonders (miracles) through this especially righteous man, a Holy Man, a son of
God. And this Holy Man is giving thanks to God and glorifying Him for the divine
knowledge of heavenly mysteries, and for the gift of wielding the ability to do
mighty deeds that comes from God's power and not his own. To the Jewish mind
and culture Yeshua fit the identity of an authentic Tzadik like a glove; He was a
Holy Man who worked miracles. The phenomenon of a Holy Man was not new,
but rather something wonderful that seemed to come around only occasionally,
unexpectedly, at God's will. And when a Holy Man appeared, people of course
understood that the proof of his credentials was his miracle powers of healing.
The news of the advent of a Holy Man would spread quickly and Jews would
come clamoring to him for relief of every kind of malady. Holy Men were men of
the common people, not men of the elite. The Gospels paint Jesus in exactly this
role; but of course the Gospel writers also extol the joy that He was so much
more than this: He was also the long awaited Deliverer. He was God's promised
Messiah. So even Yeshua's claims to being the Son of God were not denied by
the people at large, nor did those claims seem strange, because it was believed
that every Holy Man who came and went was a son of God. It's only that they
didn't understand that for Christ, being the Son of God was unique and fully literal
as opposed to being an honorary title.
Now back to the question I posed before we started this detour: why would these
fishermen and later others (who don't seem to have had any prior contact with
Him) just jump up and follow Yeshua because He commanded them to? It was
because they recognized Him as a Tzadik, a miracle worker; a son of God. A
Holy Man whose persona and attributes were known, welcome and understood
within Jewish society. They had probably heard of Him because Luke's Gospel
says that after the 3 temptations Yeshua returned to the Galilee, began teaching
in synagogues and His reputation began to spread BEFORE He started
appointing disciples. Notice how in our Essene Hymn, this Holy Man would pass
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
on the mysteries of Heaven that He learned by teaching them to the ordinary folk.
I suspect that the people sensed He was something more than a typical Holy
Man but even if He wasn't, being a Holy Man was exciting enough. They weren't
about to question this Tzadik's motives for wanting them as His followers. So it
would be an indescribable honor to be in His inner circle and it would probably
bring them some kind of benefit or higher status. Understand: as of this time
these disciples had little idea who Yeshua really was and what their discipleship
would eventually mean or lead to.
After choosing Andrew and Peter, Yeshua also found another pair of fisherman
brothers, and chose them. So the first 4 disciples were fishermen. Let's pause for
a second: how far should we spiritualize or make application about the first 4
disciples being fishermen? I say not as far as it is often taken. Remember:
Yeshua was now living in Capernaum, a seaside town. Fishing was one of the
main, if not the main, industries for the residents of Capernaum. And we find
Yeshua walking along the seashore so He was bound to run into some
fishermen.
Fishermen, despite what you might have heard, were not uneducated and
illiterate. Fishing was not an occupation of last resort. Fishing was what today
we'd call a blue collar job. These were generally happy family men making a
simple but sufficient living. They could read and write, and probably speak and
understand at least two languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. Some also had a
working knowledge of Greek (even if they weren't fluent), because Capernaum
lay on the important Via Maris trade route and knowing some Greek was
necessary to do business. They and their families ate some of their catch but
sold most of it at the local markets. They attended synagogues, made the journey
to Jerusalem for some of the biblical festivals, and had a modest level of
Scriptural knowledge. But.... and this is important like all of the non-elite Jews
the main religious knowledge and understanding that they possessed came from
Tradition because their place of learning was the synagogue where Pharisee␂driven Tradition flourished. Yeshua was known to have been raised and lived in
the same environment, went to the same synagogues, and had not received any
formal religious training. So His ability to teach the Torah and the Prophets at an
astounding level merely added to His reputation and mystique as a Holy Man par
excellence.
That second pair of brothers that Yeshua commanded to become His disciples
were Ya'akov and Yochanan, sons of Zavdai. Our English Bibles will call these
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
two men James and John. James is a terrible translation because Ya'akov
translates to Jacob, not James (although to eliminate confusion, I'll use his
traditional Christian name). It is widely held that this odd translation came about
in honor of King James who had ordered and sponsored the creation of the King
James Bible. John, decades later, became the writer of Revelation, the Gospel of
John, and the three epistles 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John (not bad for a former
fisherman!). Just as Andrew and Peter immediately left their nets and boats at
Messiah's command so did James and John. So does this mean that they literally
abandoned their valuable nets and fishing boats and walked off with Yeshua?
Even more, does this mean that they also left their wives and children (assuming
they weren't single men) to fend for themselves, meaning these women and
children would have become impoverished and mere survival would have
become challenging? While I can't answer those questions with any definitive
evidence, I think I can give you an educated guess. And my guess is that the
boats and nets were retained and taken over by family members. And for those
new disciples who had immediate families they would not have done such a thing
as to simply walk off and leave them helpless. Yeshua would not have expected
them to because it would have violated the most basic of commandments to love
your fellow man as you do yourself.
Since these disciples would operate almost completely within the Holy Land for
the next several years, they wouldn't have been listened to or respected if they
had done such a thing as to make homeless beggars of their wives and children
in order to gain the prestige of following a Holy Man. So the statement that they
left nets and boats at once must be taken as a very general and abbreviated
statement about their instant connection with Yeshua and their immediate
obedience to His command. It more indicates that without hesitation or
reservation they put their occupation and their life second to following Christ. No
doubt even this would have had serious consequences and put a great strain on
their families, if for no other reason than they would soon be traveling on a
regular basis. But this matter is never directly addressed in the Gospels so we
really don't know the details or anything about their families.
Nevertheless I want to take this opportunity to comment about this because I get
regular emails, usually from men who feel a call to serve in full time ministry; and
yet they have wives and children and good jobs and to make this change would
involve sacrifice and acceptance on the part of his entire family. There is no
perfect, one-size-fits-all answer to this dilemma. But my advice is this: remember
that this is not the 1st century. Our modern society is not ancient Jewish society
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
and so the consequences and challenges are different now than then. Ideally a
man or woman will be open to God's call to service in full time ministry before
they are married and start a family. Or perhaps a man and women will marry with
the understanding that full time ministry is their shared destiny and so organize
their lives to fulfill it at some point. It could be that a man has already started a
family, and hears the calling later in life, but his wife is willing to whole-heartedly
support his calling, join him, and accept the necessary sacrifices to achieve it. No
one's story will be identical to another's.
However in cases where a man has a wife and family, with all its obligations, and
the wife is firmly not on board with such a profound change, then it should not be
done. If a person has a debt load that would not permit him or her to pay their
debts on the likely lesser amount of income ministry work would generate, then it
should not be done until the debts are paid. We can serve God in ministry in so
very many important and indispensable ways without completely abandoning our
jobs, turning our backs on our bills and debts, and uprooting an unwilling and
unhappy family.
The calling that Christ has for us to be His disciples is, just like with the first 12,
about committing our lives to Him just as we are. For many if not most of us that
is a radical change in and of itself and requires a time of learning and adapting.
Our new found faith in Him also means that we must follow Him even if our
spouses, parents, children, friends, and bosses don't accept it. Does this mean
that our spouses might leave us simply because we change, repent, and become
disciples of Christ and worshippers of the God of Israel? Might it be that we can
lose our jobs over it? Yes it does, and I personally know of cases that it has
happened. Especially if one is a Jew in our time, it very likely will mean that your
family will shun you and you'll be considered a traitor to them and to Judaism. But
as Yeshua said:
CJB Luke 14:26 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his
mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own
life besides, he cannot be my talmid.
So many people hear what they want to hear in this verse, and too often they
overlook the key phrase "and his own life besides". They think of this verse as a
severe Jesus actually suggesting that a new Believer ought to be ready to turn
against his family and despise them for Messiah's sake. That is in no way what
is being commanded. This is about understanding the cost of following Yeshua
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
and that you may face tremendous opposition. It is about giving up one's own life
such that nothing is to rank higher than love for God and His Son, and obedience
to them. Loyalty to God comes first; all else necessarily is secondary. Paul has
much to say about marriage and family for the person who comes to faith and
now has some of these dilemmas to deal with. But in every case he suggests that
before forsaking all to enter full time ministry that one is to fulfill their obligations,
marital and otherwise, and to carefully count the cost. You can read some of his
comments on this in 1Corinthian 7 for starters.
One final note on this matter. Verse 22 says that the two brothers "left their
boat and their father" and went with Yeshua. This does not mean that they
broke their relationship with their father. It means that the father was fishing with
his 2 sons on their family owned boat when Yeshua approached them and
commanded his sons to become disciples. It is simply that their father was there
at the time; we're not told what the father's reaction was to this sudden turn of
events.
Verse 23 adds so much context to Yeshua's ministry if we'll just accept it. It says
that Yeshua went around speaking in synagogues because that's where common
Jews met for worship, learning, fellowship and information. We're told that He
proclaimed the Good News (or Gospel) of the Kingdom. And what is that Good
News? Typically a Christian's mind says that preaching the Good News must
mean that Jesus told them that He was the Messiah and that they should put
their trust in Him; but that is not the case at this point in His ministry. We must
think back to what John the Baptist proclaimed, and then the same message that
Jesus also proclaimed as the Good News just a few verses earlier. It is not that
He is the Messiah and can Himself provide for forgiveness of sins, but rather that
it was time for people to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven is near. To the
Jews of that era, the meaning of Jesus's message was that the culmination of the
End Times with all its horrors and deprivations was about to happen, and the
arrival of the joyful, promised restoration was imminent. God was about to kick
the Romans out of the Holy Land and to establish His rule on earth as it is in
Heaven.
Now notice the next part of verse 23: Christ went about healing people from
disease. That is, He continued to live and project the persona of a Tzadik.... a
Holy Man. For the moment that is how the Jewish people were permitted to
perceive Him. Because (hallelujah) a Holy Man had appeared, news of Him
began spreading all over Syria and people began streaming to Him even from
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
there with every imaginable kind of ailment and lameness including those who
were held under the power of demons. Why the mention of Syria? Syria at this
time had a huge Jewish population. Syria was on the Galilee's northern border
and the point of mentioning it is to show how far and wide news of this miracle
worker spread even to the not-too-distant Jewish Diaspora. It also highlights what
I told you earlier; the appearance of a Holy Man was rare and when one did
appear, news of him spread like wildfire so the opportunity to be made well might
not be missed.
But what we must also notice is what is not said by Matthew. In verse 25 we're
told that all these people were coming from places like the Galilee, the Ten
Towns (the Decapolis), the capital city of Jerusalem, the province of Judea to the
south, and even areas to the east of the Jordan River. Galilee is mentioned in the
list as is Judea; but why not Samaria that lay in between them? Why no mention
of the prominent Tyre and Sidon? It is because Samaria was a mostly gentile and
mixed blood province, as were the major cities of Tyre and Sidon. The gentiles
living there wouldn't have understood the nature and importance of a Tzadik,
which was a purely Hebrew construct. Besides: Yeshua said that He only came
for the lost sheep of Israel and Matthew seems intent on making that point by
using the list of places these thousands of Jews came from. Gentiles were
beyond Yeshua's scope for the time being. Thus those multitudes who came to
be healed and to hear a message of hope consisted almost entirely of Jews.
What we have been reading in the last couple of verses about the huge crowds
coming to Yeshua for healing and hope are the preface for what comes next: The
Sermon on the Mount. Who did they think they were coming to see and for what
purpose did they come? They came to see the miracle working Tzadik. Some
came for physical healing, others came because of His message that tells them
of hope in the End Times, and (so very importantly) the only way to get right with
God in preparation for it.
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 5.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 5 all
This chapter is but the beginning of Matthew's 3 chapter long treatise on what
happened and what Christ said in His seminal speech atop a hill in the Galilee,
addressed to a wide spectrum of His people, the Jews. Why is this so important
to Matthew that he'd spend so much time with it? It is because for the Jewish
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Lesson 11 - Matthew 4 & 5
Believer Matthew everything that Yeshua speaks has to do with the Torah and
the Law of Moses.
The first 10 verses are, in Christian tradition, called the Beatitudes. I find it
interesting that while they are but the first few verses of the extensive Sermon on
the Mount, Christianity has them separated away as though they are an
unrelated matter from what follows. It is not unlike what Christian Tradition has
also done with the 10 Commandments that, even though they are but the first of
hundreds of other commandments that God gave through Moses, Christianity
has also separated them away as though they have no connection to what
follows. Clearly such a separation and distinction was not God's, Moses's,
Christ's or Matthew's intent, nor should Believers take it that way. Rather, these
first verses of chapter 5 represent Yeshua's opening words... a sort of
preamble.... which like any good leader or speaker does, gives recognition to
exactly who His audience is. No doubt if He was speaking to the elite among the
Jews, to the Temple Sadducees and to the synagogue Scribes for instance, that
these would not have been the descriptive words He would have chosen.
We'll start peeling back the layers of this Sermon on the Mount next week.
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 12, Chapter 5
The Sermon on the Mount will be our topic for the next few weeks as it takes up
Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I think I can say without much objection that the
Sermon on the Mount represents the most consequential and panoramic
expression of what it means to be a Believer and a follower of Christ, since the
instructions are recorded as having come directly from Our Redeemer's mouth.
Clearly Matthew must have seen it in that light because he devoted so much time
to it in his Gospel. I stated in an earlier lesson that considering the momentous
nature of Yeshua's speech, it is curious that Matthew is the only Gospel of the 4
that contains the Sermon on the Mount. Admittedly Luke chapter 6 contains
something similar, and a predominant number of Bible scholars say that those
verses in Luke are but another version of that same sermon. I, however, stand
with another group of scholars and commentators who believe it is not. The
sermon that begins at Luke 6:17 and goes to the end of that chapter is regularly
called The Sermon on the Plain because it claims a different location than the
Sermon on the Mount. If you'll turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, we'll briefly
glance at it only so you can see the differences.
In the CJB, the introductory words to The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 are:
"Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill." But in Luke 6 we read: "Then he
came down with them (meaning His 12 disciples) and stood on a level place".
The more familiar KJV is: "And he came down with them, and stood in the
plain". What follows in Luke is something that is close to the words of the
Beatitudes, but they are different and fewer. Afterwards are a few sayings and
then something Luke calls a parable. After that are a few other sayings, some of
which bear resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. The Bible
commentators who are convinced that the sermons in Luke 6 and Matthew 5 are
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
actually one in the same base their conclusion on the foundational belief that
Luke's Gospel is the more accurate in his account of the event than Matthew,
because (for them) Matthew had an ulterior motive for not only including it in his
Gospel but also for expanding upon it well beyond Luke's, even adding to the
content if not modifying the meaning of some of Yeshua's sermon to suit his own
mindset. My conclusion is that on its face the purpose of the sermon in Luke 6,
the description of the make-up of the people who where there, the geography
where the speech was given, and the timing of it make it another and different
speech even though it had at its core the same underlying message as the
sermon Christ gave up on the hill; the one called The Sermon on the Mount.
However it is NOT the same event or the same speech.
I find it peculiar that many commentators seem to assume that nearly every
speech or teaching of Christ must have been unique and one-off; that is, that
each time He spoke and taught He dealt with different subject matter such that
He never repeated Himself nor said more or less the same things but to different
audiences in different locations. Nothing is more common among teachers,
speakers, and leaders of all eras than to go around communicating a similar
message, although structured a little differently each time, to a number of
different crowds. Even in our time of television, radio and the Internet, politicians
(for instance) will use the same core message in a number of different settings,
slightly modified each time to suit a particular audience. Clearly there will
probably never be a way to provide indisputable proof one way or the other on
this debate as to whether both Matthew and Luke are reporting on the same
speech, or that they are each reporting on different speeches given at different
places that are similar in message.
Does it really matter, then, whether Luke's and Matthew's reports are both on
Christ's seminal speech? It does. There is significance in the issue of the setting
and the geography where Christ gave the Sermon on the Mount; something that
would indeed have mattered more to Matthew, the learned Believing Jew, than to
Luke, the learned Believing gentile. It involves the reporting of Matthew (which
appears in the fabric of the backdrop for his entire Gospel account) that Yeshua
of Nazareth was a kind of second Moses. I won't review what I explained to you
about that in an earlier lesson. Only notice that in the case of the Sermon on the
Mount just as Moses went up to the top of a mountain (Sinai) to obtain God's
Torah and then came down to the side of the mountain to instruct Israel in it, so
in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus went up a mountain (a hill) to address Israel
and instruct them in the deeper understanding of The Law and The Torah in
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
general. Why do so many Christian scholars, commentators, Bible teachers and
pastors not accept this connection between Moses and Christ? It is because they
also do not accept that Christ in His Sermon on the Mount was instructing the
people in the Torah but rather they see Him as erasing and abolishing the Torah
of Moses and replacing it with His own new and different commands; a Torah of
Jesus. A replacement Torah that consisted of His own teachings and commands
that overrode and replaced the ones His Heavenly Father gave to Moses 14
centuries earlier. The significance of this theological worldview (a mistaken and
wholly unbiblical worldview) towers over the Christianity that was established
beginning with Constantine in the 4th century A.D. and remains in practice
today.
Let's open our Bibles to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.
READ MATTHEW 5 all
It is important that we establish the basis that underlies all that I will be teaching
you; a faith pillar of Torah Class and Seed of Abraham Fellowship and all that we
stand for. It is that Yeshua did NOT abolish the Torah and the Prophets, and also
He warned against the consequences of disobedience to the laws and
commands contained within them, in the slightest. In a Christianity that nearly
universally says the opposite in all its institutions, it strikes me as odd that some
of the most revered and published Bible commentators would say things like the
following, as with Daniel J. Harrington in his commentary on Matthew: "The
basic theme of the sermon is that Jesus came NOT to abolish the Law and
the Prophets but to fulfill them". And from Professors W. D. Davies and Dale
C. Allison in their enormous 3 volume commentary on the Book of Matthew,
which is so highly regarded among academics that it is one of the chief reference
sources for their own commentaries on Matthew's Gospel, they say this:
"(Matthew) 5:17 - 20 is primarily prokatalepsis, that is, an anticipation of
objections. As the introduction or preamble to 5:21 - 48 ...... it is intended to
prevent the readers of the First Gospel from making two errors. First, it
plainly states that the subsequent paragraphs are not to be interpreted as
they have been so often by many as antitheses; antitheses that, in at least
two or three instances, set aside the Torah. Instead Jesus upholds the Law,
so that between Him and Moses there can be no real conflict. Then,
secondly, and despite the concord declared by 5:17 - 19, 5:20 tells us that
what Jesus requires of HIS followers surpasses what has traditionally been
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
regarded (by the Scribes and Pharisees) as the requirements of the Torah.
So although there is continuity with the past, the Messiah also brings
something new, and it does not surprise when 5:21 - 48 goes beyond the
letter of the Law to demand even more." So in both quotes, these renowned mainstream Bible commentators are explicit
in saying that whatever one might take from the Sermon on the Mount, it can
never be that Christ was declaring that He came to abolish and/or replace the
Law of Moses. That said, Davies and Allison go further and say that in His
interpretation of the Torah, Yeshua takes the requirements of obeying it to
another and higher level. Let me put it this way (because I've said it to you
before): Christ's requirements take God's laws and make them even more
challenging, requiring even more discipline and more devotion, for us His
Believer to obey; not less. That is, the common refrain of the Church is that the
Law given to Moses was an outdated burden, a too heavy yoke, and much too
hard and unreasonable to follow. Therefore Christ came to abolish it all and with
His new commandments make life and a peaceful relationship with God much
easier for His followers. A plain and honest reading of the Sermon on the Mount
takes that false notion and destroys it.
Let's begin in verse 1 by again noting that Matthew says that Christ went UP a
hill in order to make a speech to throngs of Israelites, which consisted mostly of
Jews. No doubt some remnants of other tribes of Israel than the Jews who
represent Judah and Benjamin, and some who had engaged in intermarriage
with gentiles, also were present. This we can discern from the locations listed at
the end of chapter 4 that tell us where these crowds came from. To extract the
best context for this epic sermon and who was there to hear it, we need to simply
keep reading from the final couple of verses of chapter 4 into the first verse of
chapter 5. Remember: when these Scriptures were first created they were NOT
divided into chapters and verses; that wouldn't happen for another 1000 years.
CJB Matthew 4:23-5:2 23 Yeshua went all over the Galil teaching in their
synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing
people from every kind of disease and sickness. 24 Word of him spread
throughout all Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill, suffering
from various diseases and pains, and those held in the power of demons,
and epileptics and paralytics; and he healed them. 25 Huge crowds followed
him from the Galil, the Ten Towns, Yerushalayim, Y'hudah, and 'Ever␂HaYarden.
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
CJB Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill. After he sat
down, his talmidim came to him, 2 and he began to speak. This is what he
taught them:
We learn that the primary reason this enormous group of people came from
many scores of miles away (and more) was for healing of all kinds of maladies.
They came because of Yeshua's growing reputation as a Tzadik, a Holy Man. A
miracle worker who, under the power of God, could heal. Some Holy Men were
also known for their wisdom, and they taught in addition to healing. So it wasn't
out of character for Yeshua the Tzadik to draw huge crowds for the purpose of
miracle healing, but also to speak profound truths to them. As of this point in time
the Jews didn't yet suspect that Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus had not yet
publicly proclaimed that He was.
Verse 3 begins what has for centuries been called the Beatitudes. We got this
strange English word from the Latin version of the Bible, where the
word beatus is used to translate the Greek word makarios. Just as we learned
that Matthew had a specific mathematical structure in mind in the way he
presented Yeshua's genealogy to begin his Gospel, so now we find another
obvious mathematical structure in the Beatitudes. It is that each of the 8
Beatitudes contain 36 words (in the Greek). If this mathematical structure is
intended to symbolize something, it remains a mystery to me what it might be. It
is further complicated by the probability that the Greek version of Matthew was
taken from the Hebrew and so the word count in Hebrew could have been
different than in the Greek. Some of the Early Church Fathers such as Augustine
and Ambrose of Milan believed that it was the number of the Beatitudes (8) that
was of interest, and that it was symbolic of the ascent of the soul into Heaven.
That seems like a stretch to me, and few other early Church Fathers besides
those I named accepted such a solution. I don't wish to speculate about it except
to notice that this interesting structure of 8 Beatitudes of 36 Greek words each
does exist, and perhaps they were constructed in this way for the purpose of
easier memorization.
The first Beatitude is vs. 3. It is "Blessed are the poor in spirit". This Beatitude
has had a number of opinions written about its meaning because it is not at all
clear. What, exactly, characterizes a person who is "poor in spirit"? Since it says
that such as person is "blessed", then obviously it means that a person who is
"poor in spirit" is benefiting from it (at least in the spiritual sense) and Christ
approves of it. To try and decipher this let's first understand what "blessed"
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
means. Assuming that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, then likely
what we have is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word berakhah. The Greek
word used to translate berakhah is makarios. It means to be favored, fortunate,
or happy. That is essentially the same meaning as the Hebrew berakhah so it is
a solid translation. Second is the issue of what it means to be "poor in spirit". I've
heard a number of sermons over my lifetime on this exact matter and I'm not sure
any two agree on the meaning. Because it is supposed to be a positive and
desirable trait, then what about being "poor in spirit" makes a person happy or
fortunate? Dr. David Flusser believes that especially the first 3 Beatitudes are
more of a description of just who constitutes the enormous audience that
followed Jesus up that hill in the Galilee.
Dr. Flusser (now deceased) is a legend among Hebrew scholars and he is to be
listened to as he doesn't make brash statements. Rather he puts forward well
researched conclusions and opinions. Here is his conclusion about the meaning
and intent of the term "poor in spirit" as explained in his widely-read book titled
"Jesus". Dr. Flusser says this:
"Now for the first time, because of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can understand
the phrase 'the poor in spirit'. It was a title of honor among the Essenes.
These are the poor to whom the Holy Spirit is given".
In another but separate quote Flusser further explains that among the Essenes
this term referred to a person who was living in a spirit of "poverty, humility,
purity and simplicity". Just as today a good orator will acknowledge those who
make up his audience, so it was in Yeshua's day. Assuming that what Flusser
says concerning the clarification about this strange phrase that the Dead Sea
Scrolls provide for us is correct, we can gather rather confidently that it was the
Essenes (and perhaps those who lived on the fringes of the Essene purity
movement) that Yeshua was acknowledging. Since we're told that many of His
audience came from Judah, in the south, where the Essenes had their desert
enclave next to the Dead Sea, and from Syria in the north, where it is known that
a substantial Essene community lived in the city of Damascus, then it makes
sense that many members of the pious and scripturally knowledgeable Essene
community might attend Yeshua's sermon.
But now what is the intent of including the statement that for certain members of
the Essenes "the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs"? We have spoken in earlier
lessons that the Kingdom of Heaven is NOT a place, but rather it is a spiritual
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
condition. When one repents of sinning and trusts in Messiah Yeshua, then they
receive the Holy Spirit. As a result the Kingdom of Heaven now lives within them.
Notice the grammar; it is not some time in the future that the Kingdom of Heaven
will be theirs, but rather it is that when they receive the Holy Spirit the Kingdom
became theirs.
The next Beatitude is vs. 4 and says: "Blessed are those who mourn for they
shall be comforted". Because the premise is that those who mourn will
experience some kind of religious joy (be blessed), then one must ask what this
mourning has to do with? Does it mean those who mourn the dead, such as a
dear departed family member? And since Yeshua is referring in a rather general
way to certain of His large audience, could death really be the subject of the
mourners? I think not. I see this as a reference to the Prophet Isaiah chapter 61.
CJB Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of Adonai ELOHIM is upon me, because ADONAl
has anointed me to announce good news to the poor. He has sent me to
heal the brokenhearted; to proclaim freedom to the captives, to let out into
light those bound in the dark; 2 to proclaim the year of the favor of ADONAI
and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, 3 yes,
provide for those in Tziyon who mourn, giving them garlands instead of
ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a cloak of praise instead of
a heavy spirit, so that they will be called oaks of righteousness planted by
ADONAI, in which he takes pride. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins,
restore sites long destroyed; they will renew the ruined cities, destroyed
many generations ago.
This is a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah. Thus this general condition of mourning
that Yeshua is speaking about doesn't so much concern grieving over the dead.
Rather it is mourning over the destroyed cities of Israel that is the result of Israel's
unfaithfulness Israel's sinning. It is also mourning over the oppression the
children of Israel are suffering at the hands of foreign conquerors, which is God's
judgment against them for their unfaithfulness. But also in Isaiah 61 something
changes and now the Lord will call His formerly unfaithful, but now repentant,
people "oaks of righteousness" as opposed to captives and brokenhearted. The
mourners will become comforted because they will see that Israel is in the
process of being delivered and restored. Thus the mention of the mourners is
that they "will be" or "shall be" comforted. That is, it is to occur later, in the future,
when this comforting will come to its fullest fruition. This is in contrast to the 1st
Beatitude in which the blessing will be bestowed more or less immediately, in the
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
present. So those among the crowd that Yeshua is addressing in this 2nd
Beatitude are called "mourners" because they are sorry that their sin, and the
sins of their ancestors, has led to their land being under the control of heathens
and their suffering under the hand of Roman subjugation.
The 3rd Beatitude is in vs. 5, and it is: "How blessed are the meek for they will
inherit the land". You might immediately notice that I have substituted the word
"land" for "earth", which we find in most Bible versions (the meek will inherit the
earth). Before we delve into that issue, let's define who or what "the meek" are.
The backdrop of this Beatitude is Psalm 37. Let's read a substantial portion of it.
READ PSALM 37:1-13
This is a Messianic Psalm of David that speaks of a future time when the "meek"
inherit the Land (the Land referring to Israel). Meek is another word in the Bible
whose definition is not necessarily always agreed and seems to be used
differently in different settings. Often it carries the obvious meaning of gentleness
and mildness. But here in Psalm 37:11 the word is probably better understood as
"the powerless" because the righteous are being oppressed by the wicked. Since
it seems very likely that Yeshua is making reference to Psalm 37 in this
Beatitude, then His use of the term "the meek" means the same: the powerless.
Further in Psalm 37 the Hebrew word for what it is that the meek shall inherit
is eretz. Eretz can mean land or earth. However we must not think of earth as
meaning the formal name of our planet: planet Earth. Rather, biblically, earth is
another way of saying the undefined expanse of dry land that lies under the sky.
David's audience for His Psalm was Israelites. Jesus's audience for His Sermon
was Israelites. Therefore "the meek" in both cases are Israelites or at least a
portion of the Israelites. Biblically the inheritance of the Israelites is the land of
Israel (formerly the Land of Canaan). Therefore the meaning of "the meek shall
inherit the land:" is that the powerless Israelites shall, at some point, permanently
inherit the land of Israel such that they will no longer be occupied and oppressed
by a foreign power, which represents wickedness.
I want to pause here to put something forth as a suggestion perhaps a
theory but I cannot in good conscience say it is a fact. When I look at these
Beatitudes thus far, and when I think about the Jewish Yeshua speaking to a
Jewish crowd, and the Jewish Matthew using the Jewish manner in which he has
structured his Gospel written to be read by Jewish Believers, I see the real
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
possibility that each of these Beatitudes is meant to be interpreted in both
the P'shat and the Remez senses. That is, in the simple, plain sense (P'shat) as
well as in a somewhat literal sense that also incorporates an important hint
(Remez).
Thus in the 1st Beatitude, when Yeshua speaks of "the poor, in spirit", the
reference in the P'shat interpretation sense is to the people in the crowd who
hold this honorary title among the sect of the Essenes; people who were
standing and sitting directly before Him during His sermon. Yet, when we look a
bit deeper (from the Remez interpretation sense) we understand that the way
one became "poor, in spirit" among the Essenes was (by their definition)
receiving the Holy Spirit. Therefore in a larger sense all who truly receive the
Holy Spirit (through repentance and trust in Christ), Israelites and gentiles
(Believers), can be considered as included among "the poor, in spirit" and thus
be made happy and joyful (blessed) now and eternally.
In the 2nd Beatitude, those who mourn will be comforted. From the P'shat sense,
the mourners are mourning over the ruination of the Holy Land of Israel and the
subsequent oppressions of Assyria, Babylon, and Greece in the past; and
presently Rome. Thus the comforting is that even in this they can have personal
peace, because there is hope that God will remove the pagan occupiers. But
from the Remez sense, the mourners are those worshippers of God who are
mourning over the ruination of the entire earth because due to mankind's
unfaithfulness, wickedness rules universally. The mourners are the righteous (all
who have repented and put their trust in Messiah), Jews and gentiles, and all of
these (us) can look forward to being comforted when the Lord comes in power
and glory to destroy evil and rule in justice and mercy over all the earth, and to
restore it.
In the 3rd Beatitude, the meek will inherit the earth. In the P'shat sense, those
Israelites in the audience who are powerless before the occupation of Rome are
being told that nonetheless they will receive the inheritance God promised to
them (the Land of Canaan) before their ancestors left Egypt. In the Remez sense
the powerless followers of Messiah, Jew and gentile, will together receive the
even larger inheritance promised by God to be co-rulers along with Christ over all
the earth's inhabitants. This co-rulership is the fullest fulfillment of the promise of
the 1st Beatitude that the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
The 4th Beatitude is verse 6. It is: "How blessed are those who hunger and thirst
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
for righteousness. For they will be filled." The idea of hunger and thirsting after
righteous is not about food and drink but rather it is a spiritual longing. But this
longing is not one of passivity; it speaks of an active search and work to find it.
The question to be answered about this Beatitude is: whose righteousness is
being sought? What kind of righteousness is being thirsted for? Is it a human
righteousness? That is, it is something that is accomplished by means of our
good works and deeds?
The answer is that it is God's righteous that Yeshua is referring to. He is
borrowing from a Psalm of David; Psalm 107. We won't go over it all, so here is
the pertinent part.
CJB Psalm 107:2-9 2 Let those redeemed by ADONAl say it, those he
redeemed from the power of the foe. 3 He gathered them from the lands,
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the sea. 4 They
wandered in the desert, on paths through the wastes, without finding any
inhabited city. 5 They were hungry and thirsty, their life was ebbing
away. 6
In their trouble they cried to ADONAI, and he rescued them from
their distress. 7 He led them by a direct path to a city where they could
live. 8 Let them give thanks to ADONAI for his grace, for his wonders
bestowed on humanity! 9 For he has satisfied the hungry, filled the starving
with good.
Notice that it is God's redeemed that is being addressed. From
the P'shat interpretation sense the redeemed represent all Israelites (because
1400 years earlier all the tribes of Israel were redeemed from Egypt). The
wandering in the desert recalls the wilderness journey of the Exodus. God
rescued them and when they were finally properly prepared, He took them to a
city where they could live meaning Jerusalem. God also satisfied the hungry
Israelites by giving them manna to eat... divinely provided sustenance.... the
entire time they were wandering, without a home of their own. He provided them
with water as needed, often in undeniably miraculous ways. In
the Remez interpretation sense the redeemed are all people, Jew and gentile,
who have been redeemed from their sins by placing their trust in the God of
Israel and His Son Yeshua. Before we did that, we were wandering aimlessly in a
desert of sin and purposelessness. We were hungry and thirsty for deliverance
from our emptiness and from eternal death. But since the molten core of God's
righteousness is His will to deliver and save, even though at the time we weren't
aware of it, by His grace He has bestowed His righteousness upon us and thus
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Lesson 12 - Matthew 5
has satiated the thirst and satisfied the hunger of our souls, and given us life
eternal with Him.
The metaphor of hunger and thirst as representing a deep down seeking of God,
even when we didn't know that's what we sought, is found in several places in
God's Word. Among the most moving and instructive must be in Isaiah 32. There
the matter of God's righteousness (as opposed to human righteousness)
becomes a little more clear. Let's read it together to close out today's lesson.
READ ISAIAH 32 all
We'll begin with the 5th Beatitude next week.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 13, Chapter 5 Continued
The richness and depth of instruction contained in the Sermon on the Mount is so
breathtaking and yet foundational to the life of a Believer in the Father and in
Messiah Yeshua, that after much time studying and researching it, I am still am at
a loss to explain why the other 3 Gospel accounts don't include it. This is not to
indict those Gospels or to declare them as inferior to the Book of Matthew;
however none of Christ's other addresses come close to the Sermon on the
Mount in providing the underpinnings and the expanded principles of our faith. To
my mind, the only wide-ranging message from God in all the Bible, Old
Testament or New, that can equal it is Moses standing on Mt. Sinai and teaching
the Israelites the laws and commands that God gave to him. It is no wonder that
Matthew draws us a picture of Jesus as the 2nd Moses; the future "prophet like
me" that Moses promised to the tribes of Israel.
I should review our lesson from last week for a few minutes, beginning with my
statement that no other Gospel contains the Sermon on the Mount. Many Bible
scholars disagree with me on that matter and point to Luke Chapter 6, which
even they label as "The Sermon the Plain" because Luke has this sermon taking
place on a large flat area, a plain, somewhere that is unspecified; but it does refer
to the "hill country". Even so, it says that Yeshua came down from a hill to a plain
and began talking to the people there. While there are many similarities there are
also at least as many differences between Luke's Sermon on the Plain and
Matthew's Sermon the Mount. I am convinced that these are two different
sermons, spoken by Yeshua at different times and locations, even though some
of the subject matter is the same.
My conjecture as to why Matthew chose to explore Yeshua's Sermon on the
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
Mount so extensively, while the other Gospel accounts skip it, has to do with
Matthew's educated and pious Jewish background, along with who he anticipated
would be his readers; it would be mostly Jews Believers, or others that we
today might label as Seekers. What about being a religious Jew would make
Matthew more interested? It is because the entire Sermon on the Mount is
essentially an in-depth teaching on the Torah as given to Moses. The teaching
was so astounding, and Yeshua's authority was so evident that, as we will soon
encounter, Christ had to pause and make it clear to His listeners that in no way
was His intent to abolish, change, add to or subtract from the God-given Torah.
Nor was it to create a new one: a Torah of Jesus.
One of the important matters that I brought up last week was that Yeshua chose
His disciples; they didn't choose Him. The context here is all important because
this is one of the passages used to defend various views concerning what
Theologians call the Doctrine of Election. We'll not take a long detour here to
discuss this matter, but in the past 3 or 4 centuries, John Calvin's thoughts on
this matter have become quite influential in many large branches of the Church,
especially the more theologically conservative ones. In a nutshell, he brings
together the ideas of divine election and predestination to mean that God decides
before we're ever born which individuals will believe and be saved versus those
who won't. So our free will plays little to no role in the matter of salvation. I do not
subscribe to this notion. I think Calvin did, and others do, because they are taking
this matter of Christ choosing His disciples a bit too far and out of its historical
context.
In Yeshua's era various kinds of Jewish Holy Men and revered teachers had
followings. The followers of these various leaders were called in
Hebrew talmidim. The more followers one of these religious leaders could
cobble together, the more clout and veneration within the Jewish community he
had. So there was, quite literally, competition among these leaders to acquire
followers disciples. As David Stern points out, many of the standard English
words used in our Bibles to translate broad Hebrew concepts don't fully capture
the meaning. The Hebrew term talmid (singular to the plural word talmidim)
translated to the English term "disciple" is such a word. In our day a disciple of a
certain master whether it is from a religious aspect, or a secular aspect, even
as it pertains to sports.... most often means that these followers have adopted a
significant amount of the fundamental principles a particular master in a field of
endeavor teaches. Although usually they feel free to also adopt other ideas from
other masters, or even at some point switch to a different master altogether.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
These ideas are usually compartmentalized such that the disciple only applies
what their master taught them to a certain area of their life. But for a talmid in
Yeshua's era the relationship between disciple and master was far deeper and
fully encompassing their entire life. There was a level of undying trust involved in
which the goal of the disciple was to become as close to a clone of his master as
is humanly possible; in manner, in ethics, and in lifestyle.
Thus these potential disciples would make a conscious, considered decision
about becoming a disciple of a certain master because it would be a life changing
moment for them, which would guide the remainder of their days on earth.
However we find that Yeshua didn't compete with other masters for His disciples;
He simply commanded them to follow Him. This was rare, if not unheard of. But
neither were the 12 men that Yeshua commanded to join Him characterized as
mindless robots who had no choice in the matter. That is, that in this instance
their free wills went dormant or were overridden as though they were put in a
trance. They heard Yeshua's command to them, but any and all could have said
no. Further, those who became the disciples of various masters in the 1st century
were searching for such an opportunity and tended to organize their lives
accordingly to take advantage. Paul is a good example of this. He was a
Diaspora Jew who came from a well to do family. He was educated, especially
sharp, and had adopted the religious doctrines of the Pharisees; but he wanted
more. So he chose to go to the Academy of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, probably so
that one day he might have the credentials to attract his own flock of followers.
Sometime later, on the road to Damascus, he was introduced to another and
greater master, Yeshua, who spoke to Paul from Heaven and told Him to be His
disciple. Paul was certainly not seeking to be a disciple of another, and especially
not of Yeshua. Nonetheless, he switched loyalties.
Thus when we add in the historical Jewish backdrop, we see the uniqueness of
Yeshua choosing His disciples from among those not seeking a master (or at
least not a new one), as opposed to disciples choosing from a variety of potential
masters who were seeking to add to their flocks. So in my opinion to form a
spiritual law (a Church doctrine) from this event on the Sea of Galilee, when
Yeshua commanded 4 fishermen to follow Him, is not warranted. Especially a
doctrine that says that only certain people from among all humanity have been
divinely pre-selected from eternity past to participate in God's Kingdom (and of
this the included and the excluded individuals have no choice in the matter). This
is misguided, in scriptural error, and even makes the activity of Believers going
out to spread the Good News for Our Messiah rather pointless.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
The opening few sentences of Christ's Sermon on the Mount are sort of bundled
together and given a special title called The Beatitudes. Depending on who you
believe, and what the chosen criteria is to qualify as a Beatitude, there are from 8
to 10 of these sayings of Yeshua. We covered the first 4 in the previous lesson.
Rather than review each of them I only want to point out that I showed you how
each could (and probably should) be understood by means of incorporating the
ancient Jewish interpretation concepts of P'shat and Remez. P'shat means the
simple, plain sense of a Bible passage; Remez means that while we must take
the passage literally, there is also a hint towards something deeper and more far
reaching. I contend that this is exactly how our Jewish Matthew intended us to
approach especially these first 8 recorded sayings.
Part of what divides Christianity, especially with a modern view towards the
foretold End Times, is that most Bible academics and teachers want us to choose
between the simple, plain sense of the Beatitudes (and many other Bible
passages) and the deeper sense of it (where appropriate). That is, that the one
way is correct and the other is incorrect. That is not necessary when we see the
wisdom behind the interpretation concepts of P'shat and Remez that the learned
Jews used to plumb the depths of the Holy Scriptures. Both can be equally
correct, even if they apply to different times and circumstances in history.
The 5th Beatitude is located in Matthew 5:7. Turn your Bibles to that passage.
CJB Matthew 5:7 "How blessed are those who show mercy! for they will be
shown mercy.
The idea that mercy is a reciprocal matter between God and man was not new
nor exclusive to Yeshua's teaching. There are a number of biblical passages that
express this concept that when we show mercy or pity or compassion upon our
fellow man, it is God who will reward us. Proverbs comes to mind.
CJB Proverbs 14:21 He who despises his fellow, sins; but he who shows
compassion to the humble is happy.
In this passage that says the one who shows compassion to his fellow man is
"happy', the Hebrew word translated most often as "happy" is esher. Another
meaning for this word is "blessed". Like the concept of shalom, being blessed is
a gift from God. In the Babylonian Talmud tractate Sabbath 151b is found:
"Whoever has pity on people will obtain pity from Heaven." Same concept. The
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
point is that having mercy upon our fellow man is directly related to the 2nd of
what was understood to have been the 2 greatest commandments of God: to
love God whole-heartedly, and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves.
Therefore to NOT show mercy (or pity or compassion different words for
essentially the same thing) is to break that greatest commandment.
Matthew brings up the issue of mercy many times in his Gospel and has Yeshua
directly dealing with it several times. It was one of the most fundamental
principles of life among the Jews and the earlier Hebrews. In 2 later chapters
Matthew quotes Hosea 6 on this matter of mercy.
CJB Hosea 6:6 For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices, knowledge of God
more than burnt offerings.
Christ deals with mercy in Matthew 23 (among other places):
CJB Matthew 23:23 'Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and P'rushim!
You pay your tithes of mint, dill and cumin; but you have neglected the
weightier matters of the Torah- justice, mercy, trust. These are the things
you should have attended to- without neglecting the others!
This is a virtually identical thought to Hosea 6:6. What we ought to notice is that
Yeshua calls mercy one of the weightier matters of the Law. That is, while all the
laws of the Torah are to be obeyed, there exists a hierarchy whereby some laws
carry more weight in God's eyes, thereby leading to larger consequences for our
actions in regard to our fastidious obedience (or disobedience) towards them. In
the P'shat interpretation sense, God wants our actions during our lives to reflect
obedience to His laws and commands. In fact He reminds folks that paying tithes
and making offerings at the Temple is a good and required thing; but when we
neglect the more loving and fundamental obligations to our fellow man, such as
mercy, it represents a more serious offense against God than not paying our
tithes (for instance). In the Remez interpretation sense, the consequences for
these weightier matters will occur at the Final Judgment. At that time the
measure of our mercy towards our neighbor is rewarded with the measure of
God's mercy towards us; and our lack of mercy is rewarded with His lack of
mercy towards us.
While Christianity sometimes makes small of this God-principle or even says it no
longer applies for Believers the truth is that, Old or New Testaments, God is the
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
king and Creator of quid pro quo. One of the more famous statements in the
Torah of how God operates His justice system is called Lex Talionis: an eye for
an eye. It is a statement of the principle of proportional justice. For God
worshippers it means that the level of our faithfulness towards His laws and
commands when we are alive on this earth will have a commensurate effect on
our lives when we are living in the eternal realm. Even more, there are some
commands and laws that carry greater weight (are more important to Him) than
others, and how He judges us and places us in the hierarchy of His Kingdom of
Heaven will also take into account WHICH of His laws and commands we put
more weight on (a note to the wise: it is best to agree with God and put the most
weight on the laws that He does). Yeshua says that these 3 matters carry the
most weight: justice, mercy, and trust. I could speak on this for quite some time,
but I'll fight that urge and instead just sum it up. In each of these 3 matters of
justice, mercy and trust, it is God's definition of them, applied in God's context
that we are to take them. Instead too often we try to apply our personal sense of
justice, mercy and trust to a situation; but that can miss the mark entirely and so
offend God.
God's justice is such an immense topic. The part that matters the most is that our
offenses against Him must be atoned for, and that can only be done with the
sacrificial death of an innocent creature. That principle is the bedrock of the
Levitical sacrificial system. Thus in order to atone for our sins in the highest
possible way that includes all types, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be that
innocent creature. Further His death was a once and for all sacrifice to atone for
us. But God's justice is far more extensive than that. It is part of a system of Law
and it explains what is a crime (a sin) to God and what is not, and how these
levels of offenses are to be dealt with. It ranges from petty theft to murder, which
brings upon the perpetrator a minor slap on the wrist, all the way up to
execution.
Mercy is complicated. For one thing, the English word mercy is an attempted
translation of the Hebrew word and concept of chesed. When this word appears
in the Old Testament we'll see a variation of translations for it; loving-kindness,
mercy, benevolence, and grace to name a few. In the Greek New Testament the
translator will already have chosen a word that (like English) communicates only
a part of what the concept is that God is communicating to us. So in reality, in
Matthew 23:23 where we'll find the word "mercy" (in most translations) as 1 of the
3 weightier matters, in fact the weightier matter is chesed: loving-kindness,
mercy, compassion, pity, benevolence and grace all rolled into one.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
And as for the weightier matter of trust, it is a similar issue. Only this time the
issue is not displaying trust between ourselves and our fellow man. Rather it is
about living our lives in wholehearted trust of God and His Word. In Greek the
word that is translated as trust is pistis. And while trust is not a wrong translation,
I think a better word to more effectively convey its meaning to our modern way of
thinking is faithfulness. Our faithfulness towards God involves more than belief,
even more than trust; it also involves an uncompromising loyalty. So each of
these 3 weightier matters is larger in its scope than it might appear to us in our
English Bibles.
The 6th Beatitude is Matthew 5:8:
CJB Matthew 5:8 "How blessed are the pure in heart! for they will see God.
This or something similar does not occur in Luke's Sermon on the Plain. And
again, with this saying Jesus is not introducing a new or shocking concept to the
Jews. We find virtually the same thing in the Psalms. Turn your Bibles to Psalm
24 and we're going to read this short Psalm in its entirety to help us better
understand what Christ is the telling the crowd up on the hill in the Galilee.
READ PSALM 24 all
So a person with a pure heart is one who has good character. It is one whose
character has been molded and shaped by God. But what exactly, does pure
"heart" mean? In modern times the use of the word "heart" is meant
metaphorically as a place where love resides (or if one has a wicked heart, where
hate resides). It is a concept that is also steeped in emotion; it reflects how it is
that we feel about ourselves or someone else. None of this is bad or wrong, but
it also is not the biblical concept of the word "heart".
Biblically the heart is more or less what we now know the brain to be. That is,
biblically when the word "heart" is used, it refers to that place in the human body
where the mind and the intellect reside. In Yeshua's era and for some few more
hundreds of years, the seat of our various emotions was not thought to be our
heart but rather they were divided up into several of our organs depending on the
nature of the emotion. Never was the heart where the emotion of warm feelings
towards others, or God, lived. The heart was thought to be the place of rational
thought; the place where we perceived the world around us. Today, even though
we know that no emotions or thinking whatsoever occur in the heart organ, the
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
term "heart" has become a metaphor for a place of warm, loving feelings.
So if we were forced to choose only one English word to use instead of heart to
understand what God's Word was getting at when that word was used, the word
would be "mind". To use modern definitions, this 6th Beatitude would be phrased:
"How blessed are the pure of mind for they will see God". The validation of this
meaning that I propose comes to life starting with Matthew 5:21.
So what does the word "pure" mean in the biblical sense as it relates to the
condition of our mind? We must first recall the purity rules of the Torah. Ritual
purity is maintained by not contacting something that is impure. However should
the inevitable happen, a wash and a wait cures it. That is, if a person has
become ritually impure (and all will) one must be immersed in living water and
then depending on the nature and cause of the impurity, must wait for a specified
amount of time to pass. Obviously our minds cannot be immersed in water; for
one reason a mind is an intangible thing. What we think and what we believe is
invisible except for the behaviors that result from it. Therefore while the most
pious Jews (including Jesus) would immerse on a regular basis for all sorts of
ritual purity reasons, it was regularly done in a fastidious adherence to a Torah
law regarding ritual purity and too often performed merely as a mechanical
custom.
The true worshipper of God, however, understands that the outward display and
ritual washing are only effective if there is a real and sincere inward thought of
what God is wanting achieved. The goal is a quiet private encounter with God;
not to make an impression upon the religious authorities and witnesses in order
to satisfy their rules or customs.
Matthew 5:9 expresses that the reward for having a pure mind is to see God.
Seeing God, on the surface and in the P'shat interpretation sense, in that day
meant to know God intimately in the here and now. It meant to know His ways
and to have a profound loyalty to Him that has resulted in a personal relationship
with Him. To "see God' is, therefore, a Jewish expression since the principle from
Exodus chapter 33 is that no one may see God and live. Viewing with our eyes
the person and substance of Yehoveh is not the mental picture being drawn by
this Jewish expression. Yet in the Remez interpretation sense, this is not so
much referring to the present life but rather to the eternal life when, in fact, seeing
God is meant more literally. Having a relationship with Him will in the eternal
realm move us from seeing God in the ethereal and invisible sense, to seeing
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
Him in the tangible and visible sense. This happens because if a person is of
pure mind, then he will accept God's justice (His salvation in Messiah). And if one
is saved, then he has joined God's Kingdom. And if one has joined God's
Kingdom then he shall, in the eternal future, dwell with God in the same way
Adam and Eve originally did, on earth, in the Garden of Eden, where they saw
God face to face.
The 7th Beatitude is found in Matthew 5:9.
CJB Matthew 5:9 "How blessed are those who make peace! for they will be
called sons of God.
Because Seed of Abraham Torah Class presents the Bible from a Hebraic
heritage worldview, I imagine that many who are following this lesson rather
automatically assume by the mention of "peace" in this Beatitude that this saying
from Christ is meant to invoke among this huge crowd of Jews before Him, the
Hebrew concept of shalom. I don't think it is. For one glaring reason, God alone
is the maker and giver of shalom, while in this passage the reference is to
certain human beings who are the makers of peace. Shalom is a spiritual
concept about divinely given well being in all of its facets; health, inner peace,
joy, prosperity, nearness to God, restoration, welcome, and more. It is not
something that can be produced within a human; it must be implanted in us in a
divine act of God's will. Therefore this Beatitude can only be about peace in the
more conventional sense that is familiar to most people in the world. That is,
peace meaning an absence of conflict or strife; internal or external.
If we back away from this passage and look at God's Word overall, every mention
of peace in the Bible certainly doesn't mean the gift of divine well-being. A good
example is from the mouth of Christ Himself; it is found in Matthew 10:34. There
we read::
CJB Matthew 10:34 "Don't suppose that I have come to bring peace to the
Land. It is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword!
Another and more familiar translation of this same passage is the KJV:
KJV Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came
not to send peace, but a sword.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
Although there are numerous other passages I could have chosen to help explain
the meaning of "peace" in this Beatitude, I like this one because I see a play on
words occurring that gives us both ends of the spectrum of the biblical meaning
of "peace".
Whether the proper interpretation of this verse is of Christ saying that he is NOT
bringing peace on the earth or He is NOT bringing peace to the Land (specifically
the Holy Land), doesn't matter concerning the issue at hand, because the type of
peace that the divine Yeshua always brings is Heavenly peace: shalom. God␂produced well-being for humans. And, says Jesus, He is not bringing that.
Rather it is that His actions and His words will not bring about well-being but will
actually be the catalyst for human conflict. He says that He is bringing a sword. A
sword is a military weapon for the purpose of fighting a conflict.
So let's take that understanding back to our passage in Matthew 5:9. The
peacemakers are not, and cannot be, the shalom-makers. Rather the
peacemakers are the ones who try to prevent, or bring an end, to human conflict;
whether that conflict is between individuals or between nations. As with the other
Beatitudes, Yeshua is not announcing a new idea or plan. Rather He is merely
saying what is already in the Torah, and was also part of religious Jewish culture
at that time. In Pirkei Avot 1:12 (Pirkei Avot is a compilation of sayings of the
great Sages and Rabbis concerning ethical principles) we read this: "Hillel said,
"Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace, loving
mankind, and bringing them near to the Torah". So the fundamental
importance of teaching peace (lack of conflict) was an established principle and
virtue among the Jewish religious leadership and therefore among Jewish
society.
So what, then, was Christ getting at when He said those words? Bible scholars
can't agree on it. I think we must look to the historical context for an answer.
During the early 1st century the Jews were an occupied nation. Some Jews were
content to live with this unpleasant reality, while others were vehemently
opposed. Because of the Roman occupation most Jews thought they were living
in the End Times, and the Prophets speak of those times as turbulent and full of
wars and conflicts. Many Jews wanted to resist the Romans but not so far as to
bring about retribution or war. Some, the Zealots, wanted an outright war of
rebellion. The Prophets who foretold of the Roman occupation said it was God
using a foreign power to punish Israel for their unfaithfulness to Him. Therefore
we'll find Yeshua urging the people not to rise up against Rome but rather finding
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
a way to live with it, peacefully, because the occupation was His Father's doing.
No doubt among the diverse thousands at His Sermon on the Mount there would
have been folks who adopted every view and hope concerning the Roman
occupation of the Holy Land. There would have been Zealots and active
occupation resisters listening, as well as those who had sympathy with them or
even were considering joining them; such was the times. Yeshua was probably
speaking to them.
As for the matter of these who remained non-violent (peacemakers) being called
"sons of God" for their efforts, the reality is that the kings of Israel were called
sons of God as were angels. So being a son of God was, biblically, applied in
more than one situation. Paul also addresses this term in the Book of Romans.
CJB Romans 8:14 14 All who are led by God's Spirit are God's sons.
I'll borrow from my own lesson in Romans on this subject. A Believer is imputed
to be God's son because anyone led by God's Spirit is a son to Him. This is a
Jewish expression that reflects a universally understood Jewish cultural concept
of the value of a son over a servant. Although several Bible characters will be
called servants of God (a high status), those called sons of God are even higher.
Thus while priests were called servants of God (a high status), Israel's kings
were called sons of God (a higher status). Prophets were called servants of God;
but Yeshua is called the Son of God. Thus the typical Levitical priests, although
indeed properly serving God, do not necessarily have God's spirit in them so
they can only be called servants. But every Believer in Christ is elevated in status
above Levitical priests because we have God's spirit (the Holy Spirit) living in us,
so we are sons of God. And ladies, don't let this bother you. The issue is not one
of gender (son versus daughter). The issue is our status before the Lord. From
the status standpoint women gain the same status of "sons of God" just as do
males if you trust Yeshua as your Lord, King, and Savior.
Bottom line to Beatitude number 7: being a non-violent peacemaker is an
expected part of the character of a disciple of Christ. So from
the P'shat interpretation sense, then this Beatitude is Messiah saying that
following Him means saying no to resisting Rome and especially to fomenting
trouble. Rather peace with the occupying Romans, as much as was within their
control, was the Godly choice. This would have greatly disappointed many of the
Zealots in the crowd and convinced most Jews that Yeshua could NOT have
been the Messiah because the traditional belief was that God's Messiah would
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
be a great warrior king (like David) who would appear and lead Israel to defeat
the Romans, and also to begin a new golden age of Israel's dominance in the
region, if not over the entire known world. The Jews doing what Christ is
commanding, then, will make them sons of God and great in God's eyes; but not
necessarily so in the eyes of other Jews.
But from the Remez interpretation sense, being sons of God in the present will
propel us to being sons of God in a greater (the ultimate) sense in the eternal
future. One such scriptural example to explain and support this is found in
Revelation 21.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there. 2 Also I saw the holy city, New Yerushalayim, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband. 31heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's Sh'khinah
is with mankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and he
himself, God-with-them, will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes. There will no longer be any death; and there will no longer
be any mourning, crying or pain; because the old order has passed
away." 5 Then the One sitting on the throne said, "Look! I am making
everything new!" Also he said, "Write, 'These words are true and
trustworthy!"' 6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the 'A' and the 'Z,' the
Beginning and the End. To anyone who is thirsty I myself will give water
free of charge from the Fountain of Life. 7 He who wins the victory will
receive these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
So the meaning of "sons of God" in the Remez interpretation sense means that
in the eternal future, Believers will finally attain the status and fullest reality of
what God ordained at the beginning of Creation.
CJB Genesis 1:26 26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image,
in the likeness of ourselves;
That is to say that we will, upon the new heavens and earth, achieve a likeness
(an image) to God, and a degree of connection and intimacy with Him, that we
have yet to experience and cannot in our current physical form and Universe.
We'll continue with the Sermon on the Mount next week.
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Lesson 13 - Matthew 5 cont
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 14, Chapter 5 Continued 2
We have now completed studying 7 of the Beatitudes. It is usually said that there
are 8 of them, but some Bible commentators say there are 9, and others say 10.
My position is that the separating away of the first several verses of Matthew
chapter 5 and giving it a title.... the Beatitudes is artificial in the first place. The
downside of doing this is that it can give us the impression that this decoupling of
them from the rest of His Sermon on the Mount was Christ's intent. It certainly
was not. Essentially Jesus was looking out at His enormous crowd and directly
addressing them by offering a blessing that described the group in general and in
some cases referring to certain segments of it.... the poor, in spirit (the Essenes)
for example. So we won't get into a debate on just how many of the so-called
Beatitudes there are, because it's unimportant for studying Yeshua's seminal
speech. Yet, for the sake of continuity and to make it easier for us to study and
not confuse matters, we'll follow the traditional Christian outline of the opening
verses.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 5:10 - 16
The 8th Beatitude is contained in verse 10. Nothing like this is contained in
Luke's Sermon on the Plain, which further points to the two sermons being
different speeches spoken at different times and different places.
CJB Matthew 5:10 10 "How blessed are those who are persecuted because
they pursue righteousness! for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
The word "persecuted" is rather standard in English Bibles and it is used
regularly in the New Testament; and it isn't wrongly translated. However in
modern times we view the term "persecution" as nearly synonymous with
strenuous oppression, often involving violence. That is, persecution is something
quite severe in which one's life is either greatly hindered or even put in danger.
The Greek word is dioko. If the various Greek lexicons are consulted we'll find a
rather long definition for the word because it carries quite a range of meaning. So
in our time a better word is probably "harassed". Perhaps even "made fun of" or
"ridiculed" also captures another aspect of it. It is not that this
term dioko (persecution) can't at some point rise to a meaning of true, virulent
oppression and harm, but that is the far end of the scale of the word's intention.
And that meaning is not something that most Believers in Christ's day faced, nor
do the majority of Believers face today (while fully acknowledging that there are
parts of the world, especially where there are Muslim majorities, in which life as
Believers is under daily threat).
So to help us better understand what Yeshua is telling us, I'll repeat the verse
using a word that history would show us is closer to what He meant to
communicate to the crowd. "How blessed are those who are harassed
because they pursue righteousness! For the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs." Regardless of precisely how to transmit the idea of persecution in modern terms,
the point of the verse is that there is cost to pursuing righteousness. But the next
question is: what form or display of righteousness is this referring to? Every Jew
in that era would tell you that they were pursuing righteousness; it was but part of
their unique culture. By observing the Torah, the Sabbaths and the Feasts,
praying and (in the last couple of centuries) the following of Traditions and going
to Synagogue along with generally being a good person, this would have
represented the popular Jewish understanding of pursuing righteousness. To put
a finer point to it; righteous was wrapped up in behavior. Complicating the matter
was that there were several distinct and competing sects of Jews who had
formed varying interpretations of the Torah and so each sect acted out Jewish
Tradition and God's commandments somewhat differently from one another. In
fact these differences in doctrine sometimes led to serious confrontations. So if
Yeshua's final few words of this Beatitude had not been spoken, no doubt it
would have been somewhat difficult for the listeners to take the concept of the
pursuit of righteousness any other way than precisely how one behaved in every
day life and in how fastidiously they observed Torah rituals and commands.
When Yeshua completed His statement with: "For the Kingdom of Heaven is
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
theirs", it changed the focus and the source of that righteousness from earth to
Heaven that is, from humans to God... even if a goodly part of the crowd didn't
understand the implication.
Our human righteousness is indeed based on rules-following and behavior. But
that is not a kind of righteousness that can save us, even though righteous
behavior and rules-following is certainly an ongoing expectation that God has of
His worshippers. Human based righteousness is of a kind that our own devotion,
focus and determination can achieve; but it does not, because it cannot, join us
to the Kingdom of Heaven. On the other hand, God's perfect righteousness is
part of His substance. It has at its center His will, His plan, and His unique ability
to save and to restore. God's righteousness cannot be duplicated or replicated by
humans; it can only be given to each of us as a free gift of the Father's love for
us. The agent that brings this divine gift of loving salvation to mankind is God's
Son, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
For those of us living today who were born in the mid to early part of the 20th
century and living in the West, it is hard to accept that now, in the early part of the
21st century, being a Believer is starting to bear a tangible cost, which we could
have never anticipated. Being a Believer is no longer an accepted cultural norm
nor is it as widely popular. When I was younger man, professing to be a Christian
(whether you really were or not) was the expected. In fact, the terms American
and Christian were very nearly organically linked. One of the first questions a
person might be asked when meeting someone in the local community was "what
Church do you go to?" The answer would only rarely be "I don't go to Church" or
"I don't believe in God". Today asking such a question is fraught with negative
social implications. Being a Believer in Christ is openly criticized in our education
system, ridiculed by the mainstream media, and outright rejected and slandered
by some of our top level political leadership. It is even called a threat to peace
and tolerance by global interests. The general expectation upon Judeo␂Christianity has become more of an insistence that our faith is to be
compartmentalized, unspoken, unrealized in public, and manifested only while
we're in Church or Synagogue, or within the privacy of our homes. As a result our
beliefs in the God of Israel and in Our Savior Yeshua are something we have
become prone to being silent about; we keep it to ourselves for fear of
confrontation or finding ourselves on the wrong side of the flow and political
correctness of our society.
I tell you this so that you see how this 8th Beatitude can be applied to us in our
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
time, but also the similarity to how it was for those who heard Christ speaking first
hand. From the P'shat interpretation sense, Yeshua was telling His 1st century
listeners that the harassment they would receive for pursuing God's saving
righteousness would be rewarded in their membership to the Kingdom of
Heaven. What those listeners didn't yet understand was that this pursuit that
would begin with repenting of sins, would then involve turning to God by means
of trusting Yeshua as Savior and Lord. Although after a couple more statements
Jesus would heavily imply that following Him was the key. Once the Jewish folks
did that, it was automatic that they would be ridiculed and harassed by both the
Temple and the Synagogue leadership, and the bulk of Jewish society. After
some years passed the harassment of Yeshua followers would indeed escalate
into oppression and violence against them. In fact, Yeshua prophesied that this
would happen and who would be the first to threaten and advocate harm to the
Messianic Believers.
CJB Matthew 23:29-34 29 'Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and
P'rushim! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the
tzaddikim, 30 and you say, 'Had we lived when our fathers did, we would
never have taken part in killing the prophets.' 31 In this you testify against
yourselves that you are worthy descendants of those who murdered the
prophets. 32 Go ahead then, finish what your fathers started! 33 "You
snakes! Sons of snakes! How can you escape being condemned to Gei␂Hinnom? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and Torah␂teachers- some of them you will kill, indeed, you will have them executed
on stakes as criminals; some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue
from town to town.
Yeshua says that it will be the religious leadership of the Synagogue that will lead
the way in slandering and mistreating His Jewish followers.
In the Remez interpretation sense, however, Yeshua's words in the 8th Beatitude
are referring to the End Times when Believers will be hunted down and severely
oppressed, on a worldwide basis. That is, persecution for pursuing righteousness
in Christ moves from mere harassment and ridicule (as is now happening in the
West) to persecution more as we think of the term; being hated, harmed and
murdered. In fact, as we know from Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Revelation,
being a Believer will eventually (in the End Times) be officially considered as
making us an enemy of the State.... of global humanity. For now, in the West, the
cost of pursuing righteousness is primarily ridicule mostly being incited by the
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
cultural elite. Later the cost may well be our jobs, our personal freedom, and then
our lives. I wonder: if so many of us are already reluctant to reveal our faith and
instead keeping silent merely to avoid being called out at work or excluded from
our desired social circles, what might we do when an admission of faith could
bring community exclusion, jail or worse?
For those who say there is a 9th or even 10th Beatitude, these are contained in
verses 11 and 12. The commentators who claim 9 Beatitudes wrap verses 11
and 12 together as one Beatitude. The relatively few commentators who claim 10
Beatitudes make verse 11 the 9th and verse 12 the 10th Beatitude. Verse 11
seems to be saying nearly the same thing as verse 10 (Blessed are those who
are persecuted).
CJB Matthew 5:11 11 "How blessed you are when people insult you and
persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you
follow me!
The Greek word translated to persecuted is the same in both verses. So as I
explained earlier, dioko has a range of meanings from something as mild as
being ridiculed, to being followed and harassed, all the way up to being violently
assaulted or killed. I think the sense we are to take its meaning in verse 10 is a
bit different than in verse 11. So while verse 10 is primarily speaking about a kind
of mid point along the persecution scale, verse 11 is a bit lower in its intensity
and is not about serious threats or physical actions taken against the Believer.
Rather this is pointing to slanderous things that are said to discredit them (the
leadership and the people hurl insults and tell lies about Believers Jewish
Believers at the time of the Sermon on the Mount). For the first time, in the final
words of verse 11, Yeshua now ties together these various forms and means of
persecution as being the consequence of following Him. He says: "Because you
follow Me". And since Beatitudes 4 and 8 both speak of some form of persecution
that is the result of pursuing the kind of saving righteousness that Jesus is
speaking about, then clearly He is saying that the pursuit of Him IS the pursuit of
a saving righteousness! That, my friends, is a bold and enormous claim that no
doubt brought a wide range of emotion and reaction in that huge crowd. From
elation to anger, and from fear to disappointment or even befuddlement, this
Yeshua fellow was either a liar, a madman, or someone very special that needed
to be heard and accepted even if the folks couldn't absorb the meaning of all He
was saying.
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
Doubling down on His incomparable promise, He goes so far as to say that all
who will surely suffer from following Him will be rewarded in Heaven. And why
should they find that odd or suspect? After all, says Christ, the prophets of old
that God sent to Israel at various times throughout their history suffered the same
and worse for hearing and believing the divine truth (a truth that few, especially
Israel's leaders, wanted to hear). Thus rejoicing is the proper response for those
who trust Yeshua and act upon that trust. Rejoicing is the proper mental attitude
to maintain when knowing and speaking the truth, which likely reduces our
popularity and causes us to be excluded from some of our friends, family, and
perhaps from our congregation fellowship. It may well be that our rejoicing will be
muted in the here and now due to suffering; but at the same time there is the
greatest hope and a promise for a future in God's Kingdom that is nothing but joy.
It's a bit challenging to ascertain what, exactly, the audience thought Yeshua was
meaning about they're being rewarded in Heaven if they followed Him. Our
modern Christian thoughts instantly run towards what happens to our souls after
we die, and this due to a combination of Church Tradition and some of the words
of the New Testament. Generally the Christian thought is that there is for sure an
afterlife that begins upon our death. If we are saved in Christ, then our souls will
either immediately or eventually go to Heaven and dwell with God. But that was
not the thought of Jews in Christ's era. What happened after death was a
frightening mystery to them and to their religious leaders. Death was not a
welcomed thing; it was not a case of going "home" or "going to a better place".
Earnestly mourning the dead was the normal mode; it was certainly not having a
"celebration of life" as we often have at Believers' funerals today. In the minds of
the ancient Jews, the best condition for a person was to be among the living
because there was nothing good about being dead.
So I surmise that the thoughts of the attendees at the Sermon on the Mount was
that Messiah was talking about Heaven (God in Heaven, really) blessing them in
some undefined way during their lives as a reward for following Yeshua.... even
if life likely would include being ridiculed and harassed by their fellow Jews.
Verse 13 moves us beyond the opening series of blessings that Yeshua
pronounced upon the various groups of people who came to hear Him speak.
There we read:
CJB Matthew 5:13 13 "You are salt for the Land. But if salt becomes tasteless,
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except
being thrown out for people to trample on.
There is more here than meets the eye. Some Bible commentators and scholars
would classify this statement as a parable. I do not agree and in later lessons I
will speak extensively about the nature of parables, which will explain why I
cannot accept this verse as one. Rather, since this statement revolves around
the object of salt, then salt is a metaphor or it is symbolic of something larger, or
it's both.
First; recall that the opening 10 verses of the Sermon on the Mount were spoken
to address the presence of the thousands who came to hear Yeshua speak.
Each of those statements were made either to describe and give recognition to
the entire crowd in general or more often to call out and recognize specific
groups of people within it. Verse 13 is another instance of this and it is a general
statement to the crowd at large. Remembering who Jesus is speaking to is
critical throughout the Sermon; it is to Jews. Certainly there were small
smatterings of curious gentiles and those of mixed blood and religious loyalties
present; but overall we have a Jewish Jesus speaking to a thoroughly Jewish
audience. Therefore we must take His words in a Jewish religious and cultural
context. As a result we must also be prepared to understand the meaning of His
statements in both the P'shat and the Remez interpretation senses.
Let's begin by dealing with a key word in the first part of the verse. In the CJB
and in the YLT (and a few other versions) we'll find that the general reference to
those sitting before Yeshua is that they are salt for the Land (meaning, eretz
Israel the Land of Israel). The vast majority of Bible versions, however,
choose it to mean that his audience is salt for "the earth".... that is, the entire
planet. As Bible commentators tend to do, they demand that one interpretation is
correct and the other is wrong, and so debate incessantly about it. This is modern
Western Greek thinking at work and it has nothing to do with ancient Eastern
Jewish thinking. Thus we must consider the speaker, the audience, and the
setting when deciding what the words mean. Let's lay that aside for the moment.
The next matter is what the meaning of salt was to Christ and to His Jewish
audience. It can be surprising that "salt" in the Bible is an enormous subject; this
is partly because as so much does over time, the use of the term can evolve. So
while it is not that there is no connection to what "salt" meant in Abraham's time
to what it meant in Moses' time to what it meant in Yeshua's time, what it meant
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
to the contemporary people Jesus was speaking to carries the most weight for
what it needs to mean to us.
Salt was, as a practical matter, very valuable and central to life itself in
Abraham's and Moses' time. Unfortunately it was not readily available or easily
accessible to most people. It carried as much value as we apply today for
precious metals like gold; so it was used as a medium of currency in some
cultures. It was a necessary ingredient in body chemistry to sustain life. It was a
desired ingredient to flavor otherwise bland food. It was a preservative for meat in
their food supply. It was used for healing wounds and for skin conditions.
Therefore it took on symbolic meaning and so salt would even be given or
exchanged as part of a covenant ceremony.
Biblically one of the attributes of salt was its use for purification. Levitical law
requires that all sacrifices of meat have to be salted. Even grain and produce
sacrifices that are to be burnt up on the Altar have to be salted. Why? It is not
directly addressed in the Torah. Very probably it had to do with both the matter of
practicing the precise sacrificial ritual in obedience to the Covenant with Moses
(remembering that it was an ancient tradition to exchange salt as part of the
ceremony), but also because salt was seen as an element of purification and so
by salting the sacrifices they were further purified. Some Bible scholars say it was
because salt was so important in the meals of the Israelites that it naturally would
be included in the offering of food to God. I find that incredulous because while
pagans thought that their sacrifices were meant as food for their gods (who would
starve to death if they weren't provided with food) the Hebrews never thought
they were feeding God. In fact, it was the Priests who were able to keep the bulk
of the sacrificed meat and produce to provide for themselves and their families,
and this was ordained in the Torah.
In Christ's day, in the Holly Land region, salt was readily available, relatively
cheap, and used by the ton for Temple sacrificial rituals. The largest use of salt at
the Temple in terms of amount was for rubbing it on the meat that was to be
sacrificed. It was utilized as an absorbent in obedience to the law that required
removing the blood from a meat offering. A batch of salt used in this way could
only be used one time; and then the bloody salt was thrown out. But, there was a
wonderful use for the tons and tons of now ritually impure salt; it was spread on
the many roads and pathways as a vegetation killer to keep these roads well
maintained. So the final part of this verse where Yeshua says of salt that once it
loses its taste "it is no longer good for anything except being thrown out for
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
people to trample on" is literally the way that waste salt was used in that era.
Now let's back up a bit. The first words of verse 13 are: "You are the salt of the
Land (meaning the Holy Land)". The next words are: "But if salt becomes
tasteless...." Christ is not speaking to several thousand Torah scholars; He is
speaking to throngs of common folk. Thus He is using an illustration that every
day people would understand. And by Yeshua's day the primary use of salt for
those Jews NOT associated with the Temple operations, it was to season and
preserve food, and for medical purposes. Interestingly, a curious Greek word is
used to describe what happens to salt to make it no longer usable. The word
is moraino. Literally it means to become foolish. So if we to more literally
translate the first part of verse 13 it would be: "You are salt for the Land. But if
salt becomes foolish ...." So to translate moraino to mean "tasteless" is
dubious to me unless it was a known expression in that era, and I have found no
evidence of that among Jewish or gentile scholarship. Having Jesus say
"tasteless" has to be an educated guess from the translators. It seems to me that
a better way of understanding it (in our modern terms) is about what happens to
salt that has become adulterated or contaminated in some way. So whether salt
is used in every day life to season and thus flavor food, or used in food as a meat
preservative, or whether it is used for Temple sacrifices, the broad idea is to
explain what happens to salt that, for whatever the reason, loses its ability to do
what it was meant to do because it has become impure, adulterated, or
contaminated.
Bottom line: salt was a good, desired, and needed thing for a number of common
uses in Yeshua's time. And Yeshua says to the crowd of Jews who are coming
for the purpose of healing and for hearing this man's wisdom, that they are the
ones who provide the good flavor to influence the people in a positive way, the
good preservation of the land and the people in their God ordained purpose as
His set apart people and land, and if they become contaminated with the false
ways of some of their religious leaders or they are corrupted by the dazzling and
advanced culture and beliefs of their Roman occupiers, then they will lose their
purpose and they won't gain it back. If that happens, then they are suitable only
to be thrown upon the ground and trampled into the dust, for the purpose of
poisoning the soil so that nothing can grow. Everything I've just explained to you
is to interpret this passage in the P'shat sense.
But in the Remez, it transforms. It speaks of a larger purpose and scope. Since
the Hebrew word eretz (which is what the Greek word ge is translating) can
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
mean earth or land, then while in the P'shat sense it means the Land of Israel, in
the Remez sense it expands to mean the earth... the entire planet. Thus the salt
of the Jewish people rises from being salt ONLY for the Jewish people in the
Holy Land, to salt for the gentile world as well. And in such a larger capacity, if
these Jews become adulterated in their ways and thinking, how can they bring
the purity and truth that God gave to them to the world? So in the Remez sense
this is sort of a warning from Christ that in time, the Jews will have the
opportunity to be salt for the world; but if they become contaminated in their ways
and thinking they will lose that opportunity and become useless in God's hand.
And when we are useless in God's hand, we pay an earthly price for it. For 18 or
19 centuries that has generally been the outcome for the Jewish people.
However (praise God), we are seeing a growing segment of Jewish society called
Messianic Jews (Believing Jews) realizing what has happened to their people
and actively working to regain their saltiness and to reclaim their God-given
purpose to lead all humanity back to the Lord.
Therefore back to the question I asked at the beginning of examining this
important verse. Is this speaking of the Jews being salt only to the Holy Land or
to the entire world? I said that Bible commentators say one answer is correct
and the other incorrect. I hope to have shown you that when we adopt the
Eastern way of interpreting the Bible which was produced from an Eastern
thinking people.... that in fact both answers are correct when placed in their
proper historical setting.
Verses 14 through 16 provide a complementary statement to the previous one. It
uses the illustration of light to represent God's intended purpose for Yeshua's
Jewish audience.
CJB Matthew 5:14-16 14 "You are light for the world. A town built on a hill
cannot be hidden. 15 Likewise, when people light a lamp, they don't cover it
with a bowl but put it on a lampstand, so that it shines for everyone in the
house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they
may see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.
Here Yeshua's statement clearly swells the hoped-for Jewish influence to the
world, and not just the Holy Land. No doubt He is basing this thought upon the
prophet Isaiah because this is nearly precisely the same message that Isaiah
brought from the Lord 7 centuries earlier.
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
CJB Isaiah 49:1 Coastlands, listen to me; listen, you peoples far away:
ADONAI called me from the womb; before I was born, he had spoken my
name. 2 He has made my mouth like a sharp sword while hiding me in the
shadow of his hand; he has made me like a sharpened arrow while
concealing me in his quiver. 3 He said to me, "You are my servant, Isra'el,
through whom I will show my glory." 4 But I said, "I have toiled in vain,
spent my strength for nothing, futility." Yet my cause is with ADONAI, my
reward is with my God. 5 So now ADONAI says- he formed me in the womb
to be his servant, to bring Ya'akov back to him, to have Isra'el gathered to
him, so that I will be honored in the sight of ADONAI, my God having
become my strength- 6 he has said, "It is not enough that you are merely my
servant to raise up the tribes of Ya'akov and restore the offspring of Isra'el.
I will also make you a light to the nations, so my salvation can spread to the
ends of the earth." Therefore the future time that God will make it Israel's task to be a light to the
nations, an event that Isaiah prophesied, has arrived according to Christ. Folks,
in its plain sense (P'shat) or in its literal sense but with a hint at a deeper
meaning (Remez) this is a call to action. The goal is that other people
gentiles will come to faith in the God of Israel. But in God's plan it is Israel (the
Jews) that cannot be passive but rather the light that God gave to them must be
put before people. Look at the final words of verse 16. There it says: " so that
they may see the good things you do and praise your Father in
heaven". This is the truest evangelism. It is the most effective spreading of the
Good News. How does Jesus say it should be done? By letting people see our
good deeds; by letting others see how we praise the Father in Heaven. In other
words, it is not by speaking words but by actively living out our faith. Only doing it
inside the walls of our Church or Synagogue, or our home, is not sufficient. In this
age when our faith is not as popular or admired as it once was, and in fact we
can find ourselves under verbal attack for it, that is not to discourage us from
outwardly displaying it by doing good deeds and publicly praising God. This is not
to say, of course, that speaking the Gospel is not to be done; it must be and it is
a necessary ingredient to effective evangelism. But words can be cheapened
when there is no evidence of their truth in action to back it up. We have an
English word to describe people or institutions that do this: hypocrites. I can't
think of a word more used by those outside of Christianity to describe us than
hypocrites; sometimes unjustly, sometimes quite justifiably. Why? Because we
have not always displayed the truth in action; we've settled for advocating for it in
words.
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
Yeshua likens the way that His listeners should be a light to world by saying it
should be as if they were set in a city on a mountain. He stays with the thoughts
of Isaiah when he says this.
CJB Isaiah 2:1 This is the word that Yesha'yahu the son of Amotz saw
concerning Y'hudah and Yerushalayim: 2
in the acharit-hayamim (the end of
days) the mountain of ADONAI's house will be established as the most
important mountain. It will be regarded more highly than the other hills, and
all the Goyim will stream there. 3 Many peoples will go and say, "Come, let's
go up to the mountain of ADONAl, to the house of the God of Ya'akov! He
will teach us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths." For out of
Tziyon will go forth Torah, the word ofADONAI from Yerushalayim. 4 He will
judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. Then they will
hammer their swords into plow-blades and their spears into pruning␂knives; nations will not raise swords at each other, and they will no longer
learn war. 5 Descendants of Ya'akov, come! Let's live in the light of
ADONAI!
The Torah envisions the gentiles (all the nations) making a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem in order to learn God's Word. Thus we must understand that in the
Jewish mind, light carries a dual meaning (as it often does in the Western gentile
mind). There is a type of light that represents truth, knowledge and revelation; in
English we call it enlightenment. Then there is a type of light that fills a darkened
space with visible light so that we can read, walk, work, eat, etc. The light on a
hill in the P'shat sense is speaking of something like a torch that is held up on a
high place so it can be seen in all directions and for a long distance; like a signal
fire. In the Remez sense this is speaking of God's enlightenment; His truth. The
hill is Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. And those who hold up the torch and who bring the
divine truth to the world are to be the descendants of Jacob the Israelites.
After telling the Jews to be a light Yeshua cautions: what good does putting that
light on a hill and then covering it over so that it can reach no one? What good
does it do to hold a firm faith in the Father and His Son, and then keep it quiet
and private because you encounter opposition? And what does it say to have
such a faith and have it bear no fruit in the form of good works and deeds?
The Early Church Father Chrysostom says this:
"You are the light of the world.... not of a single nation nor of twenty cities,
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Lesson 14 - Matthew 5 cont 2
but of the entire inhabited earth. You are a like a light to the mind, far better
than any particular sunbeam. Similarly, you are spiritual salt. First you are
salt. Then you are light. The metaphors of salt and light drive home the
great benefit of these stinging words and the profit of this rigorous
discipline; how it binds and does not permit us to be dissolute in our
behavior." Having greeted His great audience, and having prepared them with blessing after
blessing, and having encouraged them in faith and divine purpose, Christ is
about to present them.... all of us.... with the fulcrum, the balance point, of His
entire message. If any misses this, or in some way disturbs it, or intentionally
dismisses it, or changes its plain meaning in order to create or support a false
doctrine, or bypasses it in order to slander Yeshua or His people or God's Torah,
then all the words of the Sermon on the Mount that came before it and will come
after it become tainted and out of context. That person who approaches this
passage becomes like the salt that absorbs contamination and so becomes fit for
nothing but to be thrown upon the ground and trampled under foot.
If you think those are harsh or severe words, then just wait until next week when
we open with the 17th verse of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 15, Chapter 5 Continued 3
I want to begin by acknowledging that we've spent the better part of 3 lessons
covering only the first 16 verses of Matthew chapter 5; I know this is a very slow
pace. I'm afraid that it is not likely to increase very much for a while. My goal,
however, is not to teach you scriptural minutia or theology. My goal is to add the
necessary context, some of it historical and cultural, and some of it language
oriented, so that the true meaning of what we're reading comes to the surface
unadulterated by unintended errors, manmade doctrines, and modern Christian
spin that tries to make it compatible with contemporary beliefs and agendas. In
the case of the Sermon on the Mount, the considerable amount of time that I am
taking with the many detours and extended explanations is only because what
those regular, everyday Jews who came to hear Yeshua held as common
knowledge, is unknown and foreign to us in the 21st century.
The past 3 lessons have essentially been a build up to what we'll encounter
today. And what comes today is nothing less than a plain, firm and unequivocal
refutation of one of the most broadly held doctrines of the Christian Church,
worldwide. Even more, what Yeshua says to the crowd of thousands and
thousands of Jews that have come from as far away as the southern desert of
Judea to the northern reaches of Syria, and even from several Roman provinces
on the eastern side of the Jordan River (most of the people coming in hopes of a
miraculous healing of their illnesses, injuries, deformities and demon possession)
sets a foundation for all of His followers, Jew or gentile, then and into an
indefinite future, of exactly how we are to understand His speech, and how we
are to interpret all of His actions and words as recorded in the Gospel accounts.
Before we open our Bibles together I want to relate a brief story to you. For the
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
past 25 years I have had the privilege of taking several hundreds of people to
Israel on tour. On some of the tours, especially when I had a Pastor or two on the
bus, I took them to the Mount of Beatitudes. There we would spend a couple of
hours on the lovely grounds not just for the beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee
but also for a Bible lesson. Naturally we would read at least part, often all, of the
Sermon on the Mount. Invariably I would ask a Pastor on the tour to read it for us;
they were always kind to accommodate me.
Starting at Matthew 5:1, I could see the easy familiarity these Pastors had with
the moving words of the Beatitudes (one or two of them even had it memorized),
as often they spoke with teary eyes. But then, as I asked them to continue, they
would encounter verse 17, then 18, then 19; some paused partway through
perhaps not sure they wanted to proceed. Others had a deer-in-the-headlights
look come over their faces. Some seemed puzzled as though after reading this
chapter numerous times in the past, Jesus's words of verses 17-19 were
suddenly new to them. Such can be the case when one visits the Holy Land of
Israel. I'm sure it's obvious to you, as it quickly became to them, why I chose
these Pastors in particular to read the Sermon on the Mount to the group: it was
my intent to make an impact. And now it is my prayer that these words we are
about to dissect make a similar impact on you.
So without further ado, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 and let's talk about
what it is that makes these words so monumental, so important to our faith, and
so unsettling to much of Institutional Christianity that they are often ignored.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 5:17 - 20
Let's go verse by verse and very nearly word by word. The opening text is,
depending on your English Bible version, "Do not think", or "Do not suppose", or
"Think not". I don't need to dwell on the meaning of this simple phrase because it
is self evident. Christ means something like: "I know what some of you might be
thinking about what I've already said, and how you might take what I'm about to
say, but you'd be wrong". In other words, Yeshua is interrupting the regular flow
of His speech to make a point because He knows that some will object to what
He has to say and others will read into it things He does not mean. In fact, I can
imagine Him making a rather dramatic pause; taking a few seconds, inhaling
deeply, and then scanning the crowd making sure He has the attention of
everyone listening. The purpose is to clarify the interpretation of His instructions
and teaching in order that the people listening rule out a certain way of thinking
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
that some, maybe most of them, might automatically assume. Why might they
automatically assume wrongly? Because they, like us, had mental filters.
Humans have always had mental filters. Without even being fully conscious of it
we all have, since we were very young children, developed a certain way of
looking at our world. That view of our world colors everything we see and hear
and come into contact with. Therefore our personal mental filters filter out some
information, and allows other information to pass through. Some of the way our
mental filters develop has to do with the temperaments we are born with and the
sensitivities we develop along the way that might be inexplicable. Some of it has
to do with our family history and family system. The culture we have been raised
in and/or have joined plays a significant role as does the teaching (formal or
informal) that we have received. Our personal experiences, and the prejudices
and preferences we develop and so much more all take their place to help form
our views and thus are the blueprints that construct our personal mental filters.
The Jews that Christ was speaking to that day naturally all had their own mental
filters. While not universal among every attendee, we can probably make some
general conclusions about the nature of those filters.
First: the attending Jews were aware since their earliest age of their rich Hebrew
heritage. They knew of their ancestral father Abraham, of their ancestors' time in
Egypt and of their exodus. They knew of the Wilderness Journey, about the
happenings on Mt. Sinai, and who Moses was and the lofty place He holds in
Jewish religious history.
Second: the multitude were entirely aware of the Torah and the Law of Moses,
even though most were not well versed in its details. Remember: at that time the
Hebrew Bible was still being painstakingly hand-copied onto scrolls, and no one
but the Priesthood possessed more than a book or two at best due to the
expense and time involved in creating each copy.
Third: there was no question as to the continuing and never ending validity and
truth of the Torah and the Prophets, and the entire Tanakh (Old Testament,
Hebrew Bible) for that matter. Of this there was no debate even among the
Jewish religious and academic elite.
Fourth: since the majority of the people of Israel had long ago dispersed to
regions all over Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, few of the Jewish
Diaspora were able to make the several annual Torah commanded pilgrimages
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
to the Temple in Jerusalem; whether that journey was to sacrifice to atone for
their sins, or to attend a biblical festival. So their contact with Jerusalem, the
Temple and the Priesthood was rare, if ever, unless they lived within the
immediate area of the Holy Land or were both wealthy and religiously zealous.
Fifth: although the Torah itself commands that it is the Levite priests who are
responsible to teach the Hebrew people the Torah, that had ceased to happen
centuries earlier. The exile of the Jews to Babylon had created a huge vacuum in
Jewish religious leadership and ritual as well as in the people's knowledge of
Scripture.
Sixth: out of this vacuum was born the synagogue, as more or a less a necessity.
Each synagogue was local and served a small community of Jews.... very much
like the Church. Each synagogue was independent of the others and so the
religious expression of each varied. In time, however, some Jewish leadership
developed then standardized, to a degree, the synagogue system. The
synagogue at first served the Babylonian exiles who had decided not to return to
their homeland but to make wherever it was they were, their permanent home.
Later the institution of the synagogue spread to the Holy Land, even though
those Jews resided in relatively close proximity to the Temple. Therefore
whatever religious training and instruction the average Israelite received came
from his or her local synagogue. And who operated these synagogues? Who did
the teaching? This was the province of the Pharisees for the most part. That is,
the synagogue leadership and the teachers were lay people (non-priests) that
had no connection to the Temple. And because the synagogues were dominated
by the Tradition-driven instruction of the Pharisees, then it was Tradition and
manmade Jewish Law (as opposed to the actual biblical Law of Moses) that the
typical Jew learned and practiced.
So the mental filters that Jews had in the 1st century were created primarily on
the basis of their distinct Jewish culture and on the Traditions and Jewish Law
that their religious leaders taught them. Thus, this large crowd of Jews will
(without realizing it) filter every word Yeshua says through their mental matrix of
knowledge and viewpoint. Therefore much of what Yeshua says sounds new to
them, even though it is old. Some of it sounds wrong, because they have been
taught wrongly. Sometimes their skepticism of Jesus's words is because they
don't know what the Torah actually says, and thus they don't have the proper
reference point to judge the difference between the actual, biblical, God given
Torah, and the manmade Traditions (the doctrines) they and their forefathers
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
have been taught in the synagogue all their lives.
This ought to sound familiar to us even if we might not be terribly happy to have it
pointed out because it is like that in the typical Christian Church, and has been so
since shortly after its inception. The people either don't have a Bible, or don't
read and study the Bible, and so whatever the Church authorities say that the
Bible says and means is what the people generally accept as unassailable truth.
The name for these many interpretations of the Bible and the resulting rules is
doctrines. Thus while the Church has nearly always been doctrine based, as
opposed to Bible based, the synagogue has nearly always been Tradition based,
as opposed to Torah based. Christ's concern, then, is that the people listening to
Him will think that under His own authority He is either changing the Law of
Moses, or effectively abolishing it and replacing it with new teachings of His own.
So He begins with the words: Do NOT think
So the people are told not to think what, exactly? He says that they are not to
think that He came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. What, exactly, did that
mean to His listeners? A quick reminder: whatever we in the West might think,
we have to always keep in mind that Matthew was a Believing Jew, whose
thought processes followed a Hebrew path. So first: whatever the people sitting
on that hillside think Yeshua is trying to tell them in His Sermon, He insists that
nothing of what He says involves Him abolishing anything. Abolishing, over
turning, or destroying is not what He came to do. The Greek word being
translated as abolish is kataluo. The Greek lexicons all agree that it means to
abolish or to over throw; so our English Bibles have it right. Second: the things
He specifically emphasizes that He is NOT over throwing is the Law and the
Prophets. So, precisely, what is Christ meaning by the Law and the Prophets? In
Greek the term Law is nomos, and the term Prophets is prophetes. In this use
in Matthew 5:17 the term "the Law" is referring to the Law of Moses, or more
accurately in Hebrew thinking, the Torah (the 5 books of Moses). The term "the
Prophets" is exactly what it sounds like it means: it means the books and works
of the Old Testament Prophets like Isaiah, Daniel and Ezekiel to name a few.
Let's take a tiny detour to discuss a serious language issue that, to my great
surprise, seems to go unrecognized by nearly every commentary written on the
Gospels. One of the most difficult matters to sort out in the New Testament (not
as much in the Gospels but far more so in Paul's writings) is the prodigious use of
the word "law" (nomos) that we find. And we all know that the term "law" is,
within most of Christianity, a negative. When translating from Hebrew to Greek,
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
and then further to English, the word nomos gets used in a number of ways that
causes great confusion. Let me explain. When the Hebrew word is Torah, then
the Greek translation used for it is nomos. So the English translation from the
Greek is law. Thus Torah in Hebrew becomes " Law" in English, but that's NOT
what Torah means (Torah means teaching or instruction... not law.... or it is
referring to the entirety of the first 5 books of the Bible). So right off the bat we
have a distortion built-into our English Bibles. Further, when the Hebrew thought
is "the Law of Moses", then the Greek word chosen to translate it is
also nomos; and so the English translation of the Greek becomes law. Few
Christians know that the Law of Moses is but a section contained within the
Torah, and not the whole of it. Another example: when the Hebrew meaning is
Oral Torah (that is, Hebrew customs and traditions handed down for centuries
that are said to have been given to Moses by God but were not recorded in the
written Torah), again the Greek word chosen is nomos, and so the English
translation is, once again, law. When the Hebrew term is Halakah (meaning
Jewish Law, which consists of interpretations of the Law of Moses that the
Pharisees used and expected the Jewish people to obey), again the Greek word
used is nomos and so the English translation is law. One more instance. When
the Bible talks about secular civil law (including Roman civil law), the Greek word
used is... you guessed it nomos, which becomes law in English. Do you see
the problem? The only Greek word used, and therefore the only English word
used for all these quite different situations and varying elements of literature and
law codes and Holy Scripture within Jewish religious practice and culture are
translated using the same Greek word, and thus the same English word, and so
because of our Western and Christian mental filters naturally it seems that they
must be referring to the same thing; and whatever it is, that thing is negative and
thus to be avoided.
So what /s Christ actually referring to when we read in our English Bibles "The
Law and the Prophets"? The good news is that when in the New Testament
those two terms are coupled together (the Law and the Prophets) it is used as a
single expression that is speaking of the actual Hebrew Bible and not of
Traditions, Jewish law, civil law, or oral Torah. There is no doubt in my mind that
the original Hebrew thought that Matthew had and probably wrote was "the
Torah and the Prophets". That is because the Torah and the Prophets very early
on in Jewish history became technical terms for naming 2 of the 3 sections that
(in Jewish scholarship) together made up the Old Testament (the Tanakh). The
Hebrew academic leadership saw the Bible as consisting of 3 parts: the Torah,
the Prophets, and the Writings. But, rather than having to say all those words
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
when referring to the entire Old Testament, then a standard expression used
among Jews was "The Law and the Prophets". We'll see Paul use that same
expression in several of his letters, indicating exactly the same thing: the entirety
of the Hebrew Bible.
Exiting now our brief language lesson and the dilemma that some strained
biblical language translation can cause, the incredibly important bottom line is
this: in Matthew 5:17 Christ emphatically said that He did not come to abolish
any part of the Hebrew Bible. And just so there's no confusion going forward: the
terms Tanakh, Hebrew Bible, and Old Testament all mean exactly the same
thing and so I'll rotate the use of them.
So, if what Yeshua has said and is about to say is decisively NOT to be taken to
mean that He is in some way changing or scrapping any part of the Old
Testament, then exactly what is it that He is doing in His speech? That last half of
verse 17 says in English: "I have come not to abolish but to fulfill". The KJV says
"I have come not to destroy but to fulfill". Other versions are nearly identical, but
whatever minor word difference occurs still amounts to the same thing. In other
words, our English Bible versions are in full accord as to how to translate these
words from Greek to English. Christ says He "came to fulfill".
This part of the verse is where the trouble begins. A large segment.... I estimate it
to be the majority of Christian institutions fiddle with those few words to
substantially change their meaning in order to accord with a long standing
Christian doctrine that the Law of Moses which among so many
denominations means the Old Testament in general is dead and gone and
thus irrelevant to Christians. Some go so far as to make the Law of Moses (and
most of the Old Testament) as a danger to Christians because delving into it or
thinking that it still has relevance to us, could draw us away from our faith in
Christ.
So let's look at this word by word. Notice that the term "abolish" is used again.
That is, Christ first says "I did not come to abolish...", and now repeats Himself
but also adds more information. In both instances the Greek word is kataluo,
which the several Greek lexicons all agree that it means to abolish or over throw.
Some language scholars claim it can also mean "destroy". Nonetheless, any of
those possible meanings arrives us to the same place within this verse. But now
what does it mean to fulfill? The Greek word used is pleroo. Here is the standard
agreement among Greek lexicons as to the meaning of this word (this is a quote,
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
I'm not paraphrasing): 1) to make full, to fill up; that is, to fill to the full. 2) to
render full, i.e. to complete.
Here's the rub: Christianity distorts the meaning of pleroo to include the concept
of terminating, concluding, stopping. That is worse than error; it is a fraudulent
changing of the meaning in order to uphold and defend a predetermined
doctrine. Pleroo (fulfill) is the Greek word used in the Bible when describing the
fulfillment of a prophecy, for example. Fulfilling a prophecy certainly doesn't
meant to stop the prophecy, or to terminate it, or to conclude it. Some of the
standard commentaries I've read on the matter claim that the meaning is to
complete; and to complete means to terminate. The reason that Greek lexicons
say it means to "complete" even say it means to "complete" within the context of
"rendering full". A common example in Western society is for one spouse to
lovingly say of the other that they "complete me". This is the proper sense of the
word pleroo. It means to bring to the full, not to bring to an end. Under no
circumstance nor usage does the Greek pleroo mean to end, terminate, stop or
conclude.
One of the illustrations that I've used to help picture the meaning is that it is like
in the old days when gas stations had service attendants to put gasoline into your
car for you. They'd walk up to your car window and ask what they could do for
you. A standard response was "fill it up". If we were speaking Greek we'd say
"pleroo". That is, we want our gas tank to be made as full of fuel as it can hold.
We want to bring it to its fullest capacity. We certainly don't mean to terminate our
gas tank.
But, because I'm in process of discrediting one of the most widely accepted and
passionately defended doctrines within Christianity, I'm going to say a little more
about it. When one takes Christ's meaning in this passage as "terminating", then
we have Him saying the unintelligible. That is, this false interpretation has Jesus
say: "I come not to abolish but to terminate". This is gibberish. If I abolish a law,
do I not terminate it? If I abolish destructive relationships in my life do I not stop
them? Rather Yeshua is saying that all that the Hebrew Bible points to is Him.
And yet in another sense (as we'll soon see), He means that He will bring all that
the Old Testament has established to its fullest heights and intents. Thus in but a
couple more verses He'll begin with: "You have heard that our fathers were
told but I tell you". Although it is not a perfect analogy, it is not unlike when
the atom was first discovered a little more than a century ago. At that time it was
thought to be the absolute smallest particle that all matter consists of. But a few
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
years later it was brought to light that atoms themselves consisted of even
smaller particles called neutrons, protons, and electrons. This new revelation
didn't in any way end or terminate the atom. The truth of the existence of the
atom as a building block of all matter remained true. The discovery of the deeper
mysteries of the atom added necessary understanding of it; it didn't abolish it. We
need to see what Christ meant about what He came to teach us, and what He
certainly in no way intended to do with Holy Scripture, in the same light.
Clearly Yeshua felt that His definitive, unambiguous statement of verse 17 could
still be misunderstood, or more likely intentionally corrupted, in order for various
Jewish religious factions to find fault with Him or to support a doctrine that He did
not establish or agree with. So He now expands upon verse 17 in verse 18.
CJB Matthew 5:18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass
away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until
everything that must happen has happened.
Other English versions have it essentially the same with the same meaning and
intent but I'll quote a couple of the most accepted versions for you.
KJV Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one * shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
NAB Matthew 5:18 Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not
the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
So in verse 17 He says that nothing that He personally says or does is meant to
add, subtract, change or terminate any part of the Scriptures.... the Hebrew Bible.
In other words, by beginning with "Don't think I have come to...." He is saying
that He is in no way advocating for nor will He be the responsible party for
abolishing the Tanakh. But now in verse 18, His statement becomes more
general and broad in scope. That is, however it theoretically could happen, and
whoever might be the responsible party, is actually a moot issue because such
abolition or change isn't going to happen. Period. And He then adds a statement
that a casual reading of it sounds a great deal like a common expression that
employs hyperbole exaggeration. He says that the Hebrew Bible and its
relevance and content will remain as is, alive and in force until when? Until
Heaven and earth pass away. For so many Believers this statement is very
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
similar to the meaning of "until * freezes over". That is, * isn't ever going to
freeze over just as Heaven and earth are not going to pass. Not so fast. It turns
out that indeed Heaven and earth are going to pass away and the Bible tells us
when this is going to occur.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there.
John, who wrote the Book of Revelation, was quoting a much earlier prophet
when he wrote down that prophecy.
CJB Isaiah 65:17 "For, look! I create new heavens and a new earth; past
things will not be remembered, they will no more come to mind.
We won't spend too much time with this; you can go to my teaching on
Revelation for a more extensive treatment on the passing of the heavens and the
earth. But a few points do need to be made. First: all the major English
translations agree on the wording of this passage in Isaiah. But notice that in
Isaiah it is heavens (plural) that is being re-created. This is well understood to be
referring to the physical Universe, not to Heaven where God dwells. But in
Revelation 21, because commentators don't seem to acknowledge that John is
quoting Isaiah, the meaning is changed from there being a new Universe to there
being a new Heaven (where God dwells). That is simply incorrect. The intent is to
say that all physical things that together make up our entire Universe will be
broken down and then rebuilt sometime after the Millennial reign of Christ
(assuming John's sequence of these events is the correct one).
Second: Clearly according to Isaiah and to John (John outlived Jesus), this re␂creation of the heavens and earth upon the passing away of the old is a future
event. And, obviously enough it has not yet happened. Yet I was personally
confronted on this matter and told by serious people that the old heavens and
earth had already passed away and it happened at Christ's crucifixion. In other
words, this confrontation had mainly to do with whether or not God's Torah had
passed away along with Christ. These folks agreed that it was not possible to
accept Matthew 5:17 and 18 in any other way than that until the heavens and
earth did pass away, to be replaced with new, that the Torah and all the Old
Testament remained in force for Believers according to Yeshua. So the only
solution was to determine that this event had already occurred. I am still at a loss
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
for words to reply to what is so obviously untrue. But such is the lengths that
some Christians will go in order to defend the undefendable among long held
Church doctrines.
Third: Because in His Sermon on the Mount Yeshua was not using the passing of
the heavens and the earth as an expression and hyperbole but rather He was
telling of an actual and real event that includes a real marker in the timeline of
redemption history, it is self-evident that indeed the content and relevance of the
Tanakh WILL end at some defined point. And that defined point is upon the
passing of the old heavens and earth and the re-creation of a new heavens and
earth. But, as He said, not until all that must happen, happens. By the way:
because it was Isaiah who foretold the destruction of the old heavens and earth
and the re-creation of the new, many Jews would have been familiar with this and
not at all put off about such a statement coming from Yeshua.
And yet, Christ is so intent on getting this crucial understanding across to a crowd
that obviously had been taught something different in their synagogues and who
might scoff at what He is saying, or pervert what He is saying into something He
is not saying, He goes even further. He says that not even the tiniest part of the
Holy Scriptures will be abolished, changed, add to, or subtracted from leading up
to the passing of the current heavens and earth. Not even one single letter in one
single word will be altered by the only authorized entity that could legitimately do
that: God. But, as He insists, that's not going to happen. And since Yeshua is the
Word, that promise comes on pretty good authority.
Some of you hearing this may be wrestling with it. Some may be dismissing it
altogether regardless of the plain nature of what these few verses say because
this seems to fly in the face of all that you've heard at Church since becoming a
Believer. Suddenly you're hearing that not only is it NOT wrong to keep following
all the Old Testament, which includes the part that Yeshua is going to focus on,
the Law, but you are obligated to do so. I feel your pain; a long time ago I was
confronted with this as well. It took prayer, and some time, for me to realize that
how I feel about it is not relevant. How shook up I am about it is merely the result
of me not personally studying and then believing God's Word for what it says.
Instead I was looking to the very religious authorities of certain Christian
denominations whose jobs were to defend that denomination's existing doctrines;
it was their sworn duty to maintain the status quo.
Let's face it: how nice it is to hear (and believe) that all you have to do is pray the
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
sinner's prayer, now you are saved, and so are relieved of any further obligations
to God. You have the fullest freedom and liberty; no boundaries, no rules, and no
duties. In fact, there's no reason that you can't go right back to your old sinful life
because Christ paid for those sins anyway; so for you, there's no consequence.
But should you be so foolish as to try to obey God's written commands you are
doing wrong; you are being a legalist. And Our Messiah would NEVER want us to
do that right?
CJB Matthew 5:19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and
teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the
Kingdom of Heaven.
That's the CJB version. What does the KJV sound like?
KJV Matthew 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
All the other English versions say essentially the same. Christ has given the
instruction, and now He tells His listeners the consequences of obeying or
disobeying. This is, sadly, another verse that has been intentionally spun and
violated in order to pound a square peg into a round hole. I can't tell you how
many sermons I have heard, many years ago, that this wasn't talking about the
very thing Yeshua was talking about the Hebrew Bible... the Law and the
Prophets this was talking about entirely new commands that He would issue
that would abolish and replace the older ones. I have also heard a few sermons
that claim that it ought to be the goal of a Christian to be the LEAST in the
Kingdom of Heaven. For some that's an indication of humility and meekness, for
other Pastors it is the Believers' reward for dutifully breaking God's commands
(that Jesus has supposedly just abolished). So seeking to be greatest in God's
Kingdom is as wrong as obeying God's old biblical commandments.
So what would Christ's words have meant to the ears of the many Jews hearing
this directly from Him? It was the common traditional understanding in
synagogues that there were lesser and greater laws. These amounted to the
heavy and light commandments; the ones that brought the direst consequences
for disobedience, as opposed to the ones that brought but a slap on the wrist.
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Lesson 15 - Matthew 5 cont 3
Christ says that despite what the Scribes and Rabbis may tell you, I tell you that
you are to obey all the laws and commandments of God with equal devotion. He
says:
CJB Matthew 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater
than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter
the Kingdom of Heaven!
That's enough to ponder for today. We'll continue with Matthew 5 next time.
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 16, Chapter 5 Continued 4
Today we continue our careful and deliberate study in Matthew chapter 5, the
Sermon on the Mount. Last week we spent our entire time together on the pivotal
verses 17-20 because these form the basis and the backstop for understanding
everything that Yeshua will state starting in verse 21 and proceeding until the end
of His sermon in chapter 7. Even more, those crucial verses necessarily apply to
everything Jesus will say or do during His entire ministry on earth, and when He
returns. This is because they are not merely words that add to our understanding;
they set down an important governing dynamic around which Christianity and
Messianic Judaism must develop its doctrines and faith principles. We'll spend
some time reviewing so turn your Bibles to Matthew 5.
RE-READ MATTHEW 5:17-20
The Early Church Father Chrysostom, who was not a fan of the Jewish element
of Scripture, nonetheless was a studious man and so he makes this comment in
his ancient Commentary on Matthew.
"Think not that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets." Matt.5 vs.
17 Why, who suspected this? Or who accused Him, that He should make a
defense against this charge? Since surely from what had gone before no
such suspicion was generated. For to command men to be meek, and
gentle, and merciful, and pure in heart, and to strive for righteousness,
indicated no such design, but rather altogether the contrary.
For a person who was wed to the idea that in some manner or way Christ could
on the one hand forcefully and legitimately declare that He did not come to
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
destroy the Law or the Prophets, but on the other hand proceeded in the
remainder of His sermon to issue new and greater laws, this question was not
rhetorical. Rather Chrysostom was not only perplexed by Yeshua's statement but
also then had to figure out how to defend the already deeply embedded Church
doctrine that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus had indeed created a new Law of
Jesus to supersede the Law of Moses. So using Chrysostom's question as our
starting point let's discuss how best to answer it.
Typically Christian institutional leaders such as bishops, priests, academics, and
Pastors find that their "out" or way around Jesus's statement in Matthew 5:17 is
by quoting Paul. It is not my intent to offend; but the evidence is strong that for
many centuries the tag line used nearly universally within Christianity that the
Church is the Church of Jesus Christ is not really accurate. Rather it is, and has
been at least as early as the 4th century, the Church of Paul. It is Paul's words
that form the bulk of Church doctrine and are also used (of course) to defend
those doctrines. So very often Paul's words get twisted, or taken out of their
biblical or historical Jewish context, and applied in inappropriate ways. At other
times his words are used as a tool to cancel out or modify Yeshua's words as
recorded in the Gospels so that a desired Church doctrine can be maintained. Let
me put it another way: the Church has decided that in some cases the
conclusions and instructions of the disciple, Paul, are more definitive, correct and
of higher value than the conclusions and instructions of his master, Yeshua. My
response to this is that even should we find that Paul's words indeed contradict
Christ, then it is Christ's words that are to be taken as truth and Paul's words
should be dismissed as false. To be clear: in no way am I saying that Paul's
words contradict Christ's anywhere in the New Testament nor that his words are
sometimes false. I'm only saying that because the Church uses Paul as the
vehicle to establish some clearly unbiblical doctrine, then hypothetically if
contradiction with Christ was the case (which it is not) then the Church would still
be wrong for accepting Paul's words as the source of correct doctrine over and
above Yeshua's.
The neutralizer that the Church regularly uses to override Christ's pivotal
statement in Matthew 5:17 that utterly destroys perhaps the most central Church
doctrine; a doctrine that in practice is second only to Jesus being the divine
Messiah, is found in Romans 10:4.
KJV Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth.
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
So the Church says that this statement of Paul makes it clear that the doctrine
that Christ ended (terminated) the law is correct. Generally it is explained that
even though Christ didn't abolish the Law, He ended it. If ever there was an
excellent example of gibberish, such a position statement as that is the one. So is
this really what Paul said and meant? That is, despite what His Master said, he
claims that the Law has ended. If this is the case, then as Believers we are put in
the uncomfortable position of having to choose between believing and accepting
EITHER Matthew 5:17 as truth, or Romans 10:4 as truth. The Church has, for
centuries, chosen to believe and accept Romans 10:4 over Matthew 5:17.
In Greek the word in Romans 10:4 that is being translated as "end" is telos. It is
an interesting word that can indeed mean "end" but is also used to mean a toll or
a custom's duty to be paid. In other words a telos is paid for merchants bringing
their goods to their customers. Even the English word "end" itself can have
multiple meanings. In our modern English it can mean to finish, like the words
"the end" are meant to convey as a movie concludes and yet not in the sense
that the movie is now eliminated or destroyed, but rather its content and purpose
has been attained and there is no more. Or "end" can also mean to achieve a
goal. We regularly say things to each other like "our end purpose is such and
such..." or "the end of all our efforts is to achieve so and so." Those sayings of
course do not mean that we intend to terminate something. So how are we to
take telos as used in Paul's statement regarding the Law?
The Greek philosopher Aristotle who lived 4 centuries before Paul said this about
the word telos. "human telos is our goal to fulfill". The academic field of
Teleology is the study of telos. And Teleology is defined as a study of people
and objects with a view to their aims, purpose, and intentions. Some Greek
Lexicons try to best explain the word by saying that telos means end in the
sense of a attaining a goal or purpose. As you can readily see, the concept of
terminating or permanently stopping is simply not part of the meaning of telos. I
think the CJB has chosen a better word than "end" to translate telos because it
better fits in with our modern English language in the sense of what words mean
to us in our era.
CJB Romans 10:4 For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who
offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.
This translation (which is known among Bible translators as a dynamic
translation) communicates to we moderns what the ancient Paul meant by what
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
he said, and how others who read or heard his words would have understood it in
his day. By merely discarding the word "end" as meaning termination (something
which the Greek word telos does not intend) and replacing it with the word goal,
or aim, or purpose, which is what the word telos does intend, suddenly Paul isn't
overturning Messiah's words spoken at the Sermon on the Mount. That is, we
don't truly have a conflict between Yeshua and Paul; it is that Paul has simply
been misinterpreted by the Church or more likely, misrepresented in an effort to
prove that the Torah and the Law is not for Gentile Believers.
Now let's try to answer Chrysostom's question from another angle. Is it possible
that Christ could legitimately overturn the Torah? Or, as some who accept that
He didn't abolish the Torah but still try to make a tortured case for a sort of middle
ground whereby the Torah Law exists but is not enforced because of Christ. Or
that He did override certain earlier commands with like kind ones, but they were
higher and greater representing the new and next state of the spiritual world due
to His coming. Could either of these be what He did? In a word: no.
CJB Deuteronomy 4:2 In order to obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God
which I am giving you, do not add to what I am saying, and do not subtract
from it.
And a little later in Deuteronomy:
CJB Deuteronomy 13:1 "Everything I am commanding you, you are to take
care to do. Do not add to it or subtract from it.
In Matthew 5:18 Christ follows up what He had just said in verse 17 (that He did
not abolish the Law) so that there could be no misunderstanding.
CJB Matthew 5:18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass
away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until
everything that must happen has happened.
Therefore it cannot be that changing the meaning of the Torah Laws, or adding a
few more Torah Laws, is what Christ was doing following His words of Matthew
5:17 and 18 otherwise He is breaking one of the most basic commandments of
the Torah as we find in Deuteronomy. If He had tried to do that the crowd He is
speaking to would have recognized it immediately and reacted. Assuming that
the Apostle John is correct and that Christ is the Word, then Christ would be
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
going against His own previous Word if He were to add to it or abolish or even
embellish parts of it. But even more, if we conclude that Christ, as God on earth,
indeed can and did change the supposedly unbreakable divine commands given
centuries earlier to Moses, then why couldn't He or someone else come along
some day and undo the divine commands that He gave us 2000 years ago with
yet newer ones? In a sense that is what the Latter Day Saints claim has
happened; something that mainstream Christianity denies is possible.
So in order to comply not with Christian doctrine but rather to comply with plainly
read Holy Scripture, then we must find another explanation for Chrysostom of
what it was, exactly, that Jesus was doing in His sermon starting at verse 21 and
based upon His unequivocal statement of Matthew 5:17 - 19 that He not only
didn't come to abolish or destroy the Law in total, but it was also not His purpose
that even one letter in one word of it would be changed. We must also answer
why Yeshua anticipated that there would be suspicion and accusation by some in
the crowd who might think that He was changing the Torah laws, and thus
dishonoring Moses. Davies and Allison in their commentary on this matter of
critical importance to our faith put it this way:
"Consequently, (Matthew) 5:17 - 20, by (Jesus) upholding the Law, has a
twofold effect. It defends Jesus and Matthew (1) from the accusation, no
doubt made by non-Christian Jews, that they had dismissed the Torah and
(2) from the claim, certainly made by some early Christians that Jesus had
set His followers free from the Law. For our evangelist (Matthew) the Old
Testament has not been drained of its ancient life. It is not just a precious
cemetery; it is still the living, active word of God." To help Chrysostom (and us !) understand exactly what it was that Yeshua did
and meant by what He said up on that hill overlooking the Galilee/, let's keep
reading in Matthew 5.
RE-READ MATTHEW 5:21 - end
Verse 21 begins by quoting the 6th Commandment (sometimes it is the 5th
Commandment depending on who is doing the numbering), "Thou shall not
murder". However Yeshua sets up His audience for controversy by prefacing the
commandment with the words:
CJB Matthew 5:21 "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Do not
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
murder,' and that anyone who commits murder will be subject to judgment.
In reality the term "our fathers" as used in the CJB is not there in the Greek
manuscripts. Rather the literal rendering is:
YLT Matthew 5:21 'Ye heard that it was said to the ancients: Thou shalt not
kill, and whoever may kill shall be in danger of the judgment;
I think it is mistake to substitute "our fathers" for "the ancients". For one reason,
especially gentile Christians think of "our fathers" as meaning people from the not
too distant past. But this is speaking about people from a long time ago. In this
case it is a general reference to the people who were with Moses at Mt. Sinai and
the generations shortly thereafter. The point being that Yeshua is NOT
addressing the Traditions of the Elders, which was at the center of what the
average Jew was taught at the Synagogue they attended. Rather Yeshua was
directing His comments concerning some of the commands of the biblical
Torah Holy Scripture. However, the people were weak in actual Torah
knowledge and like so many Christians that substitute their particular
denominational doctrines for biblical instruction they do so believing that the
traditions and doctrines they believe are indeed one and the same as what the
Bible teaches.
Let me give you a common example of this. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
That doesn't exist in the Bible. Spare the rod, spoil the child. That isn't in the
Bible, either, but most Christians think that both sayings are. Let me give you
another example. Christmas is the holiest day of the year. That also doesn't exist
in the Bible. Rather Christmas is another manmade Christian tradition that has
been holy-fied by men, not by God. We talked in an earlier lesson about mental
filters. The Jews had mental filters that incorporated the Jewish Tradition they
had been taught. Thus when Christ begins to speak about the Torah in His
sermon, the crowd had little to compare His words to except the hybrid mix of
Tradition and Scripture they had been taught at their synagogue; they had no
Bibles in their possession.
When I talk to you about Tradition, whether Jewish or Christian, do not think that
I'm against Tradition in general. Traditions have their place in our lives. They can
be beautiful and appropriate ways to express our faith, help us to remember
important tenets of our belief, and they can fill in some large blanks in order to
carry out commands to observe biblical festivals (for example) although nearly no
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
details are provided in Scripture that tells us just how to observe them. Here's the
issue: there's nothing wrong with Traditions until they are turned into rigid
doctrines and rules, and then inevitably are deemed "God ordained" or "holy" in
order to enforce them. Or the Traditions replace command, observance or action
that indeed is God ordained. In some ways Yeshua is dealing with that now, in
the Sermon on the Mount. He'll do the same in a few other scenarios including
the Sabbath Day controversy He had with the Pharisees when His Disciples were
picking the heads off wheat while walking through a field on Shabbat (we'll get to
that in a few chapters).
So after bringing up the 6th commandment and introducing it as something the
ancients were told, Christ says: "But I tell you" and then He elaborates. Here's
the rub: the way this phrase is translated it sounds to us like these words mean:
"But INSTEAD I tell you". That is, what was said centuries earlier in the Torah
("do not murder") is either a mistake and Yeshua is correcting it, or it is
incomplete and needs explanation, or it is being changed. Part of the reason for
this misperception is with the Greek word de that is regularly translated as "but".
This same word can also mean "and yet" or "and" (in the sense of adding
something). So Jesus's statement can be taken to mean: "But in addition I tell
you". Thus in the first instance the interpretation is that the newer replaces the
older, and in the second instance the newer adds to the older. I cannot accept
either of these possibilities because both tamper with the original commandment
that God gave through Moses, one of which says that the Torah laws are not to
be added to or subtracted from. Rather I view Yeshua as doing exactly what He
said in verse 17: He came to fulfill the Torah. That is, He came to fill it to the
full to give us the deepest sense of its intent and meaning. I'll say this slightly
differently. When Jesus says "you have heard that it was said to your ancestors",
we need to pause and focus on the words "you have heard". The thousands of
Jews sitting before Him indeed had heard "do not murder". This was not new to
them; they had already heard it... no doubt countless times. So after
acknowledging that they had already heard this, Christ now gives them the fuller
intent and essence of this 6th commandment.
As we've yet to examine any of the instructions that follow "But I tell you", here's
what I want you to have firmly in your minds as we go through the 6 different
case examples that Yeshua uses to teach something very important: intent
matters as much as the action. That is, in verses 21 - 48 Yeshua is not extending
the meaning of the commandment or rule to something else. He is not
contradicting the Torah, or criticizing the standard way that the ordinary Jews
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
sitting before Him think of the command or rule. He's not using His divine
authority to add or modify rules. What He is doing is telling them (and us) that we
are not only to have purity of body (that's easily accomplished), but part and
parcel with it also purity of mind and intent (much harder). We are not only to
physically and strictly follow the law and command (that can be accomplished
with a bit of effort and diligence), but part and parcel with it we are also to let a
Godly attitude rule over our behavior (that's more difficult). We are to be obedient
to Yehoveh's will while also striving to avoid sin as much as is humanly possible.
We are to love God and love our fellow man (friend or enemy) yet it is to be
accomplished unselfishly and without regard for "what's in it for us". In other
words while the letter of the Law (the Torah) hasn't changed at all everything
that is written and commanded in the Torah is still expected even of Yeshua's
followers.... it is the spirit of the Law and the spirit of the God worshipper working
together that is the ultimate purpose and essence of The Law. The letter of the
Law doesn't, of itself, produce life or renewed life; in fact doing all the things that
the Torah requires at any given moment, without regard to circumstance, may not
always be beneficial.
So, with the first example being the commandment not to murder, then Yeshua is
saying that without too much difficulty we can all keep from murdering an
individual who has shamed us or perhaps done us harm. But can we refrain from
anger, resentment or even hating that same person? The new goal that Yeshua
puts before the people listening to Him is not conformity but rather it is perfection.
As He says at the end of chapter 5 in verse 48 as He concludes His 6 case
examples: Therefore, be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. \Ne
can follow rules and do works very well if we put our minds and wills to it; but that
won't necessarily produce love or the spirit and attitude that Christ requires of us,
and it certainly does not impute the needed righteousness upon us that can only
come from God.
Therefore in verse 22 Yeshua says that simply not murdering is insufficient. Do
you think yourself Godly because you haven't murdered someone? Well, we
must also not have anger in our hearts. Anger is the wellspring of murder; we are
to subdue not just our urges but the place deep within us where these wrong
urges come from the evil inclination. That said, there is an interesting problem
in this instruction. If you look at the KJV and perhaps the majority of Bible
translations we'll find the phrase "without cause" included. That is, Jesus's
instruction is that we are not to be angry with our brother "without cause". The
CJB does NOT include this phrase, nor does the NAS, the NAB and other good
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
Bibles. So does this mean that some translators have added the phrase? Or that
others have refused to include the phrase for some reason? Does it meant that
some ancient Greek NT manuscripts have the phrase included and others don't?
Doesn't it make the anger instruction considerably easier to follow when instead
of ANY anger for ANY reason is deemed as wrong, a justifiable anger is allowed
as an exception?
This problem has been noticed and researched for a very long time. Without
getting into the gory details I can tell you that going back to the 4th century, we
find evidence in the form of New Testament fragments that support both
readings; that is some manuscripts included "without cause' and others didn't.
However, we also find that the Early Church Fathers Origen and Cyprian who
lived in the 3rd century had copies of The Gospel of Matthew that included the
phrase "without cause". This is the oldest evidence that currently exists to try and
come to the bottom of the matter, but that doesn't make it conclusive. In
Cyprian's Treatise #12, Book 3:8 he records this:
Also in the Gospel according to Matthew: You have heard that it was said
by the ancients, You shall not kill; and whoever shall kill shall be guilty of
the judgment. But I say unto you, That every one who is angry with his
brother without cause shall be guilty of the judgment." Origen writes a quote from Matthew in his Homilies on the Song of Songs:
7t was said to them of old, "Thou shalt not kill..." But I say to you,
whosoever is angry with his brother without reason shall be held guilty';
So assuming "without cause" was originally included in Matthew, then what
amounts to a justifiable cause for anger against our brother? But even before that
question, what does Jesus mean by "brother" (angry with his brother)? Does it
mean a follower of His? Does it mean any fellow Jew? Does it mean any human
being in general? In the Jewish community the term brother carried a few
meanings and it is from the Jewish perspective that we must view it. Although the
Greek is adelphos it is translating the Hebrew ach; the two words are virtually
synonymous. They both can mean a biological sibling, a family sibling (a step or
adopted brother), a close friend, anyone who is part of a defined community, or
similar to the way the Church uses the term brother today it can mean a fellow
member of the local spiritual community, or it can be a rather general term of
affection. It is my opinion that this is NOT referring to a fellow Believer, because
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
Yeshua was not speaking to a crowd of Believers. In fact, He hadn't yet made
known the fullness of His identity as the God-sent Messiah/Savior; He was
currently viewed by the Jewish populace as a Tzadik, a miracle working Holy
Man. But because this is Matthew the Jew writing this account, and because the
crowd was almost exclusively Jews, it is very likely that the Jewish crowd took
this to mean "fellow Jews" while Yeshua probably meant "fellow human beings"
because certainly the law against murder didn't apply only to Jews and besides...
anger is universal to all of mankind.
Going forward, assuming that Christ meant fellow human being when He said
"brother" and not just a select few people, then the question is, what amounts to
a justifiable cause to have anger with another human being? The standard
answer is that a "righteous anger" is justifiable. I want to repeat; it is not certain
whether the words "without cause" were even part of what Christ said. Since this
is impossible to know for certain, rather than focus on the justifiable vs.
unjustifiable anger issue it is more profitable if we focus on the more important
matter of someone nursing anger against his fellow, which under certain
circumstances (or perhaps under all circumstances) means he faces judgment
just as if he had committed actual murder. I will tell you that many commentators
feel that this statement has to have been intended as hyperbole an intended
exaggeration done in order to highlight a point because it seems beyond
reasonable or rational that merely being angry without outwardly expressing it in
any way should exact the same deadly penalty as when the criminal act of
murder occurs.
In verse 22, 3 examples are given where anger must be avoided or remedied as
the top priority in Yeshua's eyes, with the penalty for not doing so being to face
God's wrath or even being thrown into a fiery * (Gei-Hinnom). This anger can
take the form of name calling (saying Raca, probably an Aramaic loan word that
best translates to good-for-nothing) or saying to someone "fool". Is this
hyperbole?
It seems to me that what Yeshua is doing is essentially creating the bulls-eye in
the center of the target of perfection. We're told to be perfect in verse 48, but
what is perfection? What does it look like? Is it doing the Law flawlessly? Is it
having a righteous attitude and mindset? Yeshua is telling His audience that
already well knows that from a physical and legal standpoint... the Jewish
religious viewpoint.... perfection is defined as following the Law of Moses without
blemish. But Christ seems to be telling His audience that while this is good, it isn't
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
good enough for the kind of righteousness we each must attain in order to avoid
God's eternal judgment. Even thinking in a way that is angry, or simply calling
someone a fool or good-for-nothing makes one subject to God's wrath. Is that at
all fair? Did not God Himself create us as not only sentient but also emotional
beings? Can mere human beings possibly achieve such absolute perfection?
Theoretically, even spiritually, yes. Practically, humanly, no. Without saying so,
Yeshua is building a case for the irreplaceable need for salvation by grace;
salvation through Him. No one, not even the original 12 Disciples, could ever
meet the standard He is setting out in the Sermon on the Mount even though
they and we are encouraged to strive for it. In fact, I imagine many in that crowd
on the hill above the Sea of Galilee scoffed at His words or left discouraged; they
thought that if He is serious about what He is saying then there is no hope for
them because no one could ever meet such a standard. Even the venerated
Moses got angry and threw the tablets of the 10 Commandments to the ground,
breaking them into pieces.
In verses 23 and 24 Yeshua gives another example of what to do when anger is
at work. But this time it is not about anger in you, but rather it is anger in your
brother. The idea is that there has been some kind of issue between two people,
and while the one seems to have moved on, the other (the one called "brother")
has not. The subject, then, is reconciliation. Some go so far as to call this a short
parable because it cannot be a real life situation. A worshipper cannot leave a
sacrifice at the Temple altar, go away, spend the time to make peace with a
fellow Jew, and then come back later to complete the ritual. The point that is
being made is that there are higher virtues than making sacrifices; and among
those are reconciliation among your fellows and obedience to God.
CJB 1 Samuel 15:22 Sh'mu'el said, "Does ADONAl take as much pleasure
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying what ADONAl says? Surely
obeying is better than sacrifice, and heeding orders than the fat of rams.
To be clear: nothing Samuel said, or Christ is saying, in any way diminishes the
value of Torah ordained Temple worship or sacrifice. Rather it is that it is always
better not to sin in the first place, than it is to sin and then need to sacrifice to
seek forgiveness.
Who is your brother in this instance? There's no consensus on this but I feel
certain that from the simple literal standpoint (P'shat) Yeshua can only mean
Jews because at this time only Jews could be involved in Temple sacrifices from
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
His example. From a bit deeper reading, however, there is a hint (Remez) that in
another sense one's brother is any fellow human being. That is, when one
sacrifices, it is for the purpose of atonement seeking forgiveness from God.
Therefore the principle is that one must reconcile and be at peace with one's
fellow man before seeking forgiveness from God. Obviously this has logical
limitations (we can only be at peace with those who also agree to be at peace
with us). This principle would have rung true to the ears of Yeshua's audience
since this concept was already part of the Jewish religious/social fabric.
In the Mishna, Yoma 8:9, we read this;
"Yom Kippur atones for a person's transgressions against God, but it does
not atone for his transgressions against his fellow man until he appeases
him".
Where Yeshua seems to have raised the degree of difficulty for His followers is
that in Judaism then and now, it was the offender who was obligated to make
peace with the offended. And it seems here that the offended, too, has an
obligation to actively seek reconciliation.
Christ completes His treatise on anger and reconciliation with verses 25 and 26
and He does so in a judicial setting. Or better, in a setting that might normally
lead to a judicial trial but ought not to. Once again notice the words: it is NOT if
YOU sue someone; rather it is if someone sues YOU. Thus it is that someone
has something against you. And, there is no language that explains whether one
party or the other is as fault, or whether one party is right and the other wrong.
Since the last words are "until you have paid the last penny", then clearly the
example assumes the matter of an unpaid debt. Under the Torah Law, even
under Jewish Law (Halakah) one is not to be jailed for defaulting on a debt.
However Roman justice was often appealed to by Jews in that era, especially on
matters of money and debt. We see a somewhat different example of this appeal
to Roman justice when a crowd of Jews appealed to Pontius Pilate to have a
murderer released but Jesus crucified. So again some commentators see these
verses as a kind of parable and not something that is likely in real life. But the
point is once again that reconciliation is better achieved between people than
having an outside party impose their view of justice upon them.
The summation of what we need to take away from verses 21 - 26 is this: anger
leads to the lack of peace, and therefore the need for reconciliation. Anger (at
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Lesson 16 - Matthew 5 cont 4
least in the way the we humans normally think of it) is wicked in Christ's eyes. But
should anger occur, and peace is broken, then reconciliation must be sought
even before seeking God for forgiveness for our anger. Further, reconciliation
needs to be a transaction between two (or more) willing individuals whereby the
reconciliation is reached not so much as an accommodation to avoid the courts
as it is the right and Godly attitude that as God worshippers we ought to strive
for. Such a Godly attitude gives us all the tools we need to restore peace; or
better yet, avoid anger and strife in the first place.
We'll continue with verse 27 and the matter of adultery next time.
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 17, Chapter 5 Continued 5
We've been in Matthew chapter 5 long enough that a reminder of the setting and
background for the Sermon on the Mount is in order.
The setting is the Galilee. It is the serene rural agricultural and shepherding
center of the Holy Land. Above the Sea of Galilee, which was somewhat larger
then than it is today, are gentle rolling hills covered with mustard plants, poppies,
and a variety of grasses and small bushes. The trees are few and not large.
Somewhere in those hills a crowd of thousands of Jews gathered, mostly the
common folk, from places as far away as Syria. Why did they come? What drew
them there? It was to encounter Yeshua. Was it a religious encounter they
sought? Not in the sense we moderns think of it. In that era what we would call
"religion" was not separated and compartmentalized away from all other aspects
of their lives. A god or a spirit always was involved in whatever activity was
occurring. These thousands of Jews, however, did not come because they
thought they were going to meet their Messiah.
CJB Matthew 4:23-5:2 23 Yeshua went all over the Galli teaching in their
synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing
people from every kind of disease and sickness. 24 Word of him spread
throughout all Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill, suffering
from various diseases and pains, and those held in the power of demons,
and epileptics and paralytics; and he healed them. 25 Huge crowds followed
him from the Galil, the Ten Towns, Yerushalayim, Y'hudah, and 'Ever␂HaYarden.
CJB Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill. After he sat
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
down, his talmidim came to him, 2 and he began to speak. This is what he
taught them:
So the people came in the hope of healing of their physical ailments. The
teaching they would receive was a bonus.
Likely the place was near to Capernaum because that was where Yeshua was
currently residing. At this time the Jewish people looked upon Jesus as a Tzadik,
a Holy Man that was a miracle working healer. A Tzadik would come along every
now and then without warning. These men could indeed actually heal in the
name and power of the Lord God of Israel. So when a Holy Man appeared the
sick and the lame would flock to him.
Christ had not yet publicly revealed His divine nature nor His mission as the
Messiah that had been foretold in the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh. I use the term
"Bible" in a loose way. Jews did not own or carry around a neatly bound holy
book as we do in our time. For one reason, the various books of the Old
Testament were written down on rather bulky scrolls. Since each precious word
had to be copied and re-copied by hand, there were few Jews that had such
ability or authority to do so, and it was rare that even a well-to-do person might
possess much more than a single book of the Bible. Therefore actual Scripture
teaching occurred only at the local Synagogue (where many could hear it at one
time), and even then Scripture teaching took a backseat to the teachings of the
Traditions of the Elders that the Pharisees who dominated the Synagogues
advocated and insisted upon.
As His speech to the crowd began, Yeshua first acknowledged who was present
in a series of blessings. Next He paused and made a crucial statement.... a sort
of preamble.... prior to the remainder of His teaching. There He cautioned in a
kind of pre-emptive strike that in no way should anyone think that what He would
say abolished, changed, added to or subtracted from the Law and the Prophets
(that term was shorthand for the entire Tanakh what we call the Old
Testament). In wanting to be certain that He was not going to be misunderstood
or misrepresented, He elaborated by saying that not even one letter in one word
of the Scriptures would be abolished or changed until the present heavens and
earth passed away. And further that anyone who disobeyed any part of the Holy
Scriptures (the Law, specifically), and taught others to do so, would be eternally
relegated to the lowest possible rung of society and status in the Kingdom of
Heaven. Afterwards He began to teach, often by stating one or another of the 10
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
Commandments and explaining that while doing them was still required, the
intent and mental attitude that a worshipper approached in observing the
commandment was every bit as important as the action itself.
Reconciliation rather than revenge or even a lawsuit was Christ's instruction in
various situations from having anger towards someone to the matter of collecting
an unpaid debt. We left off at verse 26, so open your Bibles to verse 27.
READ MATTHEW 5:27 - end
I want to remind you of something I said from an earlier lesson. Yes, we are
crawling through these verses at a pace that would make a snail seem like
Secretariat. The reason is that the Jewish cultural understanding that goes
without saying of those in attendance, an understanding that is embedded within
Yeshua's words, is not usually known to us in the West in the 21st century. That
cultural understanding provides the needed context for extracting correct
meaning from Christ's statements. Therefore for us to grasp the meaning and
intent, and to apply it properly to our lives, we must be open minded and willing to
invest our time to be instructed in the ways and customs of that ancient and
foreign civilization.
Yeshua quotes Exodus 20:14, the 7
th Commandment: thou shall not commit
adultery. This commandment is the proverbial "can of worms" since its giving at
Mt. Sinai. It is a direct commandment concerning sexual behavior, and the
operation of morality within it. And since the command is brief, later Moses will
give further instruction on it. Today, in a time when even the fundamental concept
of morality is questioned (even angrily rejected by some), sexual behavior has
become little more than a playground of pleasure seeking with nearly no
boundaries whatsoever. It is not unusual for those who seek such pleasures to
argue about what the Bible says regarding it, and they enjoy reminding Christians
that the Church long ago threw away the laws of God and replaced it with Jesus
and love. So the conclusion is that this 7
th Commandment, and all the offshoots
that stem from it, no longer matters because Jesus did away with those ancient
sexual limitations. If you want to know why sexual immorality is now the norm in
the West, simply look to the pulpit. It is Christian leaders and commentators who
are responsible for creating this avalanche of sex sin due to their tolerance of
anything and everything, false doctrines and denials of plain biblical truth.
Understanding what this 7
th commandment means and entails requires some
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
explanation before we get into how Yeshua dealt with it. So before we get to the
second part of Christ's instruction about it, I want to draw heavily from the
teaching I did on Exodus 20:14 some years ago.
The 7
th Commandment is that a married person should not commit adultery. The
first thing to understand is that the entire concept of adultery, by definition, ONLY
occurs within the institution of a marriage; outside of a marriage, adultery has no
meaning. Marriage is not only an important element of God's plan for mankind,
but it plays a role in God's relationship with mankind.
The fundamental concept of a marriage is that a "union" occurs; as concerns
human-to-human relationships, scripturally speaking, this marriage union is
between a man and a woman. Let me say that again: there is no provision for
same sex marriage in the Bible. In fact, such a notion is an oxymoron. While we
too often think of marriage as a physical or sexual matter, or in our American
society as a financial or legal matter, in fact the union God is dealing with in the
7th Commandment is first and foremost a spiritual union. Certainly in the present
world the physical aspects of marriage exist, and not the least of reasons for it is
the propagation of our species. From Yehoveh's perspective, the sin of adultery
is less about a husband or a wife having a physical sexual union outside of their
marriage than it is about our spirits entering into an unauthorized union with
another. God has authorized that a man and a woman, before Him, may be
joined in every level of union between themselves; but ONLY between
themselves. The only other union allowed within that marriage is with God.
You've probably noticed that our union with Christ is often spoken of in the Bible
using marriage terminology; and its use is both metaphorical and real. That fact
should help us to be more aware of how we are to consider the essence of
marriage from Yehoveh's point of view, and how we are to consider the nature of
our relationship with Christ. Just as earthly marriage is meant to be a man and a
woman coming into union with one another, Salvation is humanity's union with
Christ.
We who are Christ's are, figuratively speaking, currently in a state of betrothal to
Him. We are in the marriage PROCESS. Right now, Christ is with us in Spirit,
and so we are in union with Him in spirit. But there will be a time in the future
when we will be in union with him in a much more tangible and complete way. So
even during our current earthly time of betrothal to Christ for us to come into
union with something or someone that is forbidden is to place us into a state of
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
unfaithfulness to Christ. This, therefore, puts us in a state of adultery in our
relationship with Christ.
The NT Greek word "moichos" (moy-kos), which is typically correctly translated
"adultery", must be understood in its OT Hebrew sense in order for us to fully
understand what God is telling us about adultery. When the Hebrews spoke of
adultery they meant unfaithfulness to your union partner. It did NOT have to be
an overt act of having sex with another person to be considered adultery,
although most often that is what occurred. What constituted adultery, and the
proper proofs and punishments for it, changed considerably over time. During the
time of the Patriarchs, adultery required the wife to have had sex with another
man. No proof other than the husband's suspicions were needed, and he himself
could put her to death. The Laws of Moses brought the requirement for conviction
to a minimum of two witnesses. By the time of Christ much more proof was
needed, a court of law would rule on the matter, and death was still one of a
range of possible punishments. Not long AFTER Christ, the death penalty was
removed for the sin of adultery because it had become so rampant within Jewish
society that it was almost impossible to police; and the number of women that
would have been executed was so large as to make carrying out the death
sentence unthinkable. During all biblical times, adultery was considered primarily
a female crime and sin....men were usually not subject to it.
There are certain unions available to mankind that we are prohibited from
entering into, especially if we wish to also be in union with Christ. In other words
there are some unions that are mutually exclusive. An extreme example would be
that if we come into spiritual union with Satan, we can not also be in spiritual
union with Christ....those two unions being mutually exclusive. There are other
forbidden unions, all of them destructive. So we need to understand the serious
nature of this particular sin in a much broader context than we typically think of it.
In Matthew 5:27 and 28, Yeshua essentially explains how adultery comes about.
It is that it always begins in the mind as the product of our evil inclination. If one
first doesn't fantasize about it and embrace the idea, it doesn't happen. Therefore
when married men eye other women in a lustful way, then Yeshua says that from
God's perspective the act of adultery has already occurred (the thought being
that embracing the idea inevitably leads to the doing of it). The God-principle is
that just as anger is the initiating cause of murder, so is lust the initiating cause of
adultery. Especially in the 21st century pornography is perhaps the number one
expression of lust in the lives of males; married or otherwise. There can be no
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
intellectually honest defense of the use of pornography as anything other than
immoral lusting and therefore it is sin. And there is no doubt that the widespread
use of pornography has ignited the epidemic of adultery in our society. Yet I want
to be clear: the notion being spoken by Christ that the intention is to be
considered as the deed was nothing new or novel among Jews. The Academy of
Shammai, which represents the source of doctrine for one of the two greatest
factions of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, also taught this same principle.
Although Yeshua quoted from, and is discussing, the 7
th Commandment His
instruction about adultery actually approaches the matter through the worldview
of the 10th Commandment: do not covet. That is, coveting is a sinful state of
mind. Coveting is a sinful intention. It is the desire to obtain something forbidden.
Coveting is not the action itself. Thus it is the disobedience to the
10th Commandment (when the intent occurs) that ushers in the disobedience to
the 7
th Commandment (when the actual physical deed of adultery occurs).
Yeshua continues to expand on this matter of intention leading to the doing of the
sin in verses 29 and 30. So verse 28 speaks of "looking upon a woman"
(coveting), and verse 29 says that even if it is your right eye that you are using to
"look", then you should gouge it out and get rid of it. In Jewish thought the right
side of anything is the best side, or the strongest side, so it is the most valuable
side. Therefore it is not only that you lose your eye, you lose your best eye.
Naturally this is an expression because unless you have damaged eyes, for most
people our two eyes see equally well. And why should someone who is prone to
lusting after women gouge out their best eye? Because it is better to lose that
eye than it is to have our entire body thrown into Gei-Hinnom and destroyed.
Even if one doesn't know what Gei-Hinnom is, it sounds like a really bad thing
that nobody wants to have happen to them. Many translations will use the word
"*". That isn't exactly wrong, but it certainly isn't right. Gei-Hinnom is a valley
that runs through the south of Jerusalem; today it is simply called the Hinnom
Valley. In Yeshua's era it was Jerusalem's municipal garbage dump. Jerusalem
was a city with several thousand people living there. As you might imagine, they
generated tons of trash: animal carcasses, human waste, items that became
unclean through contact with blood or other body fluids that saturated them, and
so on. Every filthy and disgusting thing you can think of was thrown into this
valley. The refuse was then lit on fire and the fires burned continually, night and
day, while sulfur was thrown onto it to try and disguise the nauseating odors.
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
It is well documented that in prior times this same valley was used for the same
purposes, but it was also used by the Canaanites for human sacrifice; often
children. The dead bodies of the murdered were simply thrown into the burning
waste. So it is easily seen that the threat of sinning a sin that could cause you to
be thrown into Gei-Hinnom was about the worst punishment imaginable. It is
true that the idea of *, a place of fire and torment for the dead, was associated
with Gei-Hinnom. But * was viewed as an underworld place where the wicked
dead lived; Judeo-Christianity would say it is a spiritual place of
evil. Gei-Hinnom in the 1st century was as real and tangible as it gets. In Christ's
day it wasn't evil; but it was unclean and frighteningly disgusting.
I suppose Christ's instruction that plucking your eye out and discarding it as a
good solution to lust can only be labeled in modern Western terms as
exaggeration and hyperbole because He certainly wasn't suggesting self
mutilation. The point was to illustrate just how serious of a sin adultery is, and
that since the fuel of adultery is lust (coveting), and the source of that fuel was
what was taken in through the portal of the eye, then one should make every
effort to avoid it even if it means destroying that portal.
Notice that Yeshua is talking to the men. Remember: in His day adultery was
seen in Jewish society as primarily a crime committed by women; men were
largely exempt. So this teaching was a battering ram to challenge and to smash
this false doctrine that so favored males. Ironically it is men who are really
tempted the most by lust because men are visually oriented creatures. This is
why pornography is such a great and destructive temptation for men. It will never
stop being a temptation as long as it exists. And men, don't ever think you'll be
the one who can use pornography for whatever your reason, but that it won't
inevitably lead you to wrong sexual behavior because you are uniquely able to
resist it. It is no different than the person who believes they can use cocaine or
crack and they'll be the one who will avoid becoming addicted. Is using
pornography a sin? Of course it is because it is lusting (coveting) after women
who are not your wife. And yes, single men, it is similar for you. It is lust and the
fantasizing it produces that leads to wrong sexual behavior. Once again: lust is
coveting. And it is exactly what Jesus is warning about.
In verse 30 Christ adds to the dramatic hyperbole by saying that if your right hand
makes you sin, cut it off (just as it is with a lustful eye). Once again the meaning
of "right" is "best" hand. While the eye is the portal to the invisible mind, the hand
is representative of the visible physical part of us that carries out what the mind
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
instructs the body to do. In another setting, while with His disciples, Yeshua
repeats this same principle using similar illustrations in Matthew chapter 18.
CJB Matt. 18:9 9 And if your eye is a snare for you, gouge it out and fling it
away! Better that you should be one-eyed and obtain eternal life than keep
both eyes and be thrown into the fire of Gei-Hinnom.
Christ moves on to the next subject in verse 31 but it is not altogether detached
from the subject of verses 27-30. The subject is divorce, but it includes the
possibility that under certain circumstances divorce can cause the woman to
become an adulteress; and anyone who marries her then becomes a participant
in her adultery, which makes them an adulterer as well. I want to pause here to
comment that in the Bible, especially so in the Old Testament but it is also the
case in the New Testament, it is men who divorce their wives (not the other way
around), and it is the women who generally bear the blame and any punishment
involved. We must take this in the context of that era. It was a society that was
male dominated to a degree that Western women in the 21st century have not
experienced. Jewish women at that time were not chattel; but they also had little
power. By custom the lives of women were in the hands of men. Therefore when
Yeshua speaks of divorce it is of course a man divorcing his wife. And, says
Jesus, the only reason a man could legitimately, and without consequence,
divorce his wife is if she has been unfaithful to him (notice there is no thought of
the man being unfaithful to his wife, which in reality had a much higher probability
of happening).
Yeshua's entire treatment of divorce finds its original source in the Torah in
Deuteronomy 24.
CJB Deuteronomy 24:1 "Suppose a man marries a woman and
consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing, because he has
found her offensive in some respect. He writes her a divorce document,
gives it to her and sends her away from his house. 2 She leaves his house,
goes and becomes another man's wife; 3 but the second husband dislikes
her and writes her a get, gives it to her and sends her away from his house;
or the second husband whom she married dies. 4
In such a case her first
husband, who sent her away, may not take her again as his wife, because
she is now defiled. It would be detestable to ADONAI, and you are not to
bring about sin in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your
inheritance.
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
Deuteronomy deals with some nuances within a divorce situation, making divorce
an undesirable, but not illegal, occurrence. Yeshua doesn't overturn it or change
it. He merely makes the case that divorce shouldn't happen in the first place. But
if it does, the only legitimate reason for a man to divorce his wife is her
unfaithfulness to him. Matthew's description of Christ's words are (frankly) not
easy to interpret. I believe that there are two main reasons for this difficulty. First,
I suspect there is some kind of textual corruption of the Greek manuscripts that
are oldest ones we have. Second there are some unspoken cultural customs that
the people of that era went by, but we aren't familiar with. If we take what is said
perfectly literally, then basically we have Christ saying that a woman who is
divorced by her husband is automatically guilty of adultery. That she becomes
an adulteress is said to be caused by her husband. This hardly seems
reasonable if for no other reason it does not adhere to the basic God-principle
that we are each responsible only for our own sins and not those of others. In the
case of a divorce involving a woman who had remained faithful to her husband,
the wife had little to no say in the matter and certainly wasn't the party to cause
the divorce or to initiate it. This situation doesn't jibe with Deuteronomy. There a
divorced woman is not in any way labeled an adulteress simply because her
husband decides to divorce her.
Further Christ's words are that if the divorced woman gets remarried, then her
new husband also becomes guilty of adultery. Deuteronomy in no way puts such
a conviction of adultery upon a divorced woman's new husband. It is well known,
historically, that divorce ran rampant in the 1st century Jewish community. Men
would frivolously divorce their wives, go and have a quick affair with another
woman, and then come back and remarry the same woman sometimes in a
matter of a few days. This was because the way that the Law of Moses was
interpreted by many of the Rabbis was that the man could technically avoid the
sin of adultery (a sin within a marriage) by first divorcing his wife before he had
that brief tryst with another woman. And because a man divorcing his wife was
not labeled as sin for the husband in the Law, then he was home free. Could it be
that this was the background for Yeshua's words? I think it is a definite possibility.
Most everything we read in the Bible, including the New Testament and Christ's
words, were in the setting and circumstances of the times. The only other
possibility in my mind is that Yeshua was saying that divorce and remarriage
destroy the concept of lifelong monogamy. So no amount of rules about divorce,
no matter how fair, change the fact that the underlying meaning of marriage in
the first place is a permanent bond between a man and a woman. However I
think even that is a bit of a stretch and not something His audience would have
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
taken from that instruction.
In verse 33 it seems as though Yeshua leaves the subject of the 10
Commandments and gets into some other standard rules of Jewish society.
However buried in it is a reference to another of the 10 Commandments. Nearly
every Bible version has its own unique translation of Christ's words because the
interpretation is a bit difficult. The CJB version, and few others, use both the
words vow and oath and so some commentators try to approach this verse on
the basis of distinguishing between the meaning of a vow versus an oath.
However in most settings in the Bible, the distinction between vow and oath is
paper thin. For all practical purposes the words are interchangeable. I think the
YLT is the best of the bunch.
YLT Matthew 5:33 'Again, ye heard that it was said to the ancients: Thou
shalt not swear falsely, but thou shalt pay to the Lord thine oaths;
Whenever a person "swore" something meant that the person was certifying the
truthfulness and veracity of a statement or a transaction, but the swearing by
nature involved invoking the name of that person's god. Therefore among Jews
to swear something meant to invoke Yehoveh's name as the guarantor of
whatever the statement or transaction was. This was absolutely in line with a
command of God given in the Torah.
CJB Leviticus 19:12 Do not swear by my name falsely, which would be
profaning the name of your God; I am ADONAl.
This gets fleshed out a bit further a little later in the Torah.
CJB Numbers 30:2-3 2 Then Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the
people of Isra'el. He said, "Here is what ADONAl has ordered: 3 when a man
makes a vow to ADONAl or formally obligates himself by swearing an oath,
he is not to break his word but is to do everything he said he would do.
But Yeshua says not to swear at all, not even if you are NOT using God's name.
That is, don't swear by anything not by Heaven, not by the earth, and not by
Jerusalem. Heaven is God's created place where His throne is located. Not by
the earth because it is God's created place and is said in Isaiah 66 that it is His
property.... His footstool to be specific. And not by Jerusalem because it is the
city of the great King (a reference to God's created earthly dwelling place). All this
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
seems logical within the religious sphere, doesn't it? All these things (Heaven,
earth, Jerusalem) are part of God's realm and so they have a firm relationship to
God. But then Yeshua says not to swear also by your head. Clearly your head
isn't part of God's realm. In the Mishna, generally speaking the rule was that
oaths sworn by Heaven, earth, even the Temple are not valid.
Yeshua goes on to say rather than swearing an oath, just make your yes, yes...
and your no, no. In fact, He says that to do anything more has its origin in evil.
Those last few words, especially, are what have caused all sorts of various
opinions about exactly what Yeshua was instructing. Frankly, the main problem
for the many denominations in deciding what to do with this statement has to do
with the first and foremost doctrine of the Christian Church: the Old Testament,
along with its rules, laws, instructions, prohibitions, etc., are dead and gone so
there is no point in looking to it for answers. That false doctrine causes needless
confusion in understanding this matter.
First of all, there is no prohibition against making vows and oaths in the Torah or
anywhere in the Old Testament. And, at least the early Church that was
organized and operated out of synagogues, and administered mostly by Jewish
Believers, never understood Jesus as no longer allowing vows. Even the Apostle
Paul felt obligated to fulfill a vow such that he ventured to Jerusalem and the
Temple to do so. Since Yeshua made it abundantly clear in Matthew 5:17 - 19
that nothing He would say was in any way meant to be taken that He was
abolishing, changing, adding to or subtracting from not only the Torah but the
entire Tanakh (Old Testament) then that must always be our point of reference
when trying to interpret His statements.
Just as marriage and divorce had become frivolous within Jewish society during
Christ's era, so was making frivolous vows that the vow maker had no intent of
actually following through with. It had just become a manner of speech. We do
that in our time by saying things like "with God as my witness" or "the Lord
knows". This is using the Lord's name as the guarantor of what it is you are
claiming in other words you are making an oath or vow even if you didn't
realize it (that is the nature of frivolous). And that violates the 3rd Commandment:
thou shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. Again; is it wrong to make an
oath or vow in God's name? No. But God absolutely expects us to do what we
vowed or that we know our claim was true. Otherwise we have used His name in
a vain way.
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Lesson 17 - Matthew 5 cont 5
At the same time God doesn't command us to make an oath or vow to prove our
truthfulness or our intent. However as we learn when reading in Judges about the
tragedy of Jephthah's innocent daughter, making a frivolous or careless vow that
we can't or don't carry out can have disastrous unintended consequences or it
can remain as an Albatross around our neck. Christ's viewpoint is: don't make
vows and oaths at all. One more time: by nature, in the biblical era, vows and
oaths automatically included invoking a god's name. So we must understand
vows and oaths in that context. In a legitimate religious setting, such as a
marriage ceremony, of course it is proper to make a vow. But in a typical daily
social setting, or a business transaction.... stay clear. Don't back up your "yes" by
invoking God's name. Don't back up your "no" by invoking God's name. Being
truthful is enough especially for a follower of Christ.
This issue about Jesus saying that going any further than "yes" or "no" has its
origin in evil is clearly addressing a cultural and societal issue of that time (which
we've already discussed) because making a legitimate vow or oath in God's
name is in no way evil. But... it can be fraught with danger for the one making the
vow.
We'll stop here for today and finally conclude Matthew 5 next time.
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 18, Chapter 5 Conclusion
Despite the happy fiction that in Yeshua's day the Jewish people practiced a
religion that was rather pure and Torah driven, in reality what they practiced was
a religion based mostly on Tradition. Naturally the Jews were not a monolithic
culture; they weren't several million bodies that shared one religious mindset.
Two major divisions of the Jewish religion and culture existed that for the sake of
simplicity we could call Judaism: one, which was observed by the small minority
of Jews who lived in the Holy Land, and the other, which was observed by the
overwhelming majority of Jews that lived in the Diaspora (that is, the 95% of all
living Jews at that time who chose to reside in foreign nations). There were
numerous debates and arguments over which Traditions taught by the various
Jewish religious authorities ought to be obeyed, and so where one lived and who
one listened to had much to do with the specific Traditions that were taught and
accepted.
Christ dealt primarily with the Holy Land Jews. On the other hand Paul, the most
prolific and influential writer in the New Testament, dealt primarily with Diaspora
Jews. So what they each said, and how they each approached the matter of who,
exactly, Yeshua was, what He represented, and how that might affect one's life
and decisions, was tailored to their audience. In no way am I implying that what
they each taught was in conflict. Rather when reading the Gospels and then the
Epistles it can, at times, seem so because the way things are worded and what
issues are dealt with had everything to do with where they were and who they
were talking to. In the Sermon on the Mount Yeshua was speaking to a mixed
audience of Jews, but most were Holy Land residents (and I am defining the Holy
Land as mainly Judea and the Galilee although in a sense Samaria perhaps
should be included). Thus what we see Christ doing in His speech is trying to
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
straighten out centuries of teaching and beliefs that were based on doctrines
(traditions) that had arisen, which had essentially pushed aside actual biblical
Torah teaching. This had resulted in a number of wrong understandings and thus
wrong behaviors and attitudes. This same reality is so very applicable to the
Church in our time.
Recently I listened to a podcast in which the author of a new book "A Church of
Cowards: A Wake-up Call to Complacent Christians" spoke to the moderator
about the serious decline of Christianity in the West; a decline that began in
Europe and has now infected America coast-to-coast. I was struck far less with
what Matt Walsh said (most of which I applauded) than with what he didn't say.
He spoke of an endemic pessimism in the Church that only offered what he
called a cheap hope. Rather than focus on the joyful future God has ordained for
Believers (in the eternal realm), the sermons of today focus on modern cultural
and social justice issues, most of which are politically motivated. According to the
author this cheap hope is also embodied in the infamous Prosperity Doctrine
championed but such famous TV evangelists as Joel Osteen. He went on to say
that the main problem lies with those who man the pulpit; and yet that, itself, is a
reflection of the many who form the congregations. And, in his most pointed
comment, he said the issue of marriage in general, and * marriage in specific,
has greatly damaged the Church perhaps beyond the ability to repair it. But he
never once mentioned or even alluded to the place and authority of the Bible in
modern Western Christianity. Never did he use the Holy Scriptures as his source
for his own beliefs nor did he discuss how the words of the Bible are taught or
interpreted among various Church branches and denominations, especially as
concerns * marriage and * ministers. And there-in is the elephant in the
room that is either ignored or denied by the Church at large such that the Bible
isn't even on the radar of a writer whose honest concern is the demise of the
Church in America. The sad reality is that the Bible is either not taught, or
passages are often lifted and quoted completely out of context, or its words are
given a spin that negates their actual plain meaning in order to uphold a
particular denomination's faith doctrines or social worldview.
My point is this: Traditions are merely another way of saying doctrines. Traditions
and doctrines are two ways of saying the same thing. But what they are not is
Holy Scripture. Christians enjoy criticizing Jews for basing their faith around
Traditions, while at the same time passionately defending their Christian faith that
is based around doctrines. And in both cases doing so has led the Church and
the Synagogue far off the mark because the Holy Scriptures are not only little
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
known by the congregations or the leadership, it has also weakened both
institutions and now the basis for decision making has more to do with the
Church maintaining its existence and being accepted by the secular world than in
dispensing and standing up for God's truth. The result is devastating and indeed
has led us into the abyss.
The most powerful of ocean going vessels become vulnerable and perhaps
useless when they lose their rudders. The rudder for the Christian Church has
always been, and must always be, the Bible....the whole Bible, and not just
favored sections of it. But today that rudder has been traded in for a steering
mechanism of manmade doctrines, and the preaching of politically based
principles that come and go with the seasons. Yeshua, in His Sermon on the
Mount, was dealing with the same problem, and it is the reason that He spoke to
His fellow Jews in the manner that He did, and on the subjects He chose.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
RE-READ MATTHEW 5:38 - end
Beginning in verse 38, in rapid sequence Christ speaks to 4 issues that are all
interrelated. First, a person is insulted. Second, a person is taken to court. Third,
someone insists that a person is to be involuntarily pressed into service to them.
Fourth, a person is asked to give something to another who asks for it. Before we
discuss the first issue, notice something critical: none of these issues involves
criminality and in most cases, sin is not the issue. In fact every one of these
cases is about a relatively small personal matter.
The initial thing we must address is the reading of verse 38 itself. Notice the CJB
version.
CJB Matthew 5:38 "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Eye for eye
and tooth for tooth.
Now here is how we find the same statement in nearly all other English Bible
translations:
KJV Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth:
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
The words "our fathers" that we find the CJB are not there in the Greek. Rather it
is a rather ambiguous source that Christ refers to who has said "an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth". "Our fathers" is an assumption that David Stern
assigns from some earlier passages and I don't think such an assumption should
be made. Rather Jesus seems to be speaking of the issue of an eye for an eye in
the form of it being a well known and common saying as opposed to a formal
Torah law. It is not unlike the typical Christian saying that cleanliness is close to
Godliness. It sounds like something from the Bible, but it isn't. In general it is
accepted among Christians as authentic and true without much thought and so
Believers tend to follow the concept in whatever way seems good to them.
So the saying and the common understanding among the people about an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is general belief about the biblical principle of
proportional justice. However the issue is: in what life situations is this principle to
be applied? The next words of the passage say that the life situation is when
someone does you wrong. Most other Bible versions will refer to a person who is,
or is doing, evil. The Greek word being translated as evil is poneros; it means
bad, or troublesome, full of annoyances or hardships. So we shouldn't equate the
use of the word as meaning the same as wicked in the spiritual sense (such as
being in league with the Devil). Rather this is more like the troublesome neighbor
next door who always seems to be causing some kind of upset or another. Then
Christ gives an example of what He means (that is of itself also a principle) when
He says one of the most memorable and regularly quoted lines in the Bible. He
says if someone hits you on the right cheek, then let him also hit you on the left.
And for the most part sermons on this passage are about Jesus being a pacifist
and therefore what Christ wants is for us to not resist a criminal act upon us. This
is an incorrect interpretation.
First; the context is not about criminality but about not taking personal
vengeance. In that day taking personal vengeance for many perceived wrongs
done against you was rather usual. A person couldn't call 911 and make a
complaint if they were being harassed or threatened. Today in the West one
cannot handle the simplest of wrongs done against us in any other lawful way but
by calling the police or perhaps hiring a lawyer. Let me remind you once more:
this is not about criminal acts. This is not about getting stabbed, or having an
animal stolen. The example given of being slapped on the cheek in our day
would amount to assault and battery. It is considered an aggressive attack. But in
Jesus's day it was not seen as an act of criminal violence so it was not something
unlawful. Rather a man having his face slapped was done to inflict shame upon
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
him.
Middle Eastern society then and now is based on the fundamental concepts of
shame and honor. It is about a culture being built upon societal status. In a
shame and honor society maintaining one's social status of honor is paramount.
How one can be muddied and reduced to a status of shame is complex because
to our Western minds many of these reasons for being shamed make little sense
to us. What we have to keep in mind is that a person who has been shamed will
stop at nothing to regain a status of honor. Personal revenge is built into the
shame and honor system. It is expected that a person who has been shamed will
do harm, and they will murder if need be to remedy the problem.
We have all heard of the term "honor killing"; this is precisely about an act of
murder perpetrated within the cultural system of shame and honor. Often a
person who is living in a status of shame will kill the one perceived as having
caused them to lose their honor knowing they may pay the ultimate price for it.
But it doesn't matter because if that act relieves their shame and restores their
honor in the eyes of their family, peers, and community then it was worth it to
them. They are even admired for it. That is the high level of importance placed
upon it in a shame and honor society of Christ's day and continuing until today in
most Muslim societies.
Interestingly the Law of Moses was designed to create a society based on guilt
and innocence, and not on shame and honor. Therefore the Torah does not allow
personal retribution because of the loss of social status.... of being shamed. Still
Israel was heavily influenced by their past and especially by their neighbors who
had no such restrictions on personal vengeance for the sake of restoring honor.
God ordained what was sin and criminal, and He ordained the proper punishment
(if any) for it. In Leviticus 19:18 we find the law to love your neighbor as yourself;
this formed the basis for disallowing revenge for being shamed. Proverbs says:
CJB Proverbs 24:29 Don't say, "I'll do to him what he did to me, I'll pay him
back what his deeds deserve." And in another place in the Torah we read:
CJB Deuteronomy 32:35 Vengeance and payback are mine for the time
when their foot slips; for the day of their calamity is coming soon, their
doom is rushing upon them'
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
What these Old Testament versus tell us is that the concept of turning the other
cheek (not seeking revenge for being shamed) was not at all new. Rather it was
a basic Torah concept. So why did Yeshua see the need to address such an
ancient concept? Because Jewish society had become a Tradition based society
that ran on the manmade precepts created by the religious authorities. Precepts
that they said were interpretations of the Torah. And because the Romans had
inflicted their cultural ideas of justice upon Jewish society for more than a century
by the time Yeshua was born, much of it simply became the norm for the Jews
without them really thinking about the source. The Jews didn't have a reservoir of
Torah knowledge to draw upon. They didn't have Bibles in their homes. They
mostly knew what their society said was traditionally right and wrong, and what
the doctrines taught by the Rabbis said.
The next example of the behavior that Yeshua expects from His followers is in
verse 40. It is the case of someone being sued in court. The person wants your
shirt in payment; Christ says to give it to him and your coat as well. The principle
is to achieve reconciliation rather than to exact revenge even if it means giving up
more than one should reasonably have to give in order to reconcile. Why use the
illustration of being sued for one's garments (a rather unlikely occurrence)? In
Yeshua's time a Jewish commoner wore two basic garments; an inner and an
outer. The inner was a tunic-like article of clothing that was standard. The outer
was called a simlah in Hebrew; it was the more valuable and important of the 2
garments. While its use evolved over the centuries, in Christ's day it served as
both an overcoat and a blanket. Generally speaking a man's outer garment could
not be confiscated for non-payment of a debt, or for punishment. However there
were situations when the simlah might be used as collateral for a short term
loan. In that case then it could be held by the lender during the day but it had to
be returned to the borrower in the evening. The point being that this outer
garment was an especially important one to its wearer because among the
common and poorer Jews it was what kept them from exposure to the elements.
So the answer to the question of why Yeshua chose this particular case example
is that it was not a new law, but rather an ancient one. We find it in the Torah, in
the Book of Exodus.
CJB Exodus 22:25-26 25 If you take your neighbor's coat as collateral, you
are to restore it to him by sundown, 26 because it is his only garment- he
needs it to wrap his body; what else does he have in which to sleep?
Moreover, if he cries out to me, I will listen; because I am compassionate.
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
The bottom line of what Yeshua is teaching is that His followers are to obey the
Law of Moses by acting as the Father acts: with compassion towards humanity.
In verse 41 is the third example of what a follower of Yeshua is supposed to look
like and behave like. It is that if a follower is pressed to go a mile, they should go
two. What the exact context of this is, is not stated. David Stern inserts the word
"soldier" to describe the person who is demanding something. That word soldier
is not in the Greek manuscript. Rather it is in Greek hostis, which means
whoever or whatever; so it characterizes no one in particular. Even so the idea is
of being compelled to do something that would normally be against your will.
Something that is perhaps unreasonable or unfair.
Even though the word "soldier" is not there, the circumstance of the times when a
Roman soldier could force a Jew to do pretty much whatever he wanted done, is
either what Yeshua had in view or at least it provided a good illustration of the
principle. Later in Matthew we get an excellent example of this in chapter 27.
CJB Matthew 27:30-32 30 They spit on him and used the stick to beat him
about the head. 31 When they had finished ridiculing him, they took off the
robe, put his own clothes back on him and led him away to be nailed to the
execution-stake. 32 As they were leaving, they met a man from Cyrene
named Shim'on; and they forced him to carry Yeshua's execution-stake.
If this is indeed about a Roman solider ordering a Jew to carry something for him,
certainly it meant even more. This principle is also about an authority over you (of
any kind) compelling you to do something that from a government or legal
standpoint they may have the right or the clout to do no matter how unfair it might
be. Rather than rebelling against it as most might (and who would blame them?),
we as Christ's followers must not only graciously comply but do more than the
minimum that is being required. Why is this? Because just as the innocent
Yeshua hung on the cross and had compassion for those guilty parties who hung
next to him, and just as He also did not utter a sound or accuse or condemn
those Roman soldiers who wrongly beat and whipped Him, what an impression
Yeshua's behavior and response must have made on all who witnessed it and
likely on the very perpetrators of the cruelties as well. How many sinners have
come to faith and an eternal salvation because of the witness of courage and
grace shown by an innocent follower of Jesus in the face of pain and evil; the
number may never be known.
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
The fourth and final case example is verse 42. What might seem like 2 examples
(if someone asks you for something and if someone wants to borrow something)
is really just one synonymous expression. As I have demonstrated to you, none
of these cases represents any kind of a departure from the Torah. But they must
have represented a departure of a current mindset from the Tradition-based
Judaism that most Jews practiced and believed to be right.
The Law of Moses states:
CJB Deuteronomy 15:7-8 7 "If someone among you is needy, one of your
brothers, in any of your towns in your land which ADONAI your God is
giving you, you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from giving
to your needy brother. 8 No, you must open your hand to him and lend him
enough to meet his need and enable him to obtain what he wants.
So in this example we move from the realm of a person forcing you to do
something involuntarily, to the realm of voluntarily giving to the needy as
essentially a knee * reaction. Generosity was supposed to be a mainstay of
Hebrew society. Having an evil eye, or shutting your hand meant to be stingy. As
in all ancient societies most people were poor, and so the needy were
everywhere; some because of illness or lameness, some because they were
born into poverty, and others because of financial misfortune. Regardless of the
reason, the needy were to be given charity and cared for. Yeshua was
encouraging the practice of giving.
Verse 43 takes up the subject of love and of course uses one of the two
fundamental commandments of the Torah the two that Yeshua calls the
greatest commandments.... as the basis for His discourse on the subject. As with
verse 38, when we find in the CJB the statement: "You have heard that our
fathers were told", in fact in the Greek manuscripts the words "our fathers" are
not there. Rather the literal translation is: "You have heard that it was said".
Saying "our fathers" serves up the concept that these were the people who heard
Moses speak. That is not what is meant here. The idea is that what follows is a
general expression that has been woven into the fabric of Jewish society; an
expression that Jews believe is taken from the Torah, but in fact it is not. The
expression Yeshua quotes is: "You shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy". No where in the Law of Moses, the Torah, or the entire Tanakh (the Old
Testament) are God's people taught to hate their enemies. So essentially what
Christ quoted was a common belief and saying, but it was not true and it needed
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
correction.
Let's be clear about the issue of hating enemies. While the Jews, and we as
Believers, are not to hate our personal enemies, we are to hate God's enemies. If
we were to love the enemies of God, we would be giving up our loyalty to Him.
How can we love what God hates; or as Yeshua is teaching, how can we hate
what God loves? The context and theme of the last several verses is personal
vengeance. Since through 4 case examples Christ has illustrated how His
followers are to behave with our fellow man, He is showing how this behavior is
to be based upon love as opposed to accepted social customs. A person's
personal enemy is so far in chapter 5 defined as someone who has offended or
shamed him. And Yeshua says that we are not to hate the offender or the one
who has shamed us. Why is Christ addressing this? Even though clearly
Leviticus 19:18 teaches us that we are to love our fellow man and not hate him.
Because Jewish Traditions and social customs had perverted and overtaken
biblical Torah commandments and the people had been wrongly taught; so He
needed to straighten it out.
CJB Matthew 15:9 Their worship of me is useless, because they teach man␂made rules as if they were doctrines.'" Even in this statement of Jesus that came in another setting, He was not creating
a new command of God but rather re-establishing an old one that had been
overthrown by manmade doctrines.
CJB Isaiah 29:13-14 13 Then Adonai said: "Because these people approach
me with empty words, and the honor they bestow on me is mere lip-service;
while in fact they have distanced their hearts from me, and their 'fear of me'
is just a mitzvah of human origin- 14 therefore, I will have to keep shocking
these people with astounding and amazing things, until the 'wisdom' of
their 'wise ones' vanishes, and the 'discernment' of their 'discerning ones'
is hidden away." When will my beloved Church ever learn and accept the truth of Jesus and the
inspired words of Isaiah? We are a horribly fractured institution because of a
failure to discern and obey. It seems to be our human instinct to love the words of
human doctrines while we ignore or shun the Word of God the Holy
Scriptures, Old and New Testaments. And what is our reward for doing this?
Churches shutting down by the hundreds. Denominations splitting and then
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
splitting again usually not over biblical truth but over manmade doctrines. But
worse, the effectiveness of personal witness has become largely ineffective
because we prefer to speak hollow words and hand out Christian tracts rather
than to live and behave as Messiah has commanded us. People are turning away
from Christ instead of running to Him. And that is on us.... all of us.
So when Yeshua says in verse 4, "but I tell you, love your enemies", He is trying
not to establish His own new doctrine but rather He is trying to bring back the
God-given biblical ordinance. And the first thing that such love does is to pray for
those who persecute you! Remembering our discussion on the multi-dimensional
word "persecution", for those in Christ's audience this more means to pray for
those who offend, harass, shame, and ridicule and not so much those who do
harm or violence. Although ideally it includes all of these levels of persecution.
I wish to quote to you something from Davies' and Allison's commentary on
Matthew that is most poignant concerning what Yeshua is teaching.
"What does love mean? For Jesus it is no longer primarily a quality of
relationships within the fold....within the walls, which hold the dark and
threatening powers at a distance. It is something which must prove itself in
the engagement with that which is inimical (hostile) and threatening. This is
why Jesus can seek out the tax collectors and the sinners".
And yet even this was not new. It was always God's will that all would see such
love and be drawn towards Him. There are numerous passages in the Tanakh
that set the basis for what Christ is teaching. Isaiah 30:18, Ezekiel 18:23, Exodus
34:6, and so many more. Perhaps my favorite is Ezekiel 18:32.
CJB Ezekiel 18:32 I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies," says
Adonai ELOHIM, "so turn yourselves around, and live!
And what will be the result of obeying this God-principle of loving even your
enemies? Yeshua says in verse 45 that it will that you will become as sons of
God. The CJB says it this way:
CJB Matthew 5:45 Then you will become children of your Father in heaven.
For he makes his sun shine on good and bad people alike, and he sends
rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
Where the CJB and a few other translations say "children of your Father", others
correctly say "sons of your Father" because the Greek is huios and it means son
and not children. This is an important distinction because Yeshua is once again
reciting a Torah principle taken from Deuteronomy 14:1 and it is not something
new and novel.
I once heard it put this way: To return evil for good is the devil's way; to return
good for good is man's way; to return good for evil is God's way. Therefore just
as God provides the light and power of the sun upon all mankind, and not just a
certain few, and because He provides life giving rain upon those who are
righteous in Him as well as those who are not, then we must follow that example
and give love to those who don't love us. After all, says Jesus, what great reward
will we receive for only giving love back to those who love us? Even the hated tax
collectors (considered by the Jews as among the greatest sinners and most
despised enemies) are capable of returning love for love. And what good is it to
be friendly only to our friends? That is, it doesn't take much virtue to love and be
friendly to those inside your established family and social circle, but it does take
more determination and humility to love and be friendly with outsiders.
Chapter 5 ends with a command that essentially is the summation.... the bottom
line.... to what Christ has been teaching: "Be perfect, just as your Father in
Heaven is perfect". A new commandment of Jesus? No.
CJB Leviticus 20:26 26 Rather, you people are to be holy for me; because I,
ADONAI, am holy; and I have set you apart from the other peoples, so that
you can belong to me.
Without doubt the meaning of Christ's words "to be perfect" attends to moral
perfection. Yet no doubt nearly all the Jews listening to Yeshua would have
thought they were attempting to practice moral perfection by following Jewish
Law. Most members of the Church, today and throughout Church history, think
they are attempting to practice moral perfection by following their particular
Church's faith doctrines. But that moral perfection has been a moving target
because the definition of what amounts to moral perfection has shifted and
changed with the winds of time. This is because the leadership of Christianity and
Judaism have paid the most attention to the customs, doctrines and traditions of
men, while minimizing the Word of God. Therefore the source and definition of
moral perfection for followers of Christ can only be devotion to doing the biblical
Law as led by the Holy Spirit He has empowered us with, and by basing our
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Lesson 18 - Matthew 5 concl
every thought and action on loving God with all our essence and might, and
loving our fellow human beings as we love ourselves.
We'll begin Matthew chapter 6 next time.
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 19, Chapter 6
Our duty, and our hope, as followers of the Messiah Yeshua is to place our feet
into His footprints. The Sermon on the Mount is showing us the way. Matthew
recognizes how crucial Yeshua's speech is and so takes 3 full chapters to record
it, and we've completed only the first, which is chapter 5. So today we begin
Matthew chapter 6. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 6 all
Verse 1 sets up the basic theme for the next several verses: motive. That is, why
we choose to do the things we do. The last half of the previous chapter (chapter
5), starting at verse 21, dealt with intent. A contrast is set up there, and here to
begin chapter 6, between the deeds and acts we do outwardly versus what we
harbor in our minds. And what we find is that what we think inwardly has
everything to do with how God sees and rewards us, including for the things we
do outwardly based on our motive for doing them. Paul picks up on this principle
of the inward versus the outward in Romans chapter 2 that injects this principle
even into the matter of our spiritual identity before the Lord. That is, despite what
we might display or want to project superficially, it's what on the inside that
counts most.
CJB Romans 2:28-29 28 For the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly: true
circumcision is not only external and physical. 29 On the contrary, the real
Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not
literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.
So even before we begin to delve deeper into what follows in Matthew 6, we
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
understand the enormous value that God places on motive and intent.
Sometimes Christianity will use the term "heart" to mean our motive and intent.
Motive and intent are perhaps greater than the deed itself to the point that doing
a positive deed with an evil intent is a greater sin than doing a negative deed but
having a righteous intent (even if misguided in carrying it out). Let me say this
another way because I get questions nearly daily about how to live a Torah
directed lifestyle from people wanting to know specific do's and don'ts in various
situations they find themselves. Having a righteous intent (and I define that as
having a sincere intent to obey God as based upon His biblical commandments
and not on our own feelings, emotions, and sense of justice) but then our deed
winds up causing harm or offense is either not a sin or the sin is treated by God
with great mercy. However no matter how great a good that a deed might be,
without the intent to obey and the motive to please God, but rather it is done with
the intent to draw praise and recognition to ourselves, that is always a sin.
Verse 1, according to the CJB, speaks of doing acts of tzedakah. Although that
Hebrew word is not there, David Stern is correct in assuming that this must
necessarily be the Hebrew word that is in Matthew's mind as He is writing His
Gospel. What we find in the Greek Bible manuscripts is an attempted translation
of it: dikaiosune. It means righteousness in the sense of justice. And that's fairly
close to the mark. Literally tzedakah means righteousness. However it's usage in
Hebrew culture and language actually meant "doing righteousness". It is a verb; it
is an action that expresses doing a deed that more often than not was directly
connected to giving, whether it was a tithe or an act of charity. Therefore the
subject is righteous giving. Christ next follows-up with some examples and
instructions about exactly how to do that.
The first instruction is to not perform these acts of righteous giving in order to get
personal recognition or credit from people. Planned or spontaneous giving has
always been part of Hebrew society and the sincerely pious generally made it the
highest priority. But, we find in all eras that people will have ulterior motives for
giving, among which is praise from others and the outward appearance of piety
for purely personal benefit. Thus they expect to be publicly recognized and
admired, maybe even given honorary status, when their giving occurs. Jesus's
response to this is that while they may well receive what they'll hoping for from
their fellow man, they will receive nothing further from their Father in Heaven for
giving with such a wrong attitude. Motive. Intent. The deed itself was good, the
intent was wrong, and so a potentially good thing in the eyes of God was turned
into sin. Yeshua is cautioning His listeners that there is a stark difference that
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
centers on the giver of the rewards; it is between the rewards we receive from
our fellow man versus rewards from Heaven.
I want you to pay attention to the fact that Christ is going to emphasize The
Father in the next several verses. That is, despite the implication within some
branches of the Church that the Father has taken a long vacation and turned
everything over to His Son, Yeshua dispels it all. It is not He, Jesus, who
determines and rewards; it is The Father.
Verse 2 begins with, "so when you do tzedakah " This time the Greek word
chosen to translate it is eleemosune and it refers directly to the giving of mercy
in the sense of alms... charity to the needy. In Christ's day, other than what was
given to the Temple for offerings and tithes, when giving to the Synagogue the
money was used mostly for caring for the needy. No doubt some was kept for
upkeep and other legitimate expenses. At other times money was given directly
by people to some of the thousands of licensed beggars who often congregated
in certain places where there was lots of foot traffic. And Yeshua says when
someone makes a contribution trumpets shouldn't be blown (for the purpose of
drawing the crowd's attention to the giver).
A question often debated among Theologians and especially among Bible
historians is if this trumpet blowing was literal or if Yeshua used it metaphorically.
To date no Jewish document has been found to confirm that the blowing of
trumpets upon giving actually occurred in Jewish society. However since Christ
did say it, and there is no record of a standard Jewish expression of " blowing a
trumpet" (that would mean to try to gain recognition) then likely it did happen
occasionally. Yeshua had observed it and it upset Him, and so He used it as a
rather blatant example of what NOT to do when giving alms. I actually saw this in
action in a Synagogue that I visited some years ago. They had an offering time
and up on an elevated stage a bucket was placed for givers to get up out of their
sets, walk up to the front of the congregation and put their money into it. Each
time someone dropped their donation into the bucket, a trumpet was loudly blown
and the congregation applauded. What bothered me all the more was that this
was a Messianic Synagogue; a Synagogue of Believers. I can only suppose the
Rabbi never read this passage in Matthew 6. I've also seen techniques used by
the Church to give recognition so that congregation members would be most
conspicuous if they did NOT give. It goes without saying that anything along the
lines of what I just told you goes against the spirit of the instruction that Christ
uttered in this verse.
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
Yeshua calls those that give in order to seek personal recognition from their
fellow Jews, hypocrites. While the Greek term is hypokrites, and it literally refers
to an actor who wears a mask as he plays a role in the theater, the overall idea is
of someone who is pretending to be something he isn't. Notice that Christ says it
is at the synagogues and in the streets where this practice occurs of making sure
one gets public recognition for giving charity to the poor. Thus the person doing it
is disguising his evil heart by doing something that looks wonderful and pious on
the surface. Jesus isn't advocating anything different than the norm. We have
much written evidence in the ancient Jewish writings of the same thought. For
instance in the Talmudic tractate Bava Batra, Rabbi Eleazar is quoted as
saying: "A man who gives charity in secret is greater than Moses our
teacher". In another passage from that same document we find: "Charity
(tzedakah) saves from death if the giver does not know to whom he is
giving and the receiver does not know from whom he receives." Thus Yeshua says that the only reward that the hypocrite will receive is the one
he already has the admiration of those he preferred.... those who looked on as
he gave.
In verse 3 the crowd is told not to let their left hand know what their right hand is
doing. If this was a saying of the time, here in New Testament is the only Jewish
document ever found that contains it. So it may be a unique saying of Jesus. In
trying to understand the actual meaning as this would have expressed to a crowd
of 1st century Jews, we need to look to Jewish culture (and most Middle Eastern
culture of that era) whereby the right hand was perceived as the strong hand...
the best hand; it was the dominant and authoritative hand both symbolically and
actually (left hand dominant people were a rarity). Therefore the idea seems to
be that there is no need for other parts of one's body to know what the hand of
authority (the right hand) is doing (giving to charity). The left hand has no right to
question the actions of the right hand or to even know about it. This way the
giving will be done in secret; secret more meaning privately and without notice or
fanfare and perhaps without having second thoughts about it. This is righteous
giving; it is giving in the proper spirit. The good news is, says Christ, that the
Father knows all secrets anyway so He sees all that we do, and knows all our
hidden thoughts and motives, and knows if indeed our secret giving is about
compassion, loving our neighbor, and obedience.... or not. Therefore The Father
will be the source of whatever reward might be due to us. This of course sets up
the dynamic that we all must continually and without fail ask ourselves; "whom do
we choose to please?" If we have the inward motive of seeking humanity's
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
admiration and praise by our giving, we automatically do not receive God's praise
or reward.
Perhaps this is a good time to say something that I, as head of Seed of Abraham
Ministries, have never said outside of our staff meetings but adhere to even
though it may be out of the norm. So many of you present here and out in the
internet world and on Television are the most gracious and generous supporters
of this ministry; I get a little emotional just thinking about it. Some have donated
substantial amounts. You received a heartfelt thank you letter; however what you
didn't receive was a gift depending on the level of your giving. You weren't
enticed to get a bigger gift if you give a bigger donation. You also weren't brought
up to this stage and thanked before the congregation for your large donation.
Why? For your sake. Because I don't want any part of tempting anyone to give in
the motivation of personal recognition, whereby that recognition causes you to
lose your reward in Heaven. I don't want you to exchange an eternal reward for a
fleeting one. And you know what? I've not had one person in the nearly 20 years
of this ministry's existence ask for a gift (or stop giving because they didn't
receive one), or ask for special recognition of some kind upon giving to us.
Honestly, I would have returned the gift if that was the condition. This tells me
that your giving is, and has been, in exactly the right spirit and intent and so your
praise comes not from me but from your Heavenly Father.
Next, having addressed the issue of money and giving, Christ turns to how we
ought to pray. Notice Yeshua says WHEN you pray, not IF you pray. Prayer was
a serious every day matter for Jews of that era. It was rather usual for pious Jews
to pray 3 times a day; something that seems to have begun during their exile in
Babylon perhaps as an example or even an instruction from Daniel. Praying in
public was normal because the spiritual was a natural part of everyday life. Sadly
that seems almost strange to us in the West, where our society generally expects
us to compartmentalize our faith and keep it quiet, subdued and out of sight. A
few years ago I was in a restaurant with my family, and as we held hands and
prayed I overheard a lady in a nearby table whisper to her dining companion: "is
that legal?" She was quite concerned and serious. However, just as there is a
proper attitude for the giving of charity and an improper one, there is always a
proper way to pray and an improper way. Yeshua cites the improper way first:
"Don't be like the hypocrites". Remember, the way the word hypocrite was taken
to mean at that time was someone who was masquerading as being someone
else; they were hiding who they really are. And how do they do this? Very
similarly to the hypocrites who give money to the poor; it is by praying very
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
publicly, so that the public will acknowledge and admire them for their seeming
generosity and piety.
So Christ's crowd is told not to stand on street corners or even in the synagogues
where people will see them praying in some kind of way that I suppose you can't
not notice. I have to tell you; I think what Christ has said up to this point could be
taken as pretty severe; maybe even harsh. In fact, more than a few Bible
commentators say that what we are reading is Matthew's worldview and not
Jesus's because they can't see a passive, restrained, loving Jesus saying such
things. However this is neither the first nor the last time Yeshua will be blunt and
frank about the actions and insincerity that He has observed among His
countrymen in a number of settings for the purpose of a race to the top to see
who can be publicly seen as the most devout worshipper of God. Let me be clear
on this matter: is it wrong to pray in the synagogue? Is it bad to pray on a street
corner? Of course not. The issue is not prayer; it's the misuse of prayer in order
to get self attention. Motive. Intent. People who pray in this improper manner will,
like the givers to the poor who do it with the motive of self-recognition, get no
praise or any well-done from The Father.
So after telling the crowd what they should NOT do, He tells them what they
should do. They should go into their room, close the door, and pray to the Father
in secret. Although we're very early on in Matthew's Gospel, I can tell you that in
all the Gospel accounts we will never find Yeshua telling people to pray to Him. It
is always to the Father that Jesus says prayer and honor are to be directed. Even
more our praying should be in private, He says. Once more: is it wrong to pray
when we're outdoors in the public? No. Is it wrong to pray indoors (like in a
sanctuary) with others observing? No. What is wrong is to pray in the wrong
attitude, with the wrong motive, and perhaps to the wrong god in whatever
setting. So just like giving is to be done secretly.... more meaning giving without
drawing attention to oneself, or expecting something in return so is prayer to
be done secretly.... without the intent of drawing attention to oneself and instead
it should be with the intent of having a personal conversation and relationship
with the God of the Universe.
Many years ago, as I read this passage, it profoundly instructed and convicted
me. I am one who always had a hard time praying silently, which was my usual
way of prayer. It didn't take very long before my mind began to wander and soon
I was thinking about a matter at work or having to mow the lawn or something
else; I couldn't remember what I was praying. Interestingly, I don't think that we
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
find the concept of truly silent prayer in the Bible; or at least silent prayer being
the norm. By silent prayer I mean that the mouth plays no role, and that the only
organ that is involved is our brain. Although now that I've said it I'm sure
someone will find an instance of silent prayer in the Bible and point it out to me.
Nonetheless, using one's mouth, whether in a nearly inaudible whisper or a
shout, was the customary manner of prayer (other than perhaps merely reading a
prayer, silently). The idea of sitting in my room, by myself, door shut and praying
out loud sounded odd to me. However, I tried it and suddenly I could pray without
my mind wandering. Hearing the words that were coming from my own mouth
caused me to pray in full, intelligible thoughts. Speaking to the Lord out loud
makes it feel much more intimate and real for me. This is not to say that this is or
should be every Believer's prayer experience.
So what is The Father's reward to us for proper prayer? The word in Greek for
reward is apodidomi. And it is usually translated to English as reward. The
Greek lexicons explain it means to restore, repay, or to recompense in proportion
to what was done good or bad. Clearly that last meaning is the appropriate one
for this situation. Therefore considering the context it can only be that God's
reward for proper prayer is that He responds to it in kind. That doesn't mean that
we always get what we want; rather it means that He will graciously pay attention
and consider our prayers as opposed to ignoring them. God sets conditions for
listening to prayer and answering them. Yeshua addresses that in a few verses.
But first I want to say something about prayer in general. Number one, there's no
trick to it. If you can talk, you can pray. Eloquence not required. And even if you
can't talk due to some physical problem, you can still communicate to God with
your mind and soul. Shortly we'll read an example that Messiah gives us about
the nature of a proper prayer. But as I zoomed around the web looking at what
various Christian and Bible websites had to say about it, they nearly all spoke
about it along these lines: God created us and knows infinitely more than we
know. He knows what is best for us, and what would not be good for us. If
you have children, when they were very small, sometimes they asked for
things that would not be good for them, or would harm them. For good
reasons sometimes parents do not always give their children what they ask
for, when they ask for it. Parents give them what is best for them.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? However that is decidedly not what proper prayer
is about. Notice the prodigious use of thought of "what is good for us" (what is
always best for us). Because of this modern tendency of Christians to think of
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
God as a kind genie who grants our personal wishes, and Our Savior who is here
mainly for our hopes and dreams to be realized, then the theme of "God does
what is best for us" is practically universal. However comforting that might sound
to us, it is not biblical reality. God does what His purposes are. God does what
His will is. And that goes for answering prayers. Making us happy is not usually at
the top of the list. In fact, often God will answer a prayer in a way that isn't best
for us, personally, from almost any worldview we can think of it; but rather He has
another and greater purpose in mind that we may never know about (although
sometimes later on we might see the fruits of it).
The goal of prayer ought to be to discover how we can best fit into The Father's
plans, not how He should fit into ours. That is not to say that when we have
needs or even desires that we shouldn't go to Him in prayer. When we're ill or
injured we should pray for healing. If we're afraid, in dire straights financially, in
great danger, and scores more reasons our first response ought to be prayer.
Proper prayer. But any thought that His response is all about our earthly personal
best is incorrect, even though many times the thing we want so badly indeed
comes about. What we need to be more concerned about in our prayers is our
eternal best and that, says Christ, is to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven
as opposed to being greatest on earth. And this greatness comes not from our
will being done, but from seeking His will and following His laws and commands.
Prayer first and foremost must be an act of our humility and submission. An act of
seeking, and not of instructing. Being a Believer gives us an audience before the
King; it doesn't guarantee the outcome we want.
One final thought: throughout the Gospels we find Yeshua seeking solitude when
He prays. So His instructions that we should pray "secretly" are no more nor less
than what He personally did when He was on earth.
In verse 7 Christ gives another negative instruction; what we should NOT do. We
should not babble on and on when we pray because, He says, that's what the
pagans do. Please notice: pagans pray, too. So in our time when we mostly think
of pagans as the godless (atheists) in fact pagan simply means those who do not
worship Yehoveh as their only god. There is no ancient record of any society
anywhere on earth that were atheist. Atheism was an invention of the academic
elite early in the 18th century in Europe. It ought to be instructional to everyone
everywhere that for however long one believes that humankind have existed,
whether that is 6000 or 6,000,000 years, only in the past 300 years has the
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
notion of there being no god or gods been fabricated. In Jesus's day every one,
of every culture, had some means and intent of praying to their gods. And indeed
so did the occupying Romans.
In Christ's day the Holy Land was overrun with curious gentiles, and this was
especially so in Jerusalem where Herod's Temple was thought of as one of the
wonders of the world; so it was a must to visit. And then there were the 95% of all
living Jews who lived outside of the Holy Land and therefore among these same
gentiles. Knowing how the pagans prayed was common knowledge for the Jews.
And apparently a lot of pagan religionists believed that the longer and the louder
and the more public one prayed, their gods would hear them better and therefore
the worshipper would have a better shot at getting what he wants. Because the
Jews were surrounded by these gentiles it is human nature that some would take
on some of the customs and traits they witnessed happening because it seemed
good to them. And remember: few of the Jews in the crowd sitting before Yeshua
had much actual Torah knowledge. What they had was Tradition knowledge, and
so they followed whomever it was that was leading them in the synagogue.
Instead, says Jesus in verse 8, "don't be like them" and then tells us why we
shouldn't. Even this however was not a new instruction that Yeshua came up
with. It was long established biblically.
CJB Ecclesiastes 5:1 (or 2) Don't speak impulsively- don't be in a hurry to
give voice to your words before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on
earth; so let your words be few.
It is because The Father already knows all our wants, desires and circumstances
that we don't need to go on and on in our prayers. He already knows what our
prayer is about before we pray it. It would be dishonest if I didn't confess that
every now and then I wonder if I should pray about something because The
Father already knows about it. And since His pre-knowledge of it is the case for
every instance, then it is not unreasonable to ask: so then why should we pray?
We pray for two reasons: first, because it is God's instruction and will that we
do Old Testament and New. Second, because prayer is therefore beneficial to
us and to the Kingdom. Prayer is part of the shalom.... the divinely given well␂being... that God affords His worshippers. By praying we are obeying the Lord.
By praying we are communing with God (a great privilege). And while
communing with God is something He wants, we and not He are the beneficiaries
of it. Thus biblically, regular prayer is a given. Yeshua is only reminding people
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
what proper prayer looks like.
When we are especially nervous or anxious, we can tend to get long-winded in
our prayers. Nervousness and anxiety are the opposite of having stillness of
mind. And having stillness of mind is a very hard thing to come by especially if we
are in some kind of bad situation. However simplistic it may sound, the only
means to achieve stillness of mind is complete and sincere trust in God. And
therefore what comes next in Matthew is intended to be a means to achieve
stillness of mind, and to maintain it. It is a quite short prayer that for centuries has
been called The Lord's Prayer. It begins in verse 9.
We've already read it in the CJB, but I'd like you to hear it in a couple of other
versions. Not so much because they interpret what is said differently, but
because the words chosen for the interpretation can mean something a bit
different to us when we hear them.
KJV Matthew 6:9-13 9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which
art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And
forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
NAS Matthew 6:9-13 9 "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name. 10 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as
it is in heaven. 11 'Give us this day our daily bread. 12 'And forgive us our
debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 'And do not lead us into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, forever. Amen .' Because prayer is so crucial in the life of Believer and in our relationship with
God, we'll go through the example Christ gives us of what the elements of proper
prayer ought to look like.
The very first words are "Our Father". It cannot be said enough times, or strongly
enough, that due to the doctrines of modern Christianity never does Christ
instruct that we pray to Him. Always He instructs that we are to pray to The
Father. The implications behind this are many, and cause much debate within the
Church such that entire denominations are founded on the conclusions about
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
these implications. And at the top of the list is about the nature of the Trinity.
I'm confronted often about this issue of the Trinity. People will ask me if I accept
the Trinity Doctrine and my response is always the same: which one? Folks of
every denomination have their own version of a Trinity Doctrine, which range
from rejecting the notion outright all the way up to deciding which of the persons
or attributes of God ought to be included. Among evangelical Christians, the most
common version is that God consists totally and only of 3 persons: The Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And thus every manifestation of God that we learn of
in the Bible must be one of these 3 persons even when they are given different
names and characteristics. Further, this popular version of the Trinity Doctrine
declares that the 3 persons are co-equal. There is no hierarchy. And even though
there are 3 persons, they are yet but 1 God. Therefore they all have the same
power, the same purpose, the same wisdom and share the same knowledge.
Without addressing every one of these issue (and a few more), I'll only say this:
the Trinity Doctrine is manmade. Never is it stated in the Bible. The closest thing
to a direct statement comes in Matthew 28.
CJB Matthew 28:19 19 Therefore, go and make people from all nations into
talmidim, immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the
Ruach HaKodesh,
So all the rest of the definition of a Trinity Doctrine (or better, of the several
different Trinity Doctrines) is an interpretation and an amalgamation of several
Bible passages that arrives at a certain belief about the nature and substance of
God.
I can't get into defending or disagreeing with them all, and I probably am not even
aware of every one of the wide range of them. But I can tell you this with absolute
confidence: in the Gospels Christ never suggests anything but praying to the
Father. He Himself is found in several occasions praying to the Father, and it is
an absurdity to suggest that since (some believe) there is no divine hierarchy of
the 3 persons then He must be praying to Himself. According to Jesus's own
words the way, the manner and the person to whom prayer is to be directed
according to the example He gives us, The Lord's Prayer, is to the Father alone.
We'll stop for now to give the Lord's Prayer our fullest attention and study next
time.
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Lesson 19 - Matthew 6
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 20, Chapter 6 Continued
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 6 directing our focus upon the Lord's Prayer of
verses 9-13. Leading up to this prayer example that Christ presented to those
listening to His Sermon on the Mount, He gave His listeners a couple of do's and
don'ts concerning prayer in general. First: don't pray in a manner that is designed
and intended to draw attention to yourself. Self aggrandizement and making
oneself out to be especially pious is the issue. This mindset is a perversion of
what prayer is to be and it is what the pagans do. Second: instead pray privately.
That is, prayer is to be something personal and intimate between you and the
Lord. Prayer is a means and a privilege to honor God and to communicate with
Him. And third: don't babble on and on using fabricated mantras and ritualistic
phrases that you say and repeat almost unconsciously. One also doesn't have to
explain to God what you are asking of Him in extreme detail that results in
lengthy prayers in hopes that the longer the prayer goes the more God will hear
you. Prayer (and God) simply don't work like that. Yeshua concludes with why
eloquence and wordiness are not needed. Verse 8 says it's:"....because your
Father knows what you need before you ask Him".
Here is a statement of God's immutable and universal omniscience. As humans
we can observe things as they happen and draw conclusions. But only the Lord
knows our every thought, and also knows our every need usually before we do.
That is both a comfort and a warning.
Therefore, to start verse 9 Jesus says: instead "...pray like this". Please notice
that He didn't say to "Pray THIS". When He says to pray LIKE this, He means
similarly. He is not giving us a formula to be mechanically repeated but rather a
pattern or a template to follow. Some people when they pray, pray only the Lord's
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
Prayer as though this is a divinely mandated Christian mantra. There is certainly
nothing wrong with praying it, and especially when one is with a group of
Believers nearly everyone knows this prayer by heart so it is wonderful for
everyone to pray it together out loud. So let's read the Lord's Prayer and then
we'll discuss its pattern and what we're being shown by it.
READ MATTHEW 6:9 -13
I would like to briefly review and then supplement what I said last week about the
opening words of the Lord's Prayer. Those words are "Our Father". Not "Our
God". Not "Our Lord". "Our Father" has a specific meaning biblically and to the
Jewish people. First, the use of the term "Our Father" is to put forth the concept
of sonship. That is, only a true son has the right to call the one in authority over
him "Father". When a person is a son versus a servant or a follower, the
relationship changes. That person's status is elevated and his or her position
becomes greatly enhanced. For one thing inheritance that comes from what the
Father owns and rules over becomes a possibility. In the divine heavenly sphere
the term "Our Father" is used to denote the spiritual Father of all things that exist,
seen and unseen (the Creator, Yehoveh). In the physical earthly sphere "Our
Father" is used to denote the human ancestral/biological father of the Hebrew
people: Abraham. It is actually a term used rather rarely in the Old Testament;
ironically it is used much more in the New Testament. The Gospels record 65
instances in which Jesus uses the term "Father" to refer to God. John uses it
over 100 times. Clearly in the context of prayer, no Jew prayed to Abraham so
the "Our Father" is of course directed to God in Heaven. Just as logically and
rationally we can know that when Jesus refers to The Father, He cannot be
referring to Himself in any way, shape or form. Jesus is never referred to as the
Father of anything. Rather, Yeshua's spiritual and physical identity is The Son in
relation to the Father. Who is the Father? He is El Shaddai, Yud-Heh-Vav-Hey,
Yehoveh, more often called Yahweh, or in English Jehovah. Yehoveh is NOT
Yeshua.
The question is: are we also praying to Jesus when we pray to "Our Father"? And
clearly Christ instructs that it is The Father is to whom we should pray. Never
does He, nor any of His disciples, nor any writer of the New Testament suggest
that we should switch from praying to the Father to praying to Christ. Even so,
this matter is actually the basis of quite the ongoing theological debate. The side
of the debate that says "yes" we are also praying to Jesus when we pray to God
in Heaven, or that because Christians should pray directly to Jesus, admits that
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
there is no direct scriptural quote to back-up such a notion. Rather it is a Church
doctrine that has been derived from yet another Church doctrine called the Trinity
Doctrine, which among many mainstream denominations says that Jesus, the
Father, and the Holy Spirit are co-equal and unified in such a way as to be
indistinguishable. I don't wish to explain the mysterious nature of the unity of God
much further other than to say this: despite what you might think you hear me
say, I firmly believe and advocate that while Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit
are all divine attributes of who God is in His totality, it is undeniable that they are
spoken of in the Bible as identifiable, separately named entities, possessing
different attributes and purposes; they not depicted as, or said to be, co-equal in
authority or knowledge. There is a definite hierarchy of authority of the Godhead
in the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, and the Father is always at the top
of that hierarchy. He directs the Son and the Holy Spirit.
One of the things that is so hard for all us to deal with is the choice of words and
human concepts to use when trying to assign them to the essence and
substance of God. God gave us language and the ability to speak in order to
better understand Him and to form relationships with one another that go way
beyond mere animalistic instinct. Thus we must always take human terms like
Father and Son only so far when using them to describe God's features and
attributes. However by using those terms, which by their very nature are
dependent upon the culture that they spring from, we can get a better idea of how
to discern who God is, how He operates, and His instructions to us. So as the
centuries pass and as new cultures rise, evolve, and then disappear we must
always remember to keep these terms and relationships we read of in the Bible
embedded in the cultural thought, and in the historical era, from which they came.
It's when we remove the cultural and historical elements from God's Word that
the mistakes and misunderstandings occur such that false doctrines are the
result.
The Scriptures were written by Hebrews and from a Hebrew cultural perspective.
Thus when they employ the use of the term "The Son" it is because it is
understood in Hebrew culture that a son (especially a firstborn or the only
begotten son) holds a special elite place in relation to that son's father. That son
has the right of inheritance not only of the father's possessions but also of his
authority. While that father is still living, he can and often does name his son as
his agent that speaks for him, and can be given a measure of authority as
defined and presented to him by his father. It was and remains a Middle Eastern
saying that when such "agent" status is given to a son, then when speaking to
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
the son you are speaking to the father. It is in a similar way that we must think of
Yeshua in relation to His Father. It is lens through which we must interpret the
New Testament passage that says "Whoever has seen Me (Jesus) has seen the
Father". If we isolate and lift that well worn phrase from its Hebrew cultural
context of the 1st century and try to place it directly into the Western gentile
culture of the 21st century, then it sounds much like Yeshua is saying that He
and the Father are identical twins. Or that they are one in the same, such that
perhaps Yeshua is but a physical apparition of the invisible Father. Or that
Yeshua is the newer and younger God replacing the older God, Yehoveh. But
now let's hear it in its biblical context.
CJB John 14:6-10 6 Yeshua said, "I AM the Way- and the Truth and the Life;
no one comes to the Father except through me. 7 Because you have known
me, you will also know my Father; from now on, you do know him- in fact,
you have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it
will be enough for us." 9 Yeshua replied to him, "Have I been with you so
long without your knowing me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Don't you believe that
I am united with the Father, and the Father united with me? What I am
telling you, I am not saying on my own initiative; the Father living in me is
doing his own works
Embedded in this passage is the Jewish and Middle Eastern cultural concept of
the relationship between a father and son. This is reflected in Yeshua replying to
Phillip: "The Father living in me is doing His own works". Yeshua fits the mold to
a T as His Father's agent who carries out His Father's works. He is the Father's
right hand. He is the Father's only begotten son. The Son has completely
adopted His Father's will. The Father, even though He is still living, has
designated His Son, Yeshua, as His agent on earth and in doing so has given
Him a defined measure of authority (thus it can be said that the Father is living
and doing His works through His Son, Jesus Christ). But the Father is not the
Son, and while the Son is said to carry all the authority of His Father to rule the
Kingdom, this in no way is intended to say that the Son has replaced His Father,
or that the Son has usurped His Father, or that the Father is out of the picture, or
that the Father has given up ultimate authority over His Son. What I'm telling you
is not doctrine; this is Bible.
Importantly, the thoughts and concepts of the Lord's Prayer were not new to
Yeshua's listeners; they were already an ordinary part of Jewish religious society
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
in Christ's day. Many Jewish prayers began: Avinu Sh'baShammayim (Our
Father in Heaven). This opening phrase further "outs" Matthew as
a Jewish Believer. But the lack of this phrase in Luke's version of it also "outs"
Luke as a Gentile Believer. Luke's much abbreviated version of something like
the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:2 opens merely with "Father". So it should not
surprise us that the Jewish Jesus would use a rather standard opening for a
Jewish prayer, and that the Jewish Matthew would of course record it that way;
while that same standard opening would not have been so familiar or noticed by
the gentile Luke.
David Stern points out that the next two lines of the Lord's Prayer are very similar
to the opening words of the synagogue prayer called the Kaddish, which says:
"Magnified and sanctified be His great name throughout the world, which He has
created according to His will, and may He establish His Kingdom in your lifetime".
Compare this to the Lord's Prayer: "May your name be kept holy (sanctified), and
may your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth.... " So the Lord's Prayer
and the Kaddish express nearly identical thoughts.
Yet as we go further into the prayer, we find another Christian theological debate
develop from it. It concerns whether the nature of the prayer is expressing a
future hope pointing to the End Times and beyond (scholars call this the
eschatological view); or whether it is expressing a present hope with a view to the
here and now. As nearly always, these theological differences demand an
absolute and are discerned from the Western gentile mindset. That is, the Lord's
Prayer is either a 100% future view or a 100% present view. This is not at all
needed and not all what Yeshua had in mind. Rather we have here two
simultaneous meanings that are not different in substance, but only different in
timeframe. That is, both meanings are true at certain times in redemption history.
Hebrew thought allows for such an approach.
When Christ says "May Your Kingdom come", this refers to both the present and
the future because that is the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. And yet also
notice whose Kingdom it is; it is "yours" meaning The Father's. Yeshua Our
Savior may well rule over it; but it belongs to The Father, and whatever authority
Yeshua has over it has been given to Him by The Father. The issue of the
Kingdom coming we've discussed before. The Kingdom is both present and it is
future. The Kingdom of Heaven (synonymous with the Kingdom of God) had a
definite beginning point.
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
CJB Matthew 11:11-13 11 Yes! I tell you that among those born of women
there has not arisen anyone greater than Yochanan the Immerser! Yet the
one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he! 12 From the
time of Yochanan the Immerser until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been
suffering violence; yes, violent ones are trying to snatch it away. 13 For all
the prophets and the Torah prophesied until Yochanan.
So when John the Baptist began His mission to declare the coming of the Lord,
that was the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. In the Gospel of
Luke we see the Kingdom of Heaven addressed slightly differently.
CJB Luke 17:20-21 20 The P'rushim asked Yeshua when the Kingdom of God
would come. "The Kingdom of God," he answered, "does not come with
visible signs; 21 nor will people be able to say, 'Look! Here it is!1 or, 'Over
there!' Because, you see, the Kingdom of God is among you." While I'm not in total agreement with that translation, I am as far it regards the
tenses. That is, the Kingdom of God IS among you. It is present right now. So in
the Lord's Prayer, the coming of the Kingdom doesn't mean it hasn't come yet.
Rather, it is like the Lord's parable of the mustard seed.
CJB Matthew 13:31-32 31 Yeshua put before them another parable. "The
Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man takes and sows in
his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows up it is larger
than any garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the birds flying about
come and nest in its branches."
In time I'll talk more concerning this parable and explain in depth the use and
meaning of Parables. However a fundamental principle of parables is that they
use every day cultural thoughts, objects and activities in a simplistic and general
way to teach the Torah. And when we look at the Mustard Seed parable it draws
a similarity between how the Kingdom of Heaven appears on earth versus how a
mustard seed grows. The idea is that a mustard seed is among the tiniest of
seeds and so its life as a plant starts as a miniscule, nearly imperceptible form.
One would think that such a tiny seed would only grow up into a tiny plant. But in
fact a mustard seed grows into a big plant over time, until it is so large that birds
can make nests in its branches.
Thus the Kingdom of Heaven has already come, although it is so very small that
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
it is hardly noticeable in Christ's time. However the ultimate fullness of it into all
that God intends for it is indeed in the future. Thus in the P'shat interpretation
sense the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is a present reality. The fruits of it are
present for us to see, if we have the eyes to see it. And as the Kaddish prayer
expresses, hopefully everyone alive (every Jew alive was the meaning at the
time) will be part of it in the here and now. Yet in the Remez interpretation
sense, the Kingdom of Heaven speaks of a later time when all of God's
creatures, worldwide and without exception, will bow before Him and hallow His
Name. It is about a time when the Kingdom enters its perfection and
completeness and we with it. And that time was future to Matthew's Gospel and
is still future, but nearer, to us.
Let me take just a moment to remind you of something I taught long ago when I
taught on the Torah. The English word holy is in it's original biblical
Hebrew kaddosh. Kaddosh, holy and sanctified are equivalents. So to be
sanctified means to be holy-fied that is, to be made holy. The essence of this
word kaddosh is that something is set apart from all else. So since God is
inherently holy His very substance is holy.... He is also the standard for holy....
then when the Lord's Prayer says "May your name be kept holy" (as in the CJB)
or in the more familiar KJV "hallowed be Your Name", the idea is not that God's
Name isn't currently holy, it is that among the minds and souls of all humanity
God would finally be held holy to each and every one. The coming of the
Kingdom of Heaven with John the Baptist begins that process, which is
culminated with the 2nd coming of Christ, the destruction of evil and of wicked
humans, and then His 1000 year reign.
So up to now these verses mouthed by Yeshua address the adoration and
glorification of God, which should be the overriding thought behind all prayers. It
also expresses a hope for God's will to be done in our lives. This issue of God's
will being done is a tough one, especially as concerns prayer. Usually when we
go to God in prayer it is because we want something. Perhaps it expresses the
needs of others; perhaps it is for ourselves. But how can we know for certain that
what we are asking is in His will? I wish I could give you a pat explanation for
that, but I can't. However much like Yeshua using a parable to help illustrate His
meaning when defining something in the spiritual world and in the future can be
so very difficult to get a handle on, I think that the instance of Christ praying
before the day of His execution can help us to best understand what it means for
us to pray in God's will.
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
CJB Luke 22:39-44 39 On leaving, Yeshua went as usual to the Mount of
Olives; and the talmidim followed him. 40 When he arrived, he said to them,
"Pray that you won't be put to the test." 41 He went about a stone's throw
away from them, kneeled down and prayed, 42 "Father, if you are willing,
take this cup away from me; still, let not my will but yours be
done." 43 There appeared to him an angel from heaven giving him
strength, 44 and in great anguish he prayed more intensely, so that his
sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Notice that He starts His prayer with "Father" and then takes His petition to Him.
Yeshua's petition is: please take this cup from Me. "This cup" was simply an
expression that meant what was destined for Him that was about to happen. And
what was about to happen was His arrest, brutal torture, and then grim
crucifixion. Is suffering and dying something Jesus wanted to endure? Clearly
not. The Holy Spirit in Him knew that this was precisely what He was born to do,
and that all of God's plans for redemption depended upon it. And yet He was a
human being who knew pain, saw death up close and personal and wasn't
seeking it, and so He had great trepidation over what was coming. He prayed so
intensely about this His spirit in heated conflict with His flesh that we are
told that the blood capillaries (I suppose on His scalp and forehead) burst and He
began sweating blood. So His own will was twofold: Father I pray I don't have to
do this. But also He prayed not His own will but rather the will of His Father be
done. That is, if there is no other way for Jesus than the cross, then God's will
would overcome Jesus's own human instinct and will to save Himself.
What Believer, having been given a very serious diagnosis from a doctor,
perhaps a life threatening one, wouldn't go to the Father and plead for healing?
And yet; are we willing to accept NOT being healed as the Father's will? Here's a
tougher one yet: your 2 year old child is found to have a terminal and painful
illness and you go to the Father asking for his or her life to be spared. Are you
willing to accept it as the Father's will if that child suffers and dies? Over the
years I've seen several people in similar predicaments who aren't healed, or who
aren't relieved of some awful predicament, and who walk away from God
because of it. But Yeshua's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is what it
means to pray in God's will. You ask for the thing you want....your will... even
intensely.... but at the same time you place a higher priority on God's will being
done as a matter of faith and trust. And when God's will doesn't match yours, you
accept His and glorify Him no matter the outcome. Why? Because indeed God's
will WAS done on earth as it is in Heaven. And by the way: this doesn't mean that
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
an outcome that leaves you in a bad way is somehow "best for you" but you just
don't realize it yet. Rather in the Lord's Prayer 2 things are emphasized: that
God's Kingdom would grow and thrive and that His will would be done. And
sometimes the very thing we dread most is an unknowable part of bringing about
His will and His Kingdom in ways we may never know.... at least we won't know
on this side of Heaven.
So when we pray the Lord's Prayer it shows us not just similar words and
thoughts to pray, but also the attitude to pray in. Recall that just before Christ
gave His instruction on what and how to pray, He spent some time discussing
motive and intent for our behavior. This is just an extension of that principle into
our prayer life.
As we move to verse 11, Yeshua says that we should ask God for our daily
bread. The Greek word used for bread is artos. It is used similarly to the way the
Jews use the Hebrew word lechem. It has the dual meaning of bread, as in the
baked product consisting of grain, water and yeast, but it also is an expression
simply meaning food in general. Bread was the main dish at almost every meal
for the common people, and so it doubled as meaning the entire meal. I think
some Preachers and Bible commentators work a bit too hard trying to insert very
deep meaning when at least in the P'shat sense the meaning was plain. It is just
as the CJB has it; it is a plea to God to provide food because having sufficient
food each day was by no means a given for the average Jew. If this extends to
anything deeper or broader I see the prayer for food as perhaps representative of
asking God to provide for the basics that all humans need to exist at least above
the level that the beasts of the field live. The need for food, adequate shelter, and
clothing that is suitable for the purpose and the season is a very good reason to
pray.
One of the reasons that I think Yeshua included this plea for food in His prayer
model is that He had deep concerns for the daily needs of people. He was a man
of the people. He truly did "feel their pain". He fed thousands using miraculous
means simply because they were hungry and needed food. He healed thousands
of their illnesses and lameness (also miraculously) because there was almost no
other means for their suffering to be alleviated. So much that He accomplished
on earth was for human physical needs in the here and now, even though much
of it was also for the future. He told His disciples to continue doing the same;
care for the people's physical and spiritual needs. Therefore this lesson from
what Yeshua showed to us should be apprehended simply: it is not wrong to pray
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
for our material needs. God knows our needs. In our time it is not wrong to pray
that God might give you a means to have a reliable car; or a sufficient house; or
to get a good job in order to make enough money to have those things. I don't
want to start of list of material things that are proper and improper to pray to the
Lord for because the circumstances are too many and vary far too much; and me
being the judge of it all is far above my pay grade. What I want us all to take from
this is that God does care about our every day human needs on earth, in our
present lives, because these lives, even in these flawed and imperfect fleshly
tents, have value to Him. He made us, He loves us, and He has a purpose for us
today.... in the present; not only at the End of Days and on into eternity.
Starting in verse 12 is Yeshua's instruction to pray for our own forgiveness. This
principle was already well embedded in Jewish religious life. They even prayed
rather standardized synagogue prayers that asked God for forgiveness of their
wrongs. In one of the several so-called Apocryphal books, we find the Book of
Ecclesiasticus (this is NOT the same as the Book of Ecclesiastes) dealing with
forgiveness. This book was written between one and two centuries prior to the
time of Christ. In chapter 28 we read this: "Forgive your neighbor the wrong
he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does a
man harbor anger against another, and yet seek healing from the Lord?
Does he have no mercy toward a man like himself, and yet pray for his own
sins? If he himself, being flesh, maintains wrath, who will make expiation
for his sins?" Therefore when we read what Yeshua is saying our prayers ought
to look like (and remember, He was speaking to Jews) He is not telling His
audience that they've been doing it wrong, nor is He bringing a novel new way to
think about prayer. He is teaching them old Torah based do's and don'ts. He is
reminding them mostly of things they've already been taught, but perhaps have
been relegated to unimportant or forgotten altogether. At times He is teaching
them about things the Pharisee led synagogues have taught them, but perhaps
their teachings have been a few degrees off the mark and consist far too much of
man-centered behaviors rather than God-centered inner intent and motive.
The CJB version of this verse tries to explain the meaning as the author sees it.
But more literally it reads:
KJV Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Luke has it slightly differently.
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
KJV Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is
indebted to us.
Therefore in various denominations some will pray "forgive us our sins" while
others will pray "forgive us our debts". The reality is that in the Hebrew culture of
that era and earlier there was a common connection between sins and debts. It
was that sins brought on a debt owed to God, so sins expressed as debts was
usual and customary. In fact the Lord used the concept of debt in His inspired
words to help us understand His justice system.
CJB Deuteronomy 15:2 Here is how the sh'mittah is to be done: every
creditor is to give up what he has loaned to his fellow member of the
community- he is not to force his neighbor or relative to repay it, because
ADONAl's time of remission has been proclaimed.
This passage is speaking about the every 50 year cycle of Jubilee. It was always
thought by the earliest Hebrew sages that this passage had a dual meaning:
a P'shat and a Remez sense to it. The P'shat is that indeed there is a God␂ordained appointed time for release of debts owed among the Hebrew people.
And God's people are to practice it just as ordained in the Torah. However in
the Remez it is speaking of the debt due to God because of our sins, and there is
a future time when God remits that debt and declares it paid in full. In verse 12
Christ then also presents us with a dual meaning. He is speaking in
the P'shat about the dealings between human beings in the here and now having
a direct effect upon how God deals with us in the here and now. He sets up a
direct quid-pro-quo. It is that since, in the Lord's Prayer, we are asking God to
forgive us for our offenses against Him in proportion to how we forgive our fellow
man for their offenses against us, then the bottom line is that we'll get as we give.
If we forgive our fellow man for offending us, then God will forgive us. If we don't,
He won't. But in the Remez, this is also speaking about the ultimate and once␂for-all forgiveness that comes through Christ's death on the cross. So as
Believers, then is praying for forgiveness a thing of the past? That is, since our
atonement is complete is it almost wrong to pray for forgiveness because it is
denying what Jesus did for us? No it is not.
Despite the claim of any theological doctrine, the biblical reality is that this is the
prayer form that Christ Himself gave to us and He says to pray for forgiveness. It
did not contain a sunset provision. There is no place in Holy Scripture that ever
says to cease praying for forgiveness. It is my opinion that for the Believer to
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
continue to pray for forgiveness even though we have been forgiven is to keep
reminding ourselves, and confessing to God, that we do continue to offend Him
even after we have our salvation. And in the prayer form that Messiah showed
us, it also reminds us that we are to forgive those who have offended us. The
example that we'll encounter later in Matthew is a wonderful illustration of this
principle.
CJB Matthew 18:21-35 21 Then Kefa came up and said to him, "Rabbi, how
often can my brother sin against me and I have to forgive him? As many as
seven times?" 22 "No, not seven times," answered Yeshua, "but seventy
times seven! 23 Because of this, the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared
with a king who decided to settle accounts with his deputies. 24 Right away
they brought forward a man who owed him many millions; 25 and since he
couldn't pay, his master ordered that he, his wife, his children and all his
possessions be sold to pay the debt. 26 But the servant fell down before
him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 So
out of pity for him, the master let him go and forgave the debt. 28 "But as
that servant was leaving, he came upon one of his fellow servants who
owed him some tiny sum. He grabbed him and began to choke him, crying,
'Pay back what you owe me!' 29 His fellow servant fell before him and
begged, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' 30 But he refused;
instead, he had him thrown in jail until he should repay the debt. 31 When
the other servants saw what had happened, they were extremely
distressed; and they went and told their master everything that had taken
place. 32 Then the master summoned his servant and said, 'You wicked
servant! I forgave you all that debt just because you begged me to do
it. 33 Shouldn't you have had pity on your fellow servant, just as I had pity
on you?' 34 And in anger his master turned him over to the jailers for
punishment until he paid back everything he owed. 35 This is how my
heavenly Father will treat you, unless you each forgive your brother from
your hearts."
Folks, this parable applies to all of Christ's followers. I do not know exactly how
eternal society will be structured but Yeshua makes it clear in Chapter 5 that
there will be a structure and a hierarchy, because there will be the greater and
the lesser and each will experience eternity somewhat differently even though
they are all saved. There will be various criteria of intent and actual behavior that
will determine where we each fit in that structure, with how little or how much we
show mercy to our fellow man being chief among those criteria.
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Lesson 20 - Matthew 6 cont
We'll finish up the Lord's Prayer and move further into Matthew Chapter 6 next
time.
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 21, chapter 6 Continued 2
As we continue today in the Lord's Prayer, we'll begin at verse 13. Verses 11, 12,
and 13 are sometimes called the "we petitions". This is because of the use of the
plural "us" to begin each of these verses. Give US food forgive US our
wrongs do not lead US into temptation. Clearly the idea is that the Lord's
Prayer is a prayer form meant to show us, as individuals, the important elements
of every petition we make to the Lord. At the same time these 3 verses
demonstrate that we are part of a community. In Christ's day, in the Sermon on
the Mount, this community was the Jewish community; or better, the community
of all Israel.
While Christianity has adopted this prayer as a cornerstone of our faith, the
prayer is entirely Jewish in its structure and its thoughts. Every element of the
prayer consists of old themes and biblical principles; not new ones. Thus it is
ironic (at least to me) that a Church that harbors so much anti-Jewishness buried
in its doctrines and customs uses the Lord's Prayer as the centerpiece of
Christian liturgy; because in fact this prayer couldn't be more Jewish.
Open your Bibles to chapter 6, verse 13
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 6:13 - end
Nearly all English Bible translations will read closer to the KJV.
KJV Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
However the CJB has it worded better when it says: "And do not lead us into hard
testing". Perhaps in the Old English the term "temptation" meant something a bit
different than it means to us today. For us "temptation" means to wave something
in front of us that we really desire, but we know we ought to resist. So temptation
could be that divinely luscious Chocolate Mousse Fudge Cake that the waiter
offers at the end of our meal but we know we shouldn't take it. Maybe the
temptation is trying to figure out how to stuff the cost of that sexy new BMW into
our already stretched thin budget... but we probably shouldn't even be thinking
about it! The Greek word is peirasmos and it means a trial, a testing. It is the
equivalent of the Hebrew word nassah. Here is a good example from the Torah
of how we need to understand this word.
CJB Deuteronomy 8:2 You are to remember everything of the way in which
ADONAI led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you
in order to know what was in your heart- whether you would obey his
mitzvot or not.
So in the Lord's Prayer the idea is that the Lord would not lead us into hard
testing in the manner that He did with the Israelites during their exodus from
Egypt. Why? Because hard testing as often as not brings about failure. And that
failure is inevitably sin. In the Talmud tractate Berachah 60b, we read: "Bring me
not into the power of sin, and not into the power of guilt, and not into the power of
temptation (testing), and not in to the power of anything shameful". So this
passage in the Lord's Prayer is expressing a well established Jewish thought
pattern. It is interesting that the Gnostic Christian Clement of Alexandria was
known to pray: "O Lord, put me to the test". Christ says we should hope for the
opposite.
James 1:13 says this about temptation:
CJB James 1:13 No one being tempted should say, "I am being tempted by
God." For God cannot be tempted by evil, and God himself tempts no one.
Here the Greek word that is also being translated to English as tempted or
temptation is peirazo. The Greek Lexicons say that this word means to try
whether a thing can or ought to be done. So indeed it does mean "temptation" as
we moderns think of the word. Thus while God will does lead us into times of
testing, He never leads us into temptations.
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
Because as I speak to you it is the month of April in the year 2020, the world is
currently in the midst of a pandemic of the Covid-19 virus; no one knows what the
outcome will be. Whether by God or by serendipity, mankind is in the midst of a
trial. While I cannot say that God has necessarily led us here, at the least it is
certainly His will that He has allowed this to happen because it cannot be
otherwise. So, Believers, what is your response to this trial that is about a serious
disease and the financial meltdown that is nearly inescapable? Is your job in
jeopardy? Might you lose your home or apartment as a result? Will you be one of
the hundreds of thousands (that will soon turn into the millions) that will get sick?
We've all witnessed the fear and panic in its various forms that this pandemic has
caused. From empty super market shelves, to people being stranded due to
airlines being shut down. Here is how a Believer is expected to view this
situation: it is to be seen as our time of testing before the Lord.
In this time of testing that is so full of isolation and uncertainty, The Bible tells us
that we are to set our fear aside and trust God because fear and trust are
incompatible.
NKJ 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and of a sound mind.
\Ne are not to ignore the current dire situation, nor to pretend that no danger
exists. But fear is not something that comes from God; in fact fear is the gateway
to panic, and panic reveals a lack of trust and faithfulness in the Lord. It is
understandable that pagans who lead most of the world's governments, and
represent most of the world's population are gripped in fear and panic and so
behave the way they do. But a Believer ought not to feel the same or behave the
same. If you do, you need to understand what this testing has revealed about
you; and you must go to the Lord to seek remedy.
The great King David faced daunting tests and wrote many Psalms expressing
what he was feeling at the time.
CJB Psalm 56:4 when I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
NAS Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they
comfort me.
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
CJB Psalm 46:1 2 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present
help in trouble.
As verse 13 in the Lord's Prayer asks, the last thing we ought to do is to seek a
hard testing from the Lord. King David often failed his testing. Israel often failed
their testing. We often fail our testing; sometimes because we don't recognize
that testing for what it actually is. But we don't have to fail. It is not inevitable that
we stumble. As Believers the Holy Spirit is in us. As Yeshua's followers we have
an ever present Helper to guide and assist us through hard trials. But how are we
supposed to know what to do? Simply being saved doesn't inform us as to how
we are to approach a hard trial; only God's Word does that. God makes it
abundantly clear that it all begins with our obedience, faith and submission to
Him because that is what a hard trial in our life is actually testing. Will we be
obedient to Yehoveh's laws and commands or will we follow our old nature and
the debased ways of the world and allow our evil inclinations to rule over us? We
can't be obedient if we don't first know those laws and commands. And without
doubt the most important commands that we must obey in such a time as this is
to love God with all our might, and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves.
It's marvelous how God made us such that in times of testing, if we focus on Him
it provides us with relief and comfort. It's ironic how in times of community or
even national trial that when we concern ourselves over others rather than over
ourselves that our personal level of fear subsides. Believers, now is our time to
shine. These are the times that our behavior and our deeds, not our words,
matter most. The world desperately needs to see this from us. These are the
times that those who don't yet know the Lord can look at us and see God's love
and stability when all else seems chaotic and dark and want Him. Let us
concern ourselves with that rather than stocking our pantries to the fullest before
someone else does. And if we do then we will pass the test and not fail it.
Thomas Paine made a memorable quote that while not in the Bible, certainly
expresses a sentiment based on biblical principles and it is worth repeating and
remembering.
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country;
but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny, like *, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightiy: it is dearness
only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper
price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an
article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated"
Shall we be summer soldiers and sunshine patriots for God and His Kingdom?
That is, are we only available, loyal and dedicated when times are joyful and
good outcomes are certain? There is no greater tyranny than that of fear and
panic. But when we look to Heaven and to the proper price that God puts upon
the things of this world, then we have a far better platform from which we can
resist the instinct to join the non-Believers in their inward terrors that result in
unwise and ungodly outward reactions.
I realize that some of you may not hear or read these words until long after this
particular trial has passed and the world has returned to normalcy. But I promise
you that this will not be our last trial; there will be more in the future and perhaps
greater than this one. What their exact nature or cause will be, or when they will
occur only the Father knows. But as with any trial or calamity, it is best to be
prepared ahead of time. Prepare of course by being vigilant. But also by drawing
nearer to God, and by sincerely learning His Word so that you can stand upon it
and its truth so that you can know what to do when that time does arrive.
Although I've mentioned it before, many Bible scholars claim that Jesus's words
in His sermon are meant for a future time; the time of the end. When I taught the
book of Daniel I explained that biblically there are not one but two Latter Days.
The first has come and gone as it revolved around Christ's first coming. The
second is future and will revolve around His return. I can't get into the details of it
today but you can go to my teachings in TorahClass.com and research them.
The point is that the Jewish people in Christ's day were certain that they were
already in the End Times. Therefore Christ's words were meant both for His own
time and for the future; it is not a matter of the one or the other. Such is a
common attribute of prophecy.
When verse 13 asks God to "deliver us from evil", we find that the CJB and some
other Bible versions will say "evil one"; that is, it refers to Satan. The Greek word
is poneros. The Lexicons say it means hardships or annoyances. So the sense
of it is not so much of wickedness nor that it is directly attached to Satan. So I
can't agree with the idea that to "deliver us from evil" intends to mean "deliver us
from the Evil One". In fact, in Hebrew and Aramaic literature from that time, the
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
term "Evil One" is never attached to the person of Satan. It simply was not a
Jewish thought. Rather it is a Church term from later times. Instead I think we
have to consider the context of it's meaning as clearly having to do with the first
part of this verse: "Don't lead us into testing". So the petition to God is that rather
than leading us into a some kind of hard thing to overcome, please deliver us
from it. And what we don't want to be led into is testing and trial. Rather we want
to be delivered from hardships and calamities that are by their very nature what
tests and trials consist of (just as we are currently experiencing). And by the way,
being delivered from something doesn't mean avoiding it altogether. It means to
be rescued from the bad situation you are experiencing, or perhaps being shown
the way through it.
Scholars call the final words of verse 13, which are "For Kingship, power, and
glory are yours forever, amen", a doxology. That is, it is a standard ending to a
worship service or to a prayer or song. And the wording of this is very much
typical of the Synagogue liturgy of Christ's day. So: the Lord's Prayer is indeed
Jewish from the "Our Father" to the "amen".
Let's move on now from the Lord's Prayer to verse 14. What we have here is yet
another quid pro quo. That is, God will respond according to how we behave.
Specifically: if we forgive the offenses of others against us, then in equal
measure He will forgive us for our offenses against Him. For emphasis, and to be
sure the point Yeshua is making is not misconstrued, Yeshua now states the
same again only in the negative. That is, He says, if you do NOT forgive others
for their offenses against you, God will NOT forgive you for your offenses against
Him. Notice how this is connected directly to verse 12 of the Lord's Prayer
("Forgive us for what we have done wrong, as we too have forgiven those who
have wronged us").
Let's talk about forgiveness for a minute because it is a difficult subject to put into
practice. Forgiveness does NOT mean that the earthly, natural, or legal
consequences of our wrong actions get erased. Perhaps one of the best
examples of this I could draw upon comes from a film entitled "O Brother, Where
Art Thou". The setting is the Great Depression of the 1930's. Three
knuckleheads escape from a deep south prison chain gang. At one point in their
attempt to journey back home and to evade the police, one of them hears the
worship songs of a baptism that is taking place just off the road at a rather muddy
river. Although there is a long line of white robbed people waiting their turn, he
races to the front (as if drawn by a magnet) and gets dunked. When he comes up
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
out of the water he is ecstatic and tells his criminal friends that God has forgiven
him of all his sins, including the Piggly Wiggly market he robbed. The ring leader
of the group expresses doubt and tells him that while God may have forgiven him
it's not likely that the governor of Mississippi sees it quite the same way.
The point is that the kind of forgiveness that humans give to other humans is as
spiritual in nature as the kind that God gives to us. Whether human to human or
God to human forgiveness does not mean that we escape rightful punishments
on earth for our wrong actions (although especially in a family or among friends
that does happen). What it ultimately does mean is that such complete
forgiveness regards our eternal future and status before God. The key principle
that is being invoked is reconciliation. This is because reconciliation between
humans begins with forgiveness, and it mimics the reconciliation between God
and humans that we call salvation.
The next subject Christ speaks about is fasting. His instruction on the matter boils
down to this: what matters to God is our inward humility and not some outward
display intended to gather attention. Once again, Yeshua is not pronouncing a
new way to look at fasting, but rather He is trying to restore what God intended
from times of old. Seven hundred years earlier, God said this through the prophet
Isaiah.
CJB Isaiah 58:1 Shout out loud! Don't hold back! Raise your voice like a
shofar! Proclaim to my people what rebels they are, to the house of Ya'akov
their sins. 2 "Oh yes, they seek me day after day and [claim to] delight in
knowing my ways. As if they were an upright nation that had not
abandoned the rulings of their God, they ask me for just rulings and [claim]
to take pleasure in closeness to God, 3
[asking,] Why should we fast, if you
don't see? Why mortify ourselves, if you don't notice?' "Here is my answer:
when you fast, you go about doing whatever you like, while keeping your
laborers hard at work. 4 Your fasts lead to quarreling and fighting, to
lashing out with violent blows. On a day like today, fasting like yours will
not make your voice heard on high. 5 "Is this the sort of fast I want, a day
when a person mortifies himself? Is the object to hang your head like a
reed and spread sackcloth and ashes under yourself? Is this what you call
a fast, a day that pleases ADONAI? 6 "Here is the sort of fast I want␂releasing those unjustly bound, untying the thongs of the yoke, letting the
oppressed go free, breaking every yoke, 7 sharing your food with the
hungry, taking the homeless poor into your house, clothing the naked
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
when you see them, fulfilling your duty to your kinsmen!" 8 Then your light
will burst forth like the morning, your new skin will quickly grow over your
wound; your righteousness will precede you, and ADONAI's glory will
follow you. 9 Then you will call, and ADONAI will answer; you will cry, and
he will say, "Here I am." Yeshua says that rather than fasting and going around looking miserable so that
people will think how pious you must be to go through such agony of self␂imposed hunger, fast in private. Don't make a show of it. Fasting in Christ's era
was regularly accompanied with the wearing of sackcloth and throwing ashes
over one's head, obviously meant to have people notice. It was even a rather
scheduled thing. As recorded in Talmudic tract Taanit 27b, private fasting was
ordained to take place on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th days of the week. The other
days it was prohibited. The point of fasting isn't for a public demonstration but
rather it is for an inward expression of repentance that only God can see. Let me
continue with a theme: nowhere do we find Paul dealing with fasting in any of his
Epistles. Fasting was a very Jewish religious element that showed up mainly in
the Holy Land, and far less so among the Diaspora. Christians have merely
borrowed the practice of fasting. Nothing wrong with that... in fact it is what
should be done but unfortunately its practice is usually based on various
denominational doctrines and traditions because to do otherwise would require
delving into the Old Testament and into Judaism. So allow me to once again
make the point: fasting is all about sincere personal repentance. The idea is that
un-confessed and un-repentant sin hinders the communication channel between
us and God. It is NOT that the more we fast and the more we suffer from it the
more we get what we want. That is a self-centered attitude. The former is a God␂centered attitude.
It is classic Jesus that He mentions The Father twice in rapid succession. It is the
Father who ordains, judges, and takes action. It is The Father who sees all and
knows all according to Christ. It is the Father who is to be worshipped and
praised. And certainly while Christ in Heaven, Our Messiah, is to also be glorified
it is only because He is the Father's agent. The demotion of The Father and the
promotion of Yeshua within Christianity has as its basis nothing scriptural at all;
but rather such role swapping is only anti-Semitism and it needs to be
confronted. This in no way is meant to diminish Jesus. But the Father reigns
supreme over Him, and just as the Lord's Prayer says we are to do, Christ says
we are to direct our prayers to The Father. And yet, does that mean that we don't
ever address Our Savior in Heaven? Or more directly: do we pray to Yeshua or
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
don't we?
We'll take a few minutes with this rather important question because it is far more
than about mere theology. There is simply no getting around that Christ tells His
disciples and everyone at the Sermon on the Mount that when they pray they are
to pray to the Father. And yet, in John 14 we read this:
CJB John 14:10-16 10 Don't you believe that I am united with the Father, and
the Father united with me? What I am telling you, I am not saying on my
own initiative; the Father living in me is doing his own works. 11 Trust me,
that I am united with the Father, and the Father united with me. But if you
can't, then trust because of the works themselves. 12 Yes, indeed! I tell you
that whoever trusts in me will also do the works I do! Indeed, he will do
greater ones, because I am going to the Father. 13 In fact, whatever you ask
for in my name, I will do; so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If
you ask me for something in my name, I will do it. 15 "If you love me, you
will keep my commands; 16 and I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another comforting Counselor like me, the Spirit of Truth, to be with you
forever.
From this passage it might seem that even after the example of the Lord's Prayer
we have choices A and B to pray to: either The Father or Yeshua. And yet the
waters are instantly muddied when Christ says that if you love Him then He
will ask the Father to send the Spirit. Clearly Jesus is saying that of all the things
He does have Heavenly authority over, the sending and directing of the work of
the Holy Spirit is not one of them.
Later in John 16 we read:
CJB John 16:19-28 19 Yeshua knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said
to them, "Are you asking each other what I meant by saying, 'In a little
while, you won't see me; and then, a little while later, you will see
me'? 20 Yes, it's true. I tell you that you will sob and mourn, and the world
will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 When a woman
is giving birth, she is in pain; because her time has come. But when the
baby is born, she forgets her suffering out of joy that a child has come into
the world. 22 So you do indeed feel grief now, but I am going to see you
again. Then your hearts will be full of joy, and no one will take your joy
away from you. 23 "When that day comes, you won't ask anything of me!
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
Yes, indeed! I tell you that whatever you ask from the Father, he will give
you in my name. 24 Till now you haven't asked for anything in my name.
Keep asking, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. 25 "I
have said these things to you with the help of illustrations; however, a time
is coming when I will no longer speak indirectly but will talk about the
Father in plain language. 26 When that day comes, you will ask in my name.
I am not telling you that I will pray to the Father on your behalf, 27 for the
Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed
that I came from God. 28 "I came from the Father and have come into the
world; again, I am leaving the world and returning to the Father." Here it seems as though Christ is turning things a bit from what He said only 2
chapters earlier. Yeshua spoke earlier of we, His followers, asking Him, but now
He speaks of asking the Father but in Jesus's name. Yeshua knew what He was
saying had to be befuddling. He didn't intend it to be a puzzle; it's only that what
we're dealing with is the very substance of God. Humans have tried all manner of
way to illustrate God's substance. Water is used (it can be solid, fluid or gas). The
egg is used (hard shell, soft white surrounding a yellow yoke). The various Trinity
Doctrines try to explain the inner workings of The Father, The Son, and The Holy
Spirit. It is my opinion that while not wholly adequate, we need to think of God as
a set of identifiable attributes, each with a distinct purpose. Of those attributes
Yeshua, The Son, is God's agent who brings about the Father's will. In another
sense, the Father and The Son are so perfectly unified in will (even so, it is the
Father's will that The Son puts on as His own will) that it seems that under many
circumstances The Son can receive a request from one of His followers and act
because His job (His attribute) is to act on the Father's behalf, but still only within
the Father's will.
I notice that Jesus NEVER says to pray to Him; instead He says to pray to The
Father. What we see is that in place of using the word "pray" Jesus says He
Himself is to be "asked". Is there is a difference between praying to The Father
versus asking Jesus? I think there must be in Jesus's mind, but I'm not sure
exactly what that difference might be. I've said on numerous occasions that all
we humans have at our disposal to communicate with God (and with one
another) and to discern matters of the spiritual world are human words. The only
illustrations of the spiritual world we have that we can use necessarily come from
the physical world. But because the spiritual world is so different from and
superior to the physical world, there is no vocabulary or illustration available
and I don't believe our minds are built to understand it anyway.... to help us grasp
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
how the exact relationship between the Christ and the Father the substance
of God works. So we only have the vaguest idea of it and need to be satisfied
with that for the time being although we yearn for more conclusive answers. But I
caution: such yearning out of curiosity is fine. But if that yearning is more of a
demand for proof otherwise belief is held back or suspended, then what we're
doing is putting God on trial.
Therefore is it wrong to pray to Jesus? No. But as with all that He has been
telling us so far in the Sermon on the Mount, our intent and motive behind our
prayer is the key. If we are praying to Jesus to avoid praying to The Father (who
so many in the institutional Church regard as the God of the Jews and NOT of
gentile Christians, or they see The Father as the obsolete God of the Old
Testament and Jesus the New God of the New Testament) then we have a
problem of motive. However if we pray to Jesus in the sense that He and the
Father are unified in some immutable way that He has plainly said is the case,
something that is beyond our limited human ability to grasp, and that whatever
we pray to Him will either be taken to The Father or that Jesus will act in the
Father's behalf as the Father's agent, then it must be fine to pray to Jesus.
Thus in the same vein, verse 18 ends by Yeshua saying that since you are
praying to The Father, and The Father sees what is done in secret (and secret,
private, is where most personal prayer ought to take place), then it is the Father
that will issue any rewards.
Verse 19 moves on to one of the more challenging subjects especially for
Westerners. The subject is money and the want of it. I will say upfront that the
Prosperity Doctrine is near bizarre and undefendable after reading verses 19-24.
But in a doctrine oriented Christianity, whatever new doctrine that comes around
that pleases and seems to personally benefit the congregation is usually
adopted. It also needs to be said before we begin that even though verses 19-24
speak directly about God and money, verses 24 -35 are connected to the same
subject.
The question at hand is this: What should I do about personal wealth, and how
does that affect my relationships with fellow humans and (more importantly) my
relationship with God?
Thus starting at verse 19 and moving well into chapter 7, we will begin to deal
with what we must call "social issues", with money being the first. The instruction
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
is to not store up personal wealth on earth but rather to store up wealth in
Heaven. Although our CJB says "wealth" most other versions say "treasure" and
I think that is closer to the mark. The Greek word is thesauros and the Greek
Lexicons say it means precious things that are collected and put in a treasury.
One can have wealth and not necessarily consider it treasure or precious. But the
words treasure and precious indicate something's worth and importance. So the
idea is for us to not concentrate the purpose of our lives on laying up material
things that are so very precious to us, but rather to use that time and mental
energy to store up different things that are also precious to us but for different
reasons. So if we are not to focus on acquiring the material things (money being
the prime thing) on earth, then what is the nature of the non-material treasure we
lay up in a spiritual Heaven? If you answer that it can only be spiritual things,
then my question is: what spiritual things? If it is spiritual things then how do we
acquire them? I think the answer comes in the next several verses and basically
it is that the Heavenly treasure amounts to our good deeds and generosity. So it
is not an issue of the tangible (material wealth) versus the intangible (spiritual
wealth). The precious treasure we are to lay up in Heaven begins as something
that is quite tangible. Yeshua also says that laying up precious material things on
earth are destined to have a short life span anyway. Moths are certain to eat fine
and valuable garments, and rust is certain to destroy things made of metal (metal
of all kind was expensive and valuable in Christ's era). But the things we lay up in
Heaven are eternal and nothing can sully them, devalue them, or destroy them.
But again we come back to the question: what are those things? The answer can
be found in Matthew 23:23.
CJB Matthew 23:23 'Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and P'rushim!
You pay your tithes of mint, dill and cumin; but you have neglected the
weightier matters of the Torah- justice, mercy, trust. These are the things
you should have attended to- without neglecting the others!
Mint, dill and cumin were expensive spices. Only the more well to do could give
those things, or perhaps the more pious would sacrifice much in their lives to buy
such things to offer. And yet, as valuable as they are in earthly wealth terms,
Christ says that justice, mercy, and trust are more true treasure to God. The
reality is that justice, mercy and trust are only valuable when put into action.
These God-principles must be encapsulated within our properly motivated good
deeds and not for our own benefit. Nor can justice, mercy and trust exist in our
lives via mere words, philosophies or theories that we intellectually agree with.
Thus one can certainly store up such treasures as those precious and expensive
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Lesson 21 - Matthew 6 cont 2
spices and there is nothing inherently wrong with that; but they have no positive
eternal effect, either. Better that one focus on storing up the rewards that God
gives to us from our behaving and acting with justice, mercy, and trust. So while
on earth justice, mercy and trust indeed must manifest themselves in visible
tangible ways, they also have their ethereal and eternal side as well.
We'll end here and spend considerably more time with the important matter of
God and money when we meet again next week.
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 22, chapter 6 Continued 3
We ended last week by discussing Matthew 6 verse 19. Beginning with this verse
and on into the first part of chapter 7 Yeshua deals with an array of matters that
in modern vocabulary we would probably label as "social issues". And the first
one has to do with money, or better, material wealth and how that may affect our
relationship with God.
Before we go any further let's re-read a few verses. Open your Bibles to Matthew
chapter 6.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 6:19 - 24
Because Yeshua is dealing with social matters we need to keep our
understanding of them in the context of what this meant to 1st century Jewish
society. The good news is that the general principles He is teaching are easily
transferred across time and culture and can be applied anywhere and anytime.
The first instruction speaks of how a follower of Christ ought to approach the
matter of wealth accumulation and how to use it.
It is important to note that nowhere does Yeshua condemn wealth. Instead the
issues are 1) how much of our life should we focus on building up material
wealth, and 2) what we are to do with what we acquire. Therefore the command
is not that we should renounce material possessions. Rather it is more the
"treasure" that we should approach with a healthy suspicion. Treasure means the
accumulation of that which is most valuable to us; not the mere the mere
possession of things, many of which are necessarily and reasonable for living a
civilized life. Picture the mythical Midas laying upon, and luxuriating in, his pile of
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
gold. His life was entirely focused on the accumulation of money simply for the
sake of having it and glorying in it.
Many years ago when I was operating in the corporate world I knew a few folks
who had made, and were making, considerable money through owning Hi Tech
companies and/or through running them. One of them was a close friend and one
day we were talking about wealth and the purpose for working so hard to get it.
He said that as for himself, the wealth he was accumulating was his score card. It
was his score card that measured his success not only in achieving his personal
goals but also it measured his success relative to others. Indeed, for him wealth
accumulation required a score card. I think this is a pretty good example of what
Jesus is talking about as precisely NOT the way His followers are to approach
the issue of material wealth. Our wealth should never be the score card of our
life. Rather, we are to focus our efforts, and to measure the success of our
earthly life, on how much wealth we accumulate in Heaven.
We discussed storing up wealth (or better, treasure) in Heaven last time however
I want to briefly remind you what was said because I think it is important for all
Believers to gain such a mindset in a real, tangible way so that we can actually
know when we're doing it or not doing it. The question then is: how, exactly,
does one store up our treasure in Heaven? The ancient Jews often equated
Heaven with a Treasury, and called the treasures stored there "the treasures of
life". Obviously since Heaven is a spiritual and eternal place, the ancient Jews
couldn't, and we can't, store material treasure there. Gold, silver, precious jewels,
barns full of produce, herds of animals, fine clothing, and more cannot be present
in Heaven because it is a spiritual place and not a physical one. So what are
Heavenly treasures and how do we accumulate them while we're alive and on
earth? Matthew 23:23 provides the answer. It is our righteous deeds during our
lifetime that produce Heavenly treasure. By God's definition and viewpoint that
righteous treasure consists of our acts of mercy, justice, and trust (trust meaning
sincere faith in God). Mercy, justice and trust are to be more than fine ideas that
form a moral philosophy of life. These are not only to be our motivating force and
intent in all that we do (our inward qualities); but rather we are also to physically
and tangibly act out these ideas, motives and intents through our works and
deeds (our outward behavior). The poorest humans having the least material
wealth can think in terms of, and do deeds of, mercy, justice and trust. So even in
our acquisition of material wealth, it can and must be done within the bounds of
mercy, justice and trust. Fair play in our business dealings whether with our
neighbors, clients or our customers must be a constant. Showing compassion to
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
those whom we may be in a position to take advantage of due to our situation or
status must always be considered. Paying a fair wage even though we might be
able to hire someone who is desperate for income for much less than we
otherwise might, displays the proper motivation for acquisition of Heavenly
wealth. These are just a few everyday examples of our operating in mercy,
justice, and trust. Thus ironically, Heavenly treasure consists of our physical
actions on earth, which are of a type that produce spiritual treasure in Heaven as
a byproduct.
And the really great news is, says Christ, that while the material treasure that one
accumulates on earth is not bad or wrong, it is inevitably subject to rot, loss or
destruction; but the Heavenly treasure we store up is safe and secure and it
stores without deterioration or loss of value for an eternity. Next Jesus gives us
the bottom line of what the purpose is behind this wealth principle. Verse 20
says: "For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also". Recall that in
that era the heart organ was believed to be where the mind operated. The heart
was thought to be the place of rational thinking, and also where our human will
resided. Thus a better way to state this verse in modern English terms is, "For
where your wealth is, there your mind will be also". So Yeshua's statement is not
an issue of where our emotional focus is; it is an issue of where our thinking, the
passion of our will, and our intellectual focus lies. Yeshua makes it somewhat of
a zero sum game. All of us have only so much mental energy and time to give
and use. So which ever path we choose automatically means that for every
measure of time and energy the one endeavor receives, the other gets an equal
amount LESS of our time and energy. It's like a teeter-totter. If one end is up, the
other must be down.
Verse 22 sounds as though Christ is opening up another issue, but in fact what
He says has everything to do with what we just discussed: money and wealth. It
begins with the famous words: "The eye is the lamp of the body". Some call this
and what follows a parable. Maybe from the modern definition of a parable it is,
but it was not from the 1st century Jewish standpoint. And as we get to Yeshua's
first parable as listed in Matthew, we'll get deeply into what a parable is, its
intended use, and how we need to understand biblical parables in our time.
This statement that "the eye is the lamp of the body" deserves a great deal of our
attention because the way it is nearly universally taught in Christendom has
nothing to do with what it meant to the people Yeshua was talking to. The way it
is taught from most pulpits is that the meaning is that the eye acts as a portal, a
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
gateway, a channel that guides what we see.... that is the light comes from an
external source and then into the body... and into the brain. Why do we think
that? Because in fact, from a medical standpoint, it is true. The eye is an amazing
organ that takes light that enters into it in the form of shapes and hues and
textures and various intensities and converts that light into millions of miniscule
electrical impulses, which are then sent along the optical nerve into the Thalamus
and from there it is distributed into the special parts and lobes of our brain that
were designed to process those signals and turn them into meaning. So it is kind
of like a cable goes between the eye that operates like a camera and then
connects it to the brain that operates like a TV. Yet the eye (our camera) can only
process what is taken in from the outside world; it can't create its own images.
However the ancient world knew nothing of this biological process. They didn't
know what the brain did. They didn't know how eyes functioned. Generally
speaking such scientific knowledge, even in its most primitive understanding,
wasn't known until around 1500 A.D.
So then what did that statement about the eye being the lamp of the body mean
to those Jews sitting before Yeshua in the hills above the Sea of Galilee who
didn't think of it the way we do? Because whatever it meant to them is exactly
how Christ intended it to mean to everyone is all eras, including to us, today. I'll
say up front that because ancient Jewish expressions and their meanings are so
distant and unknown within modern Western culture that what I'm about to
explain to you will sound a bit complicated. First know that the statement of "the
eye is the lamp of the body" isn't found in the Old Testament (which was the
Bible of the Jews in Yeshua's time) and so it was apparently only a well known
expression at least within Jewish society. Rather it is that in that day the eye was
regularly compared with a lamp, in a sense that a lamp produces its own light.
Thus part of that ancient idea is that (unlike how we might think of it) the eye
doesn't take in light, it produces light. We find this same concept in the Old
Testament and in other ancient Jewish manuscripts.
CJB Daniel 10:6 His body was like beryl, his face looked like lightning and
his eyes like fiery torches;
The Apostle John used the same description about the eye in His Apocalypse.
CJB Revelation 1:14 His head and hair were as white as snow-white wool,
his eyes like a fiery flame,
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
Here's how we should think about this. Does a lamp give off light, or does it take
in light? Of course; it gives off light. But it doesn't always. A lamp is a device then
when it has fuel in it and when the wick that becomes soaked with that fuel is lit,
then it emits light. However that light can be extinguished and so the lamp goes
dark.... even though the lamp itself continues to exist. So in Jesus's sermon what
is it that He says determines the status of that lamp ("the eye is the lamp of the
body")? That is, does the lamp create light in the eye, or does the lamp NOT
produce light and thus the lamp remains dark? That is the subject of the last half
of verse 22 and all of verse 23.
The last half of verse 22 says: "So if you have a good eye your whole body will
be full of light". In Jewish expression a "good eye" meant to be generous with
your money or material things. On the other hand, as it says in verse 24, "but if
you have an evil eye, your whole body will be full of darkness". An evil eye meant
to be stingy with your money or material things. Thus from the ancient Jewish
perspective it is that the eye operates as a lamp in the sense of it being an
indicator of the inner moral condition of the person. When the lamp of the eye is
lit and emitting light, it indicates a generous person. A generous person in God's
economy displays mercy, justice and trust. But when the lamp of the eye is dark
(not lit) and so it is NOT emitting light, then it indicates a stingy person and this
stinginess indicates an immoral lack of mercy, justice, and trust. Thus verses 22
and 23 together form a word play that integrates two well known Jewish
expressions into one profound thought. Let me be clear: the eye and the lamp
are used as metaphors. That is, there is no suggestion that one can peer into
another person's eye and see an actual light from a lamp or on the other hand
see that there is no light coming from a darkened lamp. Nor can one person look
into another person's literal eye and judge from its appearance whether that
person is generous or stingy.
Professors Davies and Allison liken Christ's statement to a riddle that can be
understood on two levels. I entirely agree with that claim ; however I would label
those two levels as the P'shat (the simplest sense) and the Remez, a hint at
something deeper. The P'shat sense of it is this: "the eye is the lamp of the
body" was a kind of common Jewish proverb. If one's eye is good (to a Jew that
meant they were generous), then it indicates that this person is operating in the
proper spirit of life on earth by loving their fellow man as they love themselves
and demonstrating that by sharing their wealth and treasures with others. But if
one's eye is evil (to a Jew that meant they were stingy), then it indicates that this
person is NOT operating in the proper spirit of life on earth and they do NOT love
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
their fellow man as they love themselves, as demonstrated by NOT sharing their
wealth and treasures with others. Obviously Christ is saying to be generous with
whatever material wealth you have.
But in the Remez sense of it, it is speaking of a higher spiritual truth. It is that a
person with a good eye not only is operating within the moral standard of loving
one's fellow man as much they love themselves, but is also operating in a
righteous manner that pleases God and so it matters greatly in the spiritual
eternity that comes after we die. It will have a definite role in determining our
place within the societal structure of God's eternal Kingdom. Conversely; a
person with an evil eye not only is operating immorally and is not carrying out
God's Torah commandment of loving one's fellow man as much as they love
themselves by refusing to share their wealth and treasure with others, but they
are also jeopardizing and lowering their place within the societal structure of
God's eternal Kingdom. So our generosity or stinginess with whatever little or
much wealth we accumulate on earth will be a prime determining factor (among
other things) in our status in our spiritual eternity.
In verse 24 Christ sort of sums up what His teaching on money, treasure, and
material wealth means. In another of His most famous sayings He says:
CJB Matthew 6:24 No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate
the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first.
You can't be a slave to both God and money.
Or as we more commonly hear it (as in the King James Version):
KJV Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Before we can discuss this passage, we need to make a decision concerning the
final word of verse 24, which is "money" in the CJB and "mammon" in the KJV.
The reason we need to contemplate this is that most Christians consider the
word "money" to be generally a neutral term (it is neither good nor evil), but the
word "mammon" to be a decidedly negative term (it is evil). The Greek word that
is being translated is mammonas. This word was borrowed from an Aramaic
word mamon that meant wealth, but more in the sense of meaning profit. Early
Latin borrowed the word from the Greek and pronounced it as mammona, which
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
simply meant wealth. It was used this way in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which was
based on the works by the Early Church Father Jerome late in the 4th century. It
is at this point that within the early gentile Church the term seems to have taken
on a negative, even evil, sense. Up to that time the word was a rather neutral and
generic term that meant money, or wealth, or the profit made from business
dealings with no stigma as to its rightness or wrongness.
So right at the start of the 5th century we find that within the Christian Church the
Latin mammona (later borrowed by the English language and made into the term
mammon) morphed into something that is bad and is to be avoided. But in
Christ's era and for a few centuries afterward, it indicated nothing bad at all. It
was just a word that meant money or wealth in all its forms and amounts. What
does that mean for us? First it means we have to adjust our thinking. Therefore
the CJB version that uses the term "money" is better than those versions that
translate the word as "mammon". Although in the end, the idea from Christ's day
is closer to meaning material wealth in whatever form, provided we understand
that even the term wealth doesn't always mean rich. It means the value of an
object or a labor. The main point being that Yeshua was not at all indicating that
material things or even abundant material wealth was bad.
In Luke 16, the same statement was recorded with exactly the same words. So
we can take Yeshua's statement about God and wealth as authentic and not
reworded at some point in history. Let us remember that the context for this
instruction of Jesus began at verse 19, and so it is all part of His lesson about
how a follower of His ought to view money, especially if it is "treasure". So far He
has fashioned His lesson on the matter about how we are treat it in view of our
relationship with other humans. Now in verse 24 He switches to how we are treat
money in view of our relationship with God. Thus He frames money and God as
the two possible masters of our life, and says we must choose between them. So
considering what He has said in the previous couple of verses it comes down to
this: those who are generous on earth are also storing up treasures in Heaven
and thus is evidence that they have chosen God as their master. Those who are
stingy on earth are only storing up treasures on earth, and none in Heaven, and
thus have chosen money and wealth as their master.
Just as in the previous chapter (chapter 5) in verses 17-19 when Yeshua is
making a statement in which He is anticipating objections or accusations (at least
from some in the crowd) about what He is soon going to say, here in Matthew
6:24 He seems to also anticipate some push back. Since He is saying it is
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
impossible to serve two masters, He knows that some will say: "Sure you can!" I
can work hard with all my time and focus to gather wealth at the same time I'm
working hard to follow God. In modern colloquial terms: hey, I can walk and chew
gum at the same time! But Yeshua says that because of human nature, we only
have the human capacity to love the one master and hate the other. Let me
remind you that in the Bible love and hate really aren't quite like we think of those
terms in the 21st century. Love and hate to us express the extremes of our
emotions. But in Yeshua's day to love and hate were what we can justifiably call
"political terms". That is, to love your master (your king or your governor or even
the person to whom you were in servitude, for example) means to give them your
sincere loyalty. To hate your master means to be disloyal to them. So it is my
opinion that in modern times in modern English, the better way to say what Christ
was getting at is: "You cannot be a slave to two masters: for you will be loyal to
the one and disloyal to the other " Thus for the person who believes that they
can focus day and night upon wealth building, basing nearly every decision they
make around that goal; but at the same time claim they are all in for serving God,
it cannot be so even if they want it to be so. Christianity sometimes calls this
straddling the fence; one foot in the world of acquiring material wealth, the other
foot in the world of serving God.
Again: this is not Yeshua speaking against material gain. It is that it must always
be secondary to our focus and relationship with God. Yeshua not only means that
we cannot serve two masters well; it is that it is impossible to serve two masters
the way a master must be served. Frankly such a notion of serving two masters
is almost an oxymoron. If one is your master, then by definition you cannot have
a second one or NEITHER is your master. Instead YOU are trying to be master
of all. Today, in the prosperous West, it is not easy to figure out how to balance
money and wealth acquisition with serving God. We tend to go to extremes.
Some people decide that having more than their basic needs met is wrong and
not Godly and so look at those who have wealth as automatically godless and
wicked. Others think that if you profess Christianity that God automatically wants
you to be abundantly wealthy. The wrong-minded Prosperity Doctrine came from
this mindset. It really revolves around the idea of the existence of a divine score
card. That is, as a Christian the more material wealth you accumulate indicates a
greater faith in God, and so this wealth can be seen as your visible reward from
God for your faithfulness. The reality is that this is just a way to spin this passage
so that we can violate its underlying principle: you can't have it both ways. From
God's perspective you can't give all your loyalty to both the accumulation of
wealth and service to Him. Choose.
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
This is a good time to make brief mention about what a modern Believer ought to
do with the wealth we have accumulated, however little or large. The top of the
list always is: give. Give. Be merciful. Be obedient. But ultimately, be generous
both in mind and in behavior. Giving grudgingly or even mechanically is worth
less than not giving at all, because motive and intent is what the Lord is looking
for above all else. Having the motive and intent but never quite getting around to
doing what you know you should do is just as wrong. There are people all around
us that need help, and ministries that you are no doubt associated with that need
to be funded in order to carry out the commission they've been given. Holding
back when you could give, and should give, is (according to Christ) to your
personal eternal detriment. Enough said.
So I want to move on to verse 25 but I want to leave you with this thought about
wealth and our relationship with the Lord. First, we do NOT find Christ developing
new rules about wealth. Yeshua Himself regularly relied on the hospitality of
others in His own ministry. In fact, for doing so He was one time called a glutton
and another a drunkard!
CJB Luke 7:34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say,
'Aha! A glutton and a drunkard! A friend of tax-collectors and sinners!'
Second, Christ doesn't even cry out against the current economic system of His
day that had created so few rich and so many poor. That's because the issue is
not wealth itself; for Him the issue is its proper use. Because wealth and money
is such a huge part of life for all of us, but especially for Westerners, I want to
quote something Martin Hengel said that well captures the essence of Yeshua's
position on the matter.
"Jesus was not interested in any new theories about the rightness and
wrongness of possessions in themselves, (or) about the origin of property
or its better distribution. Rather He adopted the same scandalously free
and untrammeled attitude to property as to the powers of the state; the
alien Roman rule and its Jewish confederates. The imminence of the
Kingdom of God robs all these things of their power....."
In other words, as with everything that Jesus has so far instructed in His Sermon
on the Mount, there is nothing new here. Rather He is stating all the old tried and
true laws, regulations, and common virtues known for centuries in Hebrew
society, but now they are to be thought of, and acted upon, within the new reality
9/13
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
of the sudden arrival of the Kingdom of God. We, too, must look at all things in
the Bible and all things in our lives, in light of the ever expanding reality of the
Kingdom of God that is here....now including the certainty of the end of all
things and the soon return to earth of the Kingdom's ruler: Yeshua. The Son of
God. What does our wealth mean, and what ought to be its purpose, when we
have that knowledge and we think of it that way? Let's read a little more in
Matthew 6.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 6:25 - end
Verse 25 begins with what we could rightly call a Proverb of Yeshua. It is:
"Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your life " Words like this impress and
imprint on the lives of some, but fly over the heads of others. For whatever
reason, the Apostle Peter took them to heart.
CJB 1 Peter 5:7 Throw all your anxieties upon him, because he cares about
you.
The idea of trusting God for all the provisions of life was well embedded in
ancient Hebrew society. I spoke earlier that more than once in His sermon
Yeshua expected there to be murmurings and objections to the some of the
things He said. Thus beginning in verse 25 Christ answers the question that so
many in the large crowd would have inwardly thought or expressed out loud. In
fact, if you've been paying attention, maybe some of you are asking this question
right now. So if I'm to spend all my time and energy serving God, then how am I
supposed to provide for me and for my family? Can I really ever be completely
indifferent to the need and want of money and material things, even including
such basics as food and clothing?
I mentioned at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel that he sees Yeshua as a sort
of 2nd Moses, and in many ways Christ is re-living the life of Moses. Thus as we
read those final verses of chapter 6 we don't find Yeshua solving the rhetorical
riddle I just asked. Rather, like Moses as the people gathered in Egypt for the
Wilderness Journey, and he doesn't tell the people how they'll be provided for all
during that time of their journey, neither does Yeshua provide all the answers as
to how we can serve God with all of our focus and loyalty, and at the same time
acquire the provisions we are bound to need to sustain life. Rather both Moses
and Jesus simply say: follow me. Then the people either believe and trust, or
they don't.
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
When Yeshua compares the value of life to eat and drink, and the body to
clothing, and the need of food to the toil of planting and harvesting, He in no way
is suggesting that we all ought to become lazy or in some kind of warped sense
of being provided for just lay around and wait for God to supernaturally feed,
house and clothe us. Rather Christ is acknowledging that nothing is more human
than to worry about money. I've known a few rich people who just might worry
more about money than people who have little. So this is proof in itself that
harboring anxiety about these things doesn't move us one inch closer to solving
the problem of worry in our lives. Only faith in the Lord can be the balm that
soothes and calms. So what I'm saying is that this question falls in line with the
choice we were given about choosing our master whether it be money or God.
The choice is: shall we let worry and anxiety be our master, or shall we let our
faith in God be the ruler of our thoughts? As with money and God, there is no
halfway, one foot in and one foot out approach that is workable. Choose:
personal anxieties about our needs, or faith in God.
Let's understand: having food, clothing, and something to drink are generally a
given to most of Western society in our time (of course acknowledging that there
are those who fall outside that generality). But in Christ's day it was these things
that were the greatest every day sources of worry and anxiety for Jews. Today
we worry a lot about what disease we might catch. About the value of stocks and
our 401K. Whether we'll get a good raise at work or if the cost of Health
insurance will become unaffordable for us. These are all things that to us seem
reasonable to be concerned about. So the underlying subject of these final
verses of chapter 6 are not really so much about food, drink and clothing; rather
they are about faith in God as the antidote for worry. Every era, and every
person, has various legitimate things that we could be anxious about. But in
every era trusting God is our best hope for inner peace no matter what
circumstance might arise.
Notice how Christ uses examples from nature to make His point. The idea of
comprehending great spiritual truths from observing physical, natural creatures is
found all throughout the Bible. C.H. Dodd puts it this way:
"(Jesus) held the conviction that there is no mere analogy, but (rather) an
inward affinity, between the natural order and the spiritual order. Or as we
might put it in the language of the Parables themselves, the Kingdom of
God is intrinsically like the process of nature. Since nature and super␂nature are one order, you can take part of that order and find illumination
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
for the other parts".
That is, the natural kingdom and the spiritual kingdom aren't so much similar as
they are actually cut from the same cloth because they are equally produced and
watched carefully over by the same loving Creator. So Yeshua's use of birds and
plants (flowers) to compare to human life and our needs aren't far fetched or
mere rhetoric. One explains the other.
But there is one thing that isn't the same: the value of birds and plants versus the
value of human life. Here Yeshua uses standard Jewish (even Rabbinic) logic
and argument. He uses the principle of Kai V'chomer. The principle of light
versus heavy. This principle is used in philosophy to compare items A and B
under certain circumstances. So if A is true, then B must be so much more. In
this case, since God has so much concern for humanity that He has sent His Son
to die for us, won't He then give to us what we need in such greater proportion
than He does to care for birds and plants? The answer to a Kai
V'chomer question lies within the structure of the question itself. And the answer
to Christ's question is: of course God will give more care to humans made in His
image than to birds and plants who are already wonderfully cared for.
At the end of verse 27 Yeshua follows up that question with yet another. "Can
any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to his life?" Let me say this in another
way: Worrying is foolish and accomplishes nothing. Not only does it not add to
your longevity, it takes away from it. So why do it? Worrying is the epitome of
doing something inherently unproductive or even destructive. So the obvious
answer to His question is: "no". Does any human being, Jew or gentile, believe
that worrying helps matters? Or that anxiety is the key to a long life span? So if
we inherently know the answer to that, why do we keep doing it; seemingly
helpless to stop it? The answer is at the end of verse 30: "What little trust you
have". Ouch! Two verses later Jesus says that having little trust, which brings on
great anxiety, is what pagans experience because they set their hearts on "all
these things". What things? Literally food, clothing, and drink. But these items are
merely representative of the all the material needs humans have or desire. And
pagans experience worry, says Yeshua, because this is what they set their
hearts on. In other words, money and material possessions is inherently the
master of pagans, and the result is the never fully satisfied want of them. But, if
God is our master, then as verse 33 says: "Seek first His Kingdom and His
righteousness, and all these things (our material needs) will be given to you."
12/13
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Lesson 22 - Matthew 6 cont 3
Believers seem to readily notice the part where it says to seek His Kingdom. But
often the "and His righteousness" part seems to sail by unnoticed. Remember
what we have learned in the past: God's righteousness is His will to save. So
seeking His righteousness means to seek Salvation. His Kingdom and His
Salvation are organically connected. His Kingdom is the realm of the saved, and
only of the saved. And the only channel to salvation lies in God's Son, Yeshua.
So once again, we see Christ NOT saying: seek only God and have no interest in
acquiring provisions for you and your family. Rather this is yet another statement
about priorities. We need God's salvation and we also need sustenance and
provision. But FIRST and with the most energy, and above all else, we need to
seek God's Kingdom and the salvation He offers.
Thus, since worry is always about our physical, material and earthly wants and
needs (which are always to be secondary to our spiritual relationship with God),
then stop worrying about these things and especially about the future. You can't
control, amend, or stop the future. This doesn't mean not to plan or to be
indifferent to your obvious needs. This is talking about fruitless anxiety;
obsessing and fretting about things as opposed to planning a way to improve
your circumstances in concert with fullest trust in God as your master. Because
whatever God wills, ordains, or allows is inevitable.
We'll begin chapter 7 next time.
13/13


Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 23, chapter 7
We have now completed 2 of the 3 chapters that Matthew devoted to Yeshua's
Sermon on the Mount. Every now and then it is probably profitable to remind you
that Matthew did not write in chapters; ending one and beginning another. Rather
this was a literary invention that would come more than a millennia later in the
world of Church academics. The intent of adding chapters (and verses) was to
make study of the Bible easier and sections of the Bible more convenient to
universally identify and thus to communicate about them among ourselves more
efficient. Nonetheless, such artificial boundaries that chapters establish must be
taken lightly in Scripture study because they can interrupt a long flowing thought
process, at times dividing it in half, even making the same long thought appear to
be two separate ones occurring as separate instances when they aren't.
The concept of chapters didn't enter into writing until the 4th century; long after
the biblical canon, Old and New Testaments, were established. And even then, it
was only sparingly used of novels and some narratives. Thus we have to be
careful when applying the same Western literary concept of a chapter that tries to
find logical beginnings and endings to episodes in a story, to the Bible. Modern
literature is always written around the structure of chapters. The Bible, however,
was not constructed that way because the concept of chapters didn't even exist
within Jewish literature at that time. So going by chapters can, when studying
God's Word, at times mislead more than help. Such is the case as we study the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew; the words of chapters 5, 6, and 7 were one
long continuous flow of divine thought without interruption. Thus as a mental
exercise, as we read the opening words of chapter 7 we should read them as
merely a continuation of the final words of chapter 6.
1 / 12

Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
Before we read chapter 7, let's do a Reader's Digest summation of what we've
found so far in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon was aimed at the Jewish
people that formed the bulk of all who were present in the hills above the Sea of
Galilee. And since the population of the Jewish nation was no more monolithic
than any other people, but rather consisted of groups that held to common beliefs
but were also naturally segregated by occupation, education and wealth, Yeshua
recognizes and acknowledges individual swaths of various Jewish groups when
He offers what Christendom calls the Beatitudes (blessings) to open His speech.
Nearly immediately afterward He pauses to frame exactly what His speech is
going to entail. It is going to be an instruction on the Torah. And because nearly
all the people sitting before him were more educated in Synagogue Traditions
than they were in actual biblical Torah, then He knew that there would be some
who might push back on what He was going to say and perhaps accuse Him of
teaching wrongly. Teaching wrongly meant that what He would say might not
always match with what they had heard the Scribes and Pharisees teach in their
local synagogue. Therefore He made it abundantly clear that despite what they
might at times think He was saying, in fact nothing He would say would add to,
subtract from, or change even the tiniest element or principle of the Torah or
anything recorded in the entire Hebrew Bible (although it certainly would
challenge some of the Traditions). He went so far as to say that anyone
(obviously including Himself) who taught against the Law and the Prophets, or
disobeyed those laws and commandments, would be considered least in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Alternatively, anyone who properly taught and obeyed the
Law and the Prophets would be considered greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Let's stop and think about that for a minute. Why did Christ invoke the idea of the
Kingdom of Heaven, and even more where one would fit within the Kingdom
societal structure based on obedience to the Torah? It is because upon John the
Baptist beginning His ministry of making a road in the wilderness for the Lord, the
Kingdom of Heaven made its first appearance on earth.
In the Hebrew Bible (the Tanach, the Old Testament) the words "the Kingdom of
Heaven" are not found. There is one mention in 2nd Chronicles 13 about the
kingdom of the Lord (literally the kingdom of Yehoveh), but it is a general term
and cannot be compared to Christ's mention of the Kingdom of Heaven (or its
synonym the Kingdom of God) as a real and actual entity unto itself. Yeshua
speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven was a new revelation. This is why so
many of His parables were about trying to explain to people (especially to His
Disciples) what the Kingdom of Heaven was and how it operated and how it
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
pertained to them.
Believers, please pay close attention. The Kingdom of Heaven descended from
Heaven and began its existence on earth during Yeshua's lifetime, having never
existed on earth before. And as a result everything about the Law and the
Prophets had to now be understood within this new reality of the Kingdom of
Heaven having arrived. This meant that the simple literal sense of obedience to
every Torah commandment, law and principle now incorporated an even higher
spiritual sense and manifestation to it that included not only the here and now but
the future time when the end of all things would arrive. Thus it is not that the
higher spiritual sense that Yeshua regularly spoke about replaced the simpler
literal sense of the Torah; it is that both were now in play. Thus Christ's strong
instruction that just because He was about to introduce the Jewish people to that
higher spiritual sense that went hand in glove with the recent arrival of the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth, in no way meant that the people now had license to
ignore or disobey the Law of Moses or that the Law itself had changed. What
we read in later chapters of Matthew, and even later in the Epistles, tells us that
some Jews (a relative few) got the message; and others didn't. We shouldn't be
surprised; the Church is still struggling to properly understand Jesus's message
in light of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
After that He went on to deal with a number of Torah commandments which,
because of the arrival of the Kingdom on earth, followers of His ought to obey
even more strictly, and in another higher and better way than their fathers before
them did. That is, the essence of what Christ instructed is very nearly the
opposite of the common doctrine taught within institutional Christianity that says
that Christ came to make the Law much easier upon His followers (some going
so far as to claim He abolished the Law and the principles and commands of the
entire Hebrew Bible). So Yeshua gives some examples of what He's talking
about. For instance: murdering your brother is a capital offense under the Law
and so must not be done; everyone knows that and most people will never
murder anyway. But now, upon the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, even being
angry with one's brother is considered as a very severe offense akin to murder.
This is because murder happens when anger occurs first. So I ask you: which is
easier? To avoid murder, or to avoid anger? That's a rhetorical question because
we all know that not being angry is much more difficult. Next Christ speaks about
adultery and says that the Law commands that a married man or woman is not to
have sexual intimacy outside the bonds of their marriage. Yet He says that now,
upon the arrival of the Kingdom, a man even looking in lust upon a woman is just
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
as serious as the actual act of adultery. Men: which is easier? To avoid adultery,
or to not even look at another woman lustfully? Other examples are given, but
you get the idea.
He sums up this portion of His teaching by saying that the point of it all is:
CJB Matthew 5:48 Therefore, be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is
perfect.
Perfection, says Yeshua, while of course involving our behavior (following the
do's and don'ts of the Law), is more reflected by our deepest inner thoughts.
Thus perfection here meaning our moral perfection.... is the goal for Believers.
If we don't get angry with our brother (a moral failure says Christ) we surely
wouldn't murder him. If married men don't look lustfully at other women (another
moral failure) then we won't be tempted to commit adultery.
As Yeshua continues into what Bibles label as chapter 6, He expands the
concept of moral perfection by addressing two regular activities of Jews: giving
alms to the poor and prayer. Clearly neither of these things, on the surface,
involve disobedience to the Law. That is, Jesus doesn't admonish the people that
don't sufficiently give alms or don't pray enough; rather giving charitably and
praying was a given among Jewish society. Instead the issue is about proper
intent. That is, the inner moral condition and motive of the worshipper was the
point. And if giving and prayer are accomplished with the proper moral intent,
then drawing attention to one's self in the doing is the last thing we would ever
think to do. So if people make a public show of giving or praying, then it is
evidence that they are not giving and not praying with proper inner moral
conviction.
Once again in light of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, Christ says
here is how we ought to pray and He proceeds with what the Church calls The
Lord's Prayer. In it Christ shows us the elements that prayer should contain but
also the humility and moral attitude with which prayer ought to be made. Every
prayer should be addressed to The Father, should glorify The Father, and we
should acknowledge that because He is the Creator and because His will is
always done in Heaven, then His will also needs to be carried out on earth
(especially because the Kingdom of Heaven has now extended its range to
include earth.... or better, earthlings people). Yeshua goes on to show us that
we should ask The Father to provide for our physical and spiritual needs, and to
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
be merciful and forgiving to us. At the same time our prayers should demonstrate
that we acknowledge our obligation to be merciful and forgiving to our fellow
humans, and that we have no right to expect such compassion from The Father if
we insist on holding back our compassion toward others.
After showing us how to pray Yeshua gives us some other do's and don'ts about
common activities within Jewish society such as fasting because fasting was
often associated with prayer. His next subject has been central to humankind
since the Garden of Eden: accumulating wealth. Or in modern thought: making
money. The subject is large and many faceted, so Yeshua addresses it from a
number of angles. The first angle is how we are to view the notion of wealth,
itself. We are to see it for what it is: temporary and subject to destruction.
Building further on the matter of money and wealth Yeshua offers instruction
about being generous with our wealth, and uses the common colloquial terms of
that day to categorize the level of, or lack of, such generosity: the good eye and
the evil eye. Then He goes on to explain about the eye being the lamp of the
body, which essentially means that a good eye is outwardly indicative of a
generous spirit, and an evil eye is outwardly indicative of a stingy spirit.
After that Yeshua makes a principle out of what He has said thus far. It is that no
man can have two masters; and the choice is between money and God. And
despite what many humans think, you can't have it both ways. Sometimes we
overlook the simple fact that having 2 masters is an oxymoron and that is how
the Jews would have understood it. It would be like claiming that you had two 1st
dates. One or the other was the first and only one can claim that title, no matter
how we might try to spin it. Thus in our 4 dimensional Universe it is only possible
for a man to have 1 master; all other influences well be subservient to that master
even if we don't realize it.
Since the obvious answer is built into the question of the 2 masters (God must be
that master), then the next issue is: so what do I do about the material things that
we all need like food, shelter, and clothing? I want to comment here that in no
way was Yeshua suggesting that material possessions and money are wrong or
evil. Rather it is that one must not focus our life on, and be controlled by, money
and wealth accumulation. Yeshua uses nature to point out that birds and plants
are beautiful and well fed without planting and sowing, and well clothed without
making their own garments. Rather God provides it all for them. Therefore while
He values all of His Creation, He values humans more than all other life forms.
So Christ's argument is that if The Father provides so well for birds and plants He
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
will certainly provide even more for human beings.
In the next to the last verse of chapter 6 Yeshua draws us back to the
monumental importance of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and
what this is to mean to us. He says that first and above all else, we are to seek
this Kingdom and we also to seek God's righteousness. God's righteousness is
His will to save. And to be saved is the requirement for membership to the
Kingdom. So seeking God's Kingdom and His righteousness are two sides of the
same coin. Then, says Jesus, after seeking these two things seek for all the
physical and material needs you have. So it is not a matter of having the one or
the other; it is a matter of priority and emphasis by the worshipper.
So the bottom line to Yeshua's instruction to put God first in everything is that if
we do so, then there is no need to worry about anything, and especially not to
worry about the future. By definition, worry is the opposite of faith. Therefore faith
solves the universal human problem of worry.
Let's read Matthew chapter 7.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 7 all
Verse 1 takes us back to how we are to treat our fellow human beings (which is
more often than not the meaning of "neighbor"). By saying "do not judge" some
believe that Christ has announced a 100% injunction against reasonable
conclusions drawn from personal observations and experiences. As Davies and
Allison point out, if that were the case we wouldn't even be able to choose
between true and false religions. The judging being spoken of is not referring to a
judicial setting; rather it is about how we measure a person and their actions in
rather typical day to day activities. Let me pause here to make a point that I
believe is much needed in Christianity. Just as judging another person is not
being rigidly prohibited, but rather it must be done within the bounds of mercy
and compassion, the issue is that nearly every matter of human interest is not as
black and white as we'd like to make it.
It is ironic that especially gentile Believers at once rebel against the idea of
following a rules-based religion (which is what they accuse Jews of doing), but at
the same time want their Pastors and priests to give them a simple rule to follow
regarding many circumstances they might encounter so that they can quickly
solve a conundrum. Thus many Christians view the permissions and prohibitions
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
of the Law of Moses as too difficult and inflexible, and yet at the same time want
black and white, yes and no answers to complex matters. Let me illustrate by
giving you an example of two extremes. I've heard the Catholic Church defend
their priests from punishment for child molestation on the basis of Jesus having
told us we're not to judge. I also know of women who were judged as sinful by
the church elders because they heard that she had fled her husband in fear; and
this without any personal knowledge of the facts. It's only that for them divorce is
prohibited for any reason and so a woman who separates from her husband
under any circumstances is automatically judged to be wrong and committing a
sin.
When we live our lives according to favorite verses or even parts of verses lifted
out of context, or without considering all that the Bible has to say on a subject,
then our viewpoints become skewed and polarized. The issue about judging that
begins chapter 7 is not that we are to check our brains at the door of our homes,
workplaces, or church, but rather we are not to invoke what Martin Luther called
"self-centered wisdom". We are not to try to make ourselves look better, or more
wise, or especially more pious by disparaging another. Thus we are to be very
careful and considered in our conclusions about a person, and always operating
within the moral insights that God's Word provides for us. The key is to
thoroughly know God's Word such that we don't fall back on what amounts to
sayings and partial truths.
Let me be clear on what this instruction not to judge means. It means not to
condemn or deplore our fellow man, and this because we are not his judicial
judge. Rather God is our judicial judge in Heaven. And thus, says the second part
of the verse, the reason we don't want to judge others (denounce others) is so
that God won't judge us IN THE JUDICIAL SENSE. In other words, Christians
today regularly talk about the final judgment, meaning a verdict is going to be
rendered upon us: either guilty or innocent. That is the meaning of the second
part of verse, but that is not the meaning of the first half of the verse. This
interpretation is borne out by the words of verse 2.
CJB Matthew 7:2 For the way you judge others is how you will be judged␂the measure with which you measure out will be used to measure to you.
Let me give you an illustration that might help with this. An official judicial trial
judge (the kind we're all familiar with), sitting on the bench in a courtroom is not
going to have God judge him at the Great Judgment in the same way he applied
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
our civil and criminal laws to violators. So if a judge, following the law in good
faith in a court setting, determines that the accused is legitimately guilty of
robbery and sentences that person to spend a year in jail, that judge is not going
to later be subjected to that same treatment by God. Rather it is that in a non␂judicial setting, by the criticisms and belief or an ordinary person, that our
personal wisdom can best decide what was in another person's heart, what their
inner motives for their actions were, and so we make a determination of how God
views them, then such an attitude means that we have made ourselves subject to
God judging us in the ultimate divine judicial setting; and then we will bear the
eternal consequences of God's verdict. So judging others from the sense of
damning them and deploring them is a sin of high order, and it is bad for our
eternal health, says Christ. And the only reason I can think of that He would bring
up the subject is because it is something that He witnessed happening all too
often among the Jewish community.
I don't want to waste an opportunity to point something else out that seems to be
pushed to the background within Christendom. Verse 2, as with things Christ has
said earlier in His sermon, again invokes a quid pro quo. What you do to others
will have a direct result in what God does with you. Yes, God of course is loving,
merciful and compassionate. Yet, that doesn't mean that The Father is like a
kindly grandfather that looks the other way when his children and grandchildren
sin. Rather, there are things we can think and do that will be proportionately
responded to by The Lord. Measure for measure is often the biblical term used to
express that. This is an old idea in the Bible; but Christ again demonstrates that
no Torah principle or law has been abrogated by Him.
CJB Obadiah 1:15 For the Day ofADONAI is near for all nations; as you did,
it will be done to you; your dealings will come back on your own head.
Matthew 7:3 continues with the concept of judging others (condemning and
deploring others) when Christ speaks of censuring someone who has a splinter in
their eye, but you have a log in your own. On the surface anyone can understand
this. We have an old folk saying that well captures the meaning: it's the pot
calling the kettle black. The idea is that the pot has been far more blackened by
the soot of a fire (rendering it blemished) than the smaller kettle (originally
meaning a tea pot) could ever be. And yet the pot points out the same flaw it has,
even in larger proportion, than the lesser flaw on the kettle.
Thus Yeshua takes a subject that might be difficult to envision because it can
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
exist too much within the realm of theory, and He makes it easy to visualize by
using extremes: an entire log versus a tiny splinter. What He is talking about is an
example of extreme hypocrisy. And the irony is that the self-righteous one with
the enormous flaw is condemning the other person for their rather tiny flaw. It is
not that the one is flawed and the other isn't. Both are flawed, because both are
human. And in another sense, if you are condemning the same, but much less
prevalent, flaw of another are you not in essence condemning yourself?
Let me take this to another level. What underlies this statement is the issue not
only of hypocrisy in the P'shat sense, but of inner moral defect in
the Remez sense. Hypocrisy is rather easily seen and detected because it
manifests in our words and our actions. But inner moral defect can be hidden
away, such that only God can see it. Further, just as anger presages murder, so
does inner moral defect presage hypocrisy. The result of someone who has a log
in their own eye trying to lead someone who merely has a speck in their eye, is a
classic example of the blind leading the blind. That is what is so wonderful about
hearing and drinking in the words of Yeshua. We are hearing from a God-man
who has no log or even splinter in His eye. He is without sin, bears no wrong
motives, no inner moral defects, and no hypocrisy. It is the opposite of the blind
leading the blind. It is the one who sees leading those of us with so little sight.
I will make a confession for myself as a Pastor and Bible teacher that I suspect
many of my calling may well share. We barely have more sight than those that
we attempt to lead. We are not Jesus. We are closer to the blind leading the
blind. It is just that God, in His mercy, has opened our eyes the slightest bit more
with the purpose of our helping and being a shepherd to those whom He loves. I
am really not much more than Balaam in the Old Testament, who was full of
flaws yet God, for His own divine purposes, opened Balaam's eyes enough to
show Him something important and wonderful.
CJB Numbers 24:1-5 1 When Bil'am saw that it pleased ADONAI to bless
Isra'el, he didn't go, as at the other times, to make use of divination, but
looked out toward the desert. 2 Bil'am raised his eyes and saw Isra'el
encamped tribe by tribe. Then the Spirit of God came upon him, 3 and he
made his pronouncement: "This is the speech of Bil'am, son of B'or; the
speech of the man whose eyes have been opened; 4
the speech of him who
hears God's words; who sees what Shaddai sees, who has fallen, yet has
open eyes: 5 "How lovely are your tents, Ya'akov; your encampments,
Isra'el!
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
"The speech of him who hears God's words". That is the key to this passage.
It is God's words, not the thoughts and oratory of Bible teachers or Pastors or
even prophets, which are wonderful. It is God's words that have the power to
remove the log and open our eyes and relieve us of our blindness. This is why
we must take Christ's words to heart and never doubt them. My only goal.... the
goal and purpose for Seed of Abraham Torah Class.... is to present you with
God's words in such a way that they will also open your eyes, at least as much as
they opened mine. Yet the words of Numbers 24:5 tells us something critical for
the Church. The Gentile Balaam says: "How lovely are your tents, Jacob; your
encampments, Israeli". Unless and until Gentile Believers acknowledge the
loveliness of Israel before God, and their important place in redemption history
from the past, in the present, and into the future, God's words will fall flat upon
us. Those wonderful words will not be properly understood or applied, they are
taken out of their ultimate context, and our sight will remain greatly blurred as
was Balaam's until He sincerely sought and believed God's words.
Verse 6 can sound rather harsh to us, and there is an inference at the beginning
of the verse that can be misunderstood. "Don't throw what is holy to dogs" is what
I'm speaking about. In our time dogs are beloved pets, even considered by many
to be family members. That was in no way the case in the 1st century, especially
among Jews. Dogs were wild animals; they were unclean scavengers that
roamed the streets of cities, usually in packs. They were detested and avoided
because they were considered unclean, even dangerous. Thus that is how we
must understand the word dogs as used here. While it is true that in a few
passages in the Bible the term "dog" is used as an expression applied to
homosexuals, usually as male prostitutes (the term homosexual didn't exist then,
and in fact was only coined in the 19th century), that is not the case in verse 6.
Christ is once again using nature, so to speak, to make His point. First it is dogs,
and then it is pigs.
Let's try to put on our 1st century Jewish mindset to understand how the crowd
would have understood Christ's words. What did people throw to dogs? Their
garbage. Leftover or spoiled food. Dogs were the cities' sanitation workers of the
time. So what is food that is holy? Only the food that has been taken to the
Temple, much of it sacrificed, and then given to the Priests as their portion to eat.
Therefore it would be terribly inappropriate to give the Priestly food to things
(dogs) that are unclean.
Then next part of the verse, "don't throw your pearls to pigs" is but another angle
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
on the same subject. Pigs were unclean animals when used as food. Contrary to
what some think, within the Hebrew religion of Yeshua's day touching a live pig
did not mean that you contracted uncleanness from it. Rather it was that a pig
was not permissible for food. The word "unclean" came to be used as a very
broad and general term whether for the inherently unclean, whereby coming into
contact with it indeed transmitted ritual impurity to the one who did the touching
(such as touching a dead body), as well as for animals that you couldn't consume
as food but touching them as live creatures had no effect at all (pigs, shellfish,
and shrimp for example). So dogs were deemed unclean by Tradition, while pigs
were pronounced as not permitted as food. Thus in Christ's story both dogs and
pigs are unclean to the Jewish people, but each for a different reason.
Pearls were the most valuable of precious objects. They were more valuable than
gold. Thus the idea is that that of highest value ought not be presented to that
which is not worthy. I can do no better than to quote from the ICC Commentary
on this matter:
"In Matthew 7:6 this rule, by virtue of its new context, becomes a
comprehensive statement about the necessity to keep distinct the realms
of the clean and the unclean".
The new context is that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived on earth. But it is a
new context that surrounds an old rule. We find the essence of this rule in the
Book of Exodus.
CJB Exodus 29:32-34 32 Aharon and his sons will eat the ram's meat and the
bread in the basket at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 33 They are to eat
the things with which atonement was made for them, to inaugurate and
consecrate them; no one else may eat this food, because it is holy. 34 If any
of the meat for the consecration or any of the bread remains until morning,
burn up what remains; it is not to be eaten, because it is holy.
This passage in the Torah provides the basis for Christ's statement about not
throwing holy food to dogs (unclean creatures). That is, not even spoiled or
unused holy food was to be eaten by dogs or anyone or anything for that matter.
Why? Look at Exodus 29 verse 34. After the Priests have eaten their portion, the
remainder is NOT to be merely thrown out; it is to be burned up thus destroying it
so that no other creature.... not even scavengers who were created by God for
the purpose of ridding the earth of what is unclean... can have it.
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Lesson 23 - Matthew 7
Further: within the new context (the Kingdom of Heaven), the pearl (the most
precious object) was used metaphorically as the Kingdom itself. Thus the
Kingdom is not for the unclean. I think to put this in the form of a rule or principle
it is this: while we are commissioned to take the Good News of the Kingdom of
Heaven to the world, we are not to waste our time with the hard hearted and
those who outright reject the message.
I'll leave you for today with the words of Messiah Yeshua that Matthew records in
chapter 10 regarding this exact issue.
CJB Matthew 10:5-15 5 These twelve Yeshua sent out with the following
instructions: "Don't go into the territory of the Goyim, and don't enter any
town in Shomron, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Isra'el. 7 As you go, proclaim, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is near,' 8 heal the
sick, raise the dead, cleanse those afflicted with tzara'at, expel demons.
You have received without paying, so give without asking payment. 9 Don't
take money in your belts, no gold, no silver, no copper; 10 and for the trip
don't take a pack, an extra shirt, shoes or a walking stick- a worker should
be given what he needs. 11 "When you come to a town or village, look for
someone trustworthy and stay with him until you leave. 12 When you enter
someone's household, say, 'Shalom aleikhem!' 13 If the home deserves it,
let your shalom rest on it; if not, let your shalom return to you. 14 But if the
people of a house or town will not welcome you or listen to you, leave it
and shake its dust from your feet! 15 Yes, I tell you, it will be more tolerable
on the Day of Judgment for the people of S'dom and 'Amora than for that
town!
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 24, Chapter 7 Continued
As we continue in Matthew chapter 7, we will review what we covered in the prior
lesson. Let's begin by opening our Bibles and reading the opening verses.
RE-READ MATTHEW 7:1-6
Around a century ago, Thomas Walter Manson, a biblical scholar who lived and
wrote in England said this about the 1st verse of Matthew chapter 7:
"The whole business of judging persons is in God's hands, for He alone
knows the secrets of men's hearts. This does not mean that we are not to
use all the moral insight we possess in order to discover what is right and
wrong; but that we are to confine ourselves to that field, and refrain from
passing judgment on persons. For our judgment is itself a factor in shaping
their lives, and a harsh judgment may help a fellow creature on the road to
perdition".
I like what Manson has to say because he looks upon the other side of the coin of
what is written in verse 2. That is, in the 2nd verse Christ goes on to explain the
reasons why it is beneficial for a worshipper of God to refrain from judging
another person. It is that by whatever measure we judge others, God will judge
us; so it is better for us that we don't judge others at all. So what Manson
addresses is the harmful effect that our judging of another may have on them.
Perhaps no greater judgment can come upon a person than to be shamed; and
for the most part judgment is shaming. In our day, in the Western world, shaming
is mostly an emotional matter that leads to embarrassment and humiliation.
Lately it has taken on a political element to it. But that emotional matter can very
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
well, as Manson says, shape our lives. For instance, when a young person is
over and over again reprimanded by being shamed and told they are stupid or
worthless, such will eventually become the loom from which the fabric of their life
will be woven. But in Christ's day, and still to this day in many parts of the world,
such a shaming judgment could immediately alter a person's precious social
status; thus a public judgment was very serious and immediate in effect, and it
usually demanded a remedy of revenge. Thus for a modern Western Christian
the idea of not judging others is rather abstract and can be difficult to
conceptualize; although less abstract in the East. Therefore we can get all kinds
of strange ideas about what judging and not judging means or looks like in actual
practice.
Verse 2 makes a consequence of our wrongful judging of another into an issue of
proportional justice. Yet, let's not make the mistake of thinking that how we judge
and how God judges are the same things or accomplished on the same plane.
Our judgment means that we look with disdain at how someone might appear to
us, perhaps in their dress; or we might determine that a person's worthiness
according to their race, or nationality, or tribal loyalty is inferior to our own; or
maybe we do so from nothing more than what someone says or from a custom
they follow that we find primitive or ignorant. And thus we ridicule them, even
condemn or deplore them, in an effort to diminish them and inflict shame. The
implication Jesus makes is that we don't know that person's intent, motive, and
true character, and often not their circumstances. But even more important, we
have no idea how God's sees them. Clearly, this judging Yeshua speaks against
has nothing to do with criminal activity. Christ is not saying that we shouldn't
make a determination as to a person's guilt or innocence based on factual
evidence of wrongdoing that includes being eyewitness to a crime.
Ironically, for us to judge and shame another in the typical non-criminal sense
results in God judging us in a criminal setting. That is, our judging by deploring
our fellow man becomes our sin, our crime, in God's eyes and so God will put us
on trial accordingly. When does this trial occur? Most Bible scholars say that the
wording in Matthew means it will happen in the future, at the End of Days, when
God's judges everyone. No doubt this is true. And yet, His judgment upon us may
also have temporal consequences during our lives.
The matter of judging another person is so important to Yeshua that He
continues and expands on that basic principle in verses 3 through 5. Here
appears the famous metaphorical expression about a log in one's eye compared
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
to the splinter in the eye of the person that is being judged. The bottom line to
this is that the outward behavior exposes that person's inner condition; it reveals
their hypocrisy. That is, the person who judges and shames another is nearly
universally a hypocrite according to Jesus. They are super sensitive to what they
see as wrong in another, because that same wrong exists probably in even
greater measure within the accuser's own heart and mind. Thus, the problem
and the solution lies not with the accused, but rather with the accuser. The
accuser, the one who is judging, is told to remove the log from their own eye (that
is, remove the great moral defect) and then they will see clearly enough to more
legitimately notice a splinter in another's eye (that is, a minor moral defect). But of
course it goes without saying that once we truly realize the enormity of the log in
our own eye, and repent of it to God, and hopefully remove it, then being on the
look-out for splinters in the eyes of others comes to a halt. Listen to what Paul
had to say about this.
CJB Romans 2:1-6 1 Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are,
passing judgment; for when you judge someone else, you are passing
judgment against yourself; since you who are judging do the same things
he does. 2 We know that God's judgment lands impartially on those who do
such things; 3 do you think that you, a mere man passing judgment on
others who do such things, yet doing them yourself, will escape the
judgment of God? 4 Or perhaps you despise the riches of his kindness,
forbearance and patience; because you don't realize that God's kindness is
intended to lead you to turn from your sins. 5 But by your stubbornness, by
your unrepentant heart, you are storing up anger for yourself on the Day of
Anger, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed; 6
for he will pay
back each one according to his deeds.
What I'd like for you to take from this is the idea that the act of judging as spoken
about in Matthew needs to be understood primarily within the context of shaming.
And, that God will pay back both in our present lives, but especially in our eternal
future, for doing such a thing that He regards as having no place in the life of His
worshippers.
In verse 6 is yet another famous saying of Jesus about not giving to dogs what is
holy, and not throwing pearls to pigs. Obviously this is another metaphorical
statement but what is it illustrating? It is about the necessity of keeping the ritually
clean apart from the ritually unclean. The holy separated away from the profane.
To understand it we must see that it is within the context of the arrival of the
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
Kingdom of Heaven. Listen to this statement in the Book of Revelation that I
think helps to clarify what Yeshua is attempting to impart to His listeners.
Regarding the new city of Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Heaven, we
read:
CJB Revelation 21:27 27 Nothing impure may enter it, nor anyone who does
shameful things or lies; the only ones who may enter are those whose
names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
We are instructed to stay separated from the unclean and the profane, because
things and people who are characterized by uncleanness and the lack of holiness
have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Let's move on to verse 7.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 7:7-11
I see these verses as Christ encouraging His listeners after giving them several
hard lessons and the severe consequences of disobedience. This ought to be a
revelation that leads to a reformation of modern Evangelical Christianity, which
tends to paint Jesus as offering His followers a much easier route to
righteousness over and against a harsh and rigid rules based Law of Moses.
Some denominational doctrines go so far as to make obedience an enemy of
grace. And yet we find Yeshua not making new or replacement rules, but rather
reminding His audience of the old rules, insisting that the people follow them, and
then taking those rules a step further to include not just proper outward behavior
but a more pure inward intent and motivation. It is my estimation that not judging
and shaming others is a most difficult rule for a human being to accomplish. The
ICC commentary on Matthew says this:
"Because human beings unhappily possess an inbred proclivity to mix
ignorance of themselves with arrogance towards others, the call to
recognize one's own faults is a commonplace of moral and religious
traditions, including the Bible".
The reality is that Christ, in His Sermon the Mount, has thus far set forth a high
ideal of the Law of Moses (and the entire Hebrew Bible) that seems as though He
has, under His own authority, moved the goal posts of righteousness. No doubt
many in the crowd thought that what He was demanding was laughingly
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
impossible to achieve. So now in verses 7 through 11, Christ is going to tell them
how to apprehend the seemingly impossible. The key, He says, involves action
and not passivity.
Ask, seek, and knock are the themes of verses 8 and 9. These are verbs; action
words. We must expend actual physical and mental energy to move forward
towards the goal of righteousness. It is the opposite of a well worn story that is
one of my favorites because it so well illustrates an ill conceived tendency of too
many Christians.
A man was in his house when he heard that a flood was coming. He prayed and
prayed and believed that because he was a Christian that God would
miraculously save him. Almost as soon as he said "amen" an emergency vehicle
appeared on the flooded road in front of his house and bid him to come to the
truck and to safety. He said "no, God is going to rescue me". The flood waters
rose and he had to go upstairs to the second story of his house to stay dry. He
prayed again for God to rescue him. Suddenly a boat appeared and bid him to
climb aboard to safety. He declined and said, "no, God is going to rescue me".
The flood waters continued to rise until he was forced to seek refuge on the roof
of his house. He prayed again, even more fervently, and soon a helicopter
hovered over him, let down a rope and harness, and bid him to put it on so he
could be pulled to safety. He said, "no, God is going to rescue me". A few
minutes later the rising flood waters swept him away to his death. Upon arriving
in Heaven he confronted God and said "I have faith. Why didn't you rescue me?"
God said; "I tried: I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter and you refused
them all".
Ask. Seek. Knock. Christ has given us the means of rescue. Will we take
advantage of it? We are not told to pray to God for our needs and then sit
passively and wait for Him to supernaturally deliver them in a nice neat package
that we have envisioned. On the other hand, it is not that if we work at it hard
enough, we will cause what we want from God to come about. Yeshua says that
if we ask, it will be given; if we seek, we will find; and if we knock, the door will be
opened. He is not giving a terribly deep riddle or a difficult principle to the people.
The meaning is: you have to do something to be a member of God's Kingdom.
So one way to help grasp the point is to see it in the negative instead of the
positive sense. If you want something and don't ask for it, then of course the
person who has what you want has no idea about it, and so you won't receive it.
If you don't begin to search for something you want (you won't actively seek it)
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
then of course you'll never find it. It is like the old sports expression that you'll
never hit a home run unless you get the bat off your shoulder and swing at the
ball. And if you want to go in to a place that has a door between you and your
destination, then naturally you must knock on the door to let the owner know you
are there, otherwise you'll remain standing on the outside looking in. That is:
these principles aren't so much theologically driven as they are common sense.
So coming to God and becoming a member of His Kingdom is a dual venture;
both God and the worshipper must do their parts. And because God will never fail
at His part, all the onus lies upon us. We MUST be active by asking, seeking, and
knocking.
So we have another case in the Jewish Matthew's presentation of the Jewish
Jesus's words that reveal a truth on two levels. On the P'shat level it is simply
common sense that to gain access to the Kingdom we must ask, seek, and knock
as we would for most anything else we wanted. But on the Remez level it is
deeper spiritual truth that says we are not to be discouraged by the target of
moral perfection that Yeshua says we must pursue. Rather, even as is common
among all things in life, if we ask, God will give. If we seek, God will show us the
way. If we knock, the door to the Kingdom of Heaven will be opened to us. What
an optimistic expression not only of a great eternal joy that indeed can be ours,
but also of the loving character of God! And to support this truth Yeshua gives us
another illustration.
In verse 9 He asks the great crowd a rhetorical question; if a son asked his father
for bread, would the father give him a stone instead? Next in verse 10 another
rhetorical question is asked; if that same son asked for a fish, would his father
give him a snake? I say rhetorical because there is only one answer to both of
these questions an emphatic 'of course not'! A father would never respond to
his son in such a way. Please notice the son/father relationship. While Yeshua is
speaking in terms of the natural world and His illustration thus invokes a human
father and his human son, at the same time it includes the Kingdom relationship
between God the Father and His Son, Yeshua. Yeshua, as the Father's agent,
would not come to Him with a request and then His father would give him
something wholly inappropriate or even dangerous.
So, says Yeshua in verse 11, since there is virtually no possibility that an earthly
father who, in relation to God and because of his fallen state is full of evil, would
ever do something so contemptuous as to give his own son a stone in place of
bread or a snake in place of a fish, how much more a totally loving and just God
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
is willing to keep on responding to His worshippers requests with good things. Is
Messiah revealing a new side to God heretofore unknown to the Jewish people?
The Prophet Isaiah used a similar illustration.
CJB Isaiah 49:15 15 Can a woman forget her child at the breast, not show
pity on the child from her womb? Even if these were to forget, I (God)
would not forget you.
What reassurance is being offered! Love God, worship Him, seek the Kingdom
with all your heart and you will not be denied entry. Believers are afforded
privileges and benefits that no others on the face of the planet are. Next we move
to verse 12 and what has come to be known as The Golden Rule.
RE-READ MATTHEW 7:12-20
This verse essentially forms the molten core of the Sermon on the Mount. It is a
generalization to sum up not just this sermon but the Torah as well. I want to
emphasize this point: the Golden Rule is a generalization and not a simple
bumper sticker statement that so succinctly encompasses the entire Torah that to
study it becomes a rather redundant effort.
Notice how Yeshua says that the Golden Rule is a summation of the Law (or
Torah) and the Prophets. This takes us back to chapter 5 verses 17-19 where
He uses the same expression "the Law and the Prophets". Recall at that time we
learned this term meant the Tanakh, the entire Hebrew Bible, and not only The
Law of Moses or even just the Torah. So I'll say this differently. If you were a Jew
hearing Yeshua's words, you would properly take His statement to mean: "this is
a summation of the Bible".
Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is a way of bringing the
rather abstract "love your neighbor as yourself" law of Leviticus 19:18 into a
focused and doable reality. I might not be sure how to love my neighbor as I love
my self; but when dealing with my fellow man I can more easily think of whether
what I'm about to do in my dealings with that person is something I'd want for
myself if the roles were reversed. Who doesn't want to be dealt with in
compassion, mercy, kindness, generosity, justice, fairness and love? So the
exact situation and even case examples are not needed; our actions that ought to
spring from the Golden Rule are self-evident. In fact, to me this is an exhortation
by Yeshua to a people who already practiced such a principle in theory if not
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
quite as well in practice. It is certainly not a new or novel notion invented by
Christ. In fact it could well lend itself to common wisdom in almost all ages and
cultural settings. Paul says essentially the same but in his own unique way.
CJB Romans. 13:8-10 8 Don't owe anyone anything- except to love one
another; for whoever loves his fellow human being has fulfilled Torah. 9 For
the commandments, "Don't commit adultery," "Don't murder," "Don't
steal," "Don't covet," and any others are summed up in this one rule: "Love
your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does not do harm to a neighbor;
therefore love is the fullness of Torah.
No doubt Jesus would have fully agreed with Paul's version of "Love your
neighbor as yourself" and what it looks like in action. As an interesting aside:
notice how Yeshua spoke of the Golden Rule principle as a summation of the
Law and the Prophets. Paul summed it up by quoting from among the 10
Commandments that concern human to human relationships as contained in the
Law the Moses. Yeshua was speaking in the Holy Land to a majority crowd of
Holy Land Jews. Paul was speaking in a foreign land to a mixed group of
Diaspora Jews and gentiles who weren't so familiar with the Torah, the Law and
the Prophets. So the differences in words, illustrations used, and nuances
between what we find Christ saying in the Gospels versus what Paul says in his
Epistles is not a difference in theology, but rather reflects a difference in
audience. Let's move on to verse 13.
We now enter a part of Jesus's speech that we might broadly describe as a
selection of wisdom sayings. Verses 13 and 14 that speak of the narrow and the
broad gates are, again, nothing new within the Hebrew religion but it is a bit
different way of saying a principle that we can trace at least as far back as the
exodus from Egypt. Deuteronomy 11:26 - 28 says this:
CJB Deuteronomy 11:26-28 26 "See, I am setting before you today a blessing
and a curse- 27 the blessing, if you listen to the mitzvot of ADONAl your God
that I am giving you today; 28 and the curse, if you don't listen to the mitzvot
of ADONAl your God, but turn aside from the way I am ordering you today
and follow other gods that you have not known.
This states the God-principle of the Two Ways that I think it would not be an
exaggeration to say that it is a governing dynamic of the Universe. I want to give
you a couple of other Scripture examples to make the point.
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
CJB Deuteronomy 30:15 15 "Look! I am presenting you today with, on the
one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil␂CJB Jeremiah 21:8 8 "And here is what you are to tell this people: 'ADONAI
says: "Look! I am presenting you with the way of life and the way of death.
The Apocryphal book of 2nd Enoch in chapter 30 (written around 300 years
before Christ) speaks of the two ways, lightness and darkness, good and bad. I
could give you more examples from well before the birth of Jesus but the point is
this: the idea of the Two Ways is ancient and thoroughly Hebrew although there
are probably examples of other historic cultures that held a similar religious
philosophy. But always the good way, the way of light, the way of life, and the
way of righteousness are the more difficult ways. Therefore a journey that is hard
and inconvenient is the underlying understanding in Yeshua's "narrow gate". He
will use the same mental picture of a small gate or a little portal and the difficulty
of passing through it later on in Matthew chapter 19.
CJB Matthew 19:24 24 Furthermore, I tell you that it is easier for a camel to
pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of
God."
In another sense, the matter of God's worshippers necessarily having to pass
through the narrow gate is a warning about God's coming judgment on the world.
The bottom line is that only a few will escape it because only a few will find, and
use, that narrow gate. In opposition to the narrow gate, the constricted gate, is
the wide gate and the wide road that leads to it. The Greek word used for wide
is euruchoros; the meaning and mental picture is of something roomy and
spacious. One could almost say it means "inviting". As with the abstract idea of
"loving you neighbor as yourself", so it is with entering through the narrow gate.
What does that look like in real life? Proverbs gives us a real-world example.
CJB Proverbs 28:6 Better to be poor and live an honest life than be crooked
in one's ways, though rich.
So the issue of the narrow versus the broad gate and road involves moral choice.
We are not predestined to enter, or to be blocked from, the narrow gate any more
than we're predestined to enter, or be blocked from, the wide gate. One may be
poor and dishonest or poor and honest. One may be rich and dishonest or rich
and honest. Poor or rich are not Godly virtues; but honesty is. The narrow gate is
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
the gate of honesty in the case of Proverbs 28 and honesty is a moral choice.
Tertullian, a gentile Christian from the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries said this
about this passage in Matthew.
"The way of evil is broad and well supplied with travelers; would not all
men take its easy course if there were nothing to fear?"
Truer words were never spoken. If it were not for the fear of God's judgment, why
wouldn't a human take the easier, more inviting way that the majority follows
instead of struggling to stay on a straight but very narrow pathway, along with so
few who set foot upon it, only to end up at an even narrower gateway?
It is an interesting, though horrific, fact that the Bible tells us frankly that prior to
Noah and the Great Flood, all the way up to Abraham, and then to Jacob taking
his clan to Egypt and Moses leading them out; and then from the Judges who
ruled over God's rebellious people, each seeking to do what was right in their
own eyes, through the era of the Kings and Prophets and all of God's warnings
spoken through them; and then the warnings ignored Israel being sent into exile;
it is always the majority of humanity that chooses to take the evil way. So while
the love of God is usually the reason we choose to remain on the narrow path,
the fear of God is usually the reason we choose that path in the first place.
Without that fear, no one would choose the more difficult of The Two Ways. This
is the reason that I and some other Pastors and Bible teachers rail at the modern
brand of a cheapened Christianity that chooses to diminish any healthy fear of
God and instead speak only of His love. Could it be that this is the dynamic at
play that has seen a steady, and accelerating, decline in Christianity in the West
for the past 75 years? That is, because the fear of God has been shoved to the
background or removed altogether, fewer Seekers see reason to step foot onto
that narrow road, and those who do often soon step off of it at the first sign of
difficulty?
Verses 15 through 23 have as their subject false prophets. Oh my; I could speak
for weeks on this matter but shall resist the urge in order to stay on track. So after
Yeshua offered a number of words of encouragement, He now immerses Himself
into addressing what was no doubt was an enormous problem in His day, not
unlike the enormous problem it is in our day. Let's understand something:
Yeshua is not talking about false prophets of the pagan world. He is talking about
false prophets of the Jewish religious world. But even more, since His entire goal
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
is to prepare the people to accept Him as their Messiah (something He has yet to
publicly declare), then in a more pointed sense He is speaking to Believers. He is
speaking to you and me. He is speaking to Christians, Messianics, the Church
and the Believing Synagogues. Because it is out of these that come the false
prophets.
First let's understand what the term "prophet" means to Yeshua. It was a broadly
used term in His day. It was generally agreed in 1st century Judaism that the era
of the Old Testament Prophets was over, and that holy men making God-given
predictions of the future and bringing oracles from God was (for the most part) no
longer operational. Thus we don't find any New Testament Prophets, except of
course for Yeshua Himself. Not even John in his Apocalypse was seen among
the Jewish Believers and earliest Christians so much as Prophet as He was one
who taught on the Prophets of old and what their writings portended now that the
Kingdom of Heaven had arrived, Christ had come and gone, and for later times.
A prophet in Christ's day was one who taught and provided exegesis and
commentary on the written Word of God. Paul would have been seen as a
prophet. They were also Jewish religious people who advocated for their
particular brand of worship, tradition and belief over and against others. That is
not to say that there weren't those who claimed to have information about the
future that God revealed to them. But most of this variety weren't taken very
seriously, and when they were it was usually by some small group of Jews.
Clearly among the Essenes, for example (the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls),
there were those who were considered as true Prophets. So while it is difficult to
have a simple definition of what a prophet was to Yeshua, the best mental picture
we can get in the 21st century of what He was speaking about would be a Pastor,
Priest, Rabbi, or Bible teacher. Thus a false prophet was one who taught falsely
about God's Word, or taught against God's biblical principles and laws, or made
up new ones.
A False Prophet is not one who makes an innocent error in their teaching. All
teachers of God's Word are human, and so we are prone to mistakes, or we
make speculations and give opinions as though they are fact. Rather, a False
Prophet is one who knows the truth.... or perhaps ignores the truth.... or picks
and chooses which biblical facts that uphold their beliefs and dismisses all
others.... and so consciously chooses to spin the Holy Scriptures and pervert it to
his or her own purposes. This is evil that comes disguised as good. Yeshua uses
the metaphor of a wolf that comes camouflaged in sheep's clothing. A wolf knows
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
it's a wolf; it doesn't in any way think it's a sheep. So, it dons the outward
appearance of a sheep in hopes that others won't know the truth about their
identity. Might a wolf be deluded into actually believing that it is a sheep? I
suppose it is not impossible.
Is Christ issuing a new warning because it's a new problem? Obviously not.
Listen to some Old Testament wisdom concerning False Prophets.
CJB Jeremiah 23:16 ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: "Don't listen to the words of the
prophets who are prophesying to you. They are making you act foolishly,
telling you visions from their own minds and not from the mouth of
ADONAI.
CJB Ezekiel 13:2 "Human being, prophesy against the prophets of Isra'el
who prophesy. Tell those prophesying out of their own thoughts, 'Listen to
what ADONAI says!
CJB Isaiah 9:14 The old and the honored are the head, while prophets
teaching lies are the tail.
So the image that is conjured up is of the meek being deceived and devoured by
predators. Paul once taught:
CJB Acts 20:28-29 28 "Watch out for yourselves, and for all the flock in which
the Ruach HaKodesh has placed you as leaders, to shepherd God's
Messianic community, which he won for himself at the cost of his own
Son's blood. 29 1know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among
you; and they won't spare the flock.
I want to end this week's lesson by telling you that it is a slanderous accusation
by the Church that these ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing were Jews who
came to dissuade Believers from their faith. This makes Jews an enemy of
Christians. Rather it is certainly at first Jews who professed belief.... whether they
actually believed or not is another matter.... that are the wolves in sheep's
clothing because all of the first many thousands of Believers in Christ were Jews!
But as gentiles began to adopt the faith and joined the flock, many also joined the
wolf pack until within a few decades the False Prophets consisted almost
exclusively of gentiles. A theological debate that has never been settled is
whether in the New Testament a person who professes the faith and teaches
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Lesson 24 - Matthew 7 cont
falsely is actually a Believer or faked it in order to attack actual Believers. We
won't be settling that matter today. However what we can know is that they
existed, and continue to exist, within and among congregations of Believers and
make themselves to appear as Believers. Since these False Prophets are not
clearly labeled, Christ next gives us a truth detection method if we will but use it.
We'll discuss that in our next lesson on the Book of Matthew.
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 25, Chapter 7 Continued 2
Matthew chapter 7 concludes the Sermon on the Mount that began in chapter 5.
I'm hoping that by this point a better understanding is being gained about the
context and intent of Yeshua's long speech; a context that has been improperly
stated for centuries. The context advocated by institutional Christianity as early
as the 4th century is that the Sermon on the Mount was the event whereby Christ
abolished the Law of Moses and replaced it with the Law of Jesus. However an
intellectually honest and straightforward reading of those 3 chapters tells a
different story. The true context is of an extended teaching on the biblical Torah
that Yeshua made before a large crowd of mostly Holy Land Jews. His clear
intent is not only to separate God's Word from manmade Traditions and incorrect
(or perhaps incomplete) interpretations, but also to instruct His people on the
reality that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived and therefore God's biblical
instructions must be taken in that light. For most of the Jews who heard it and
took the teaching to heart (including the 12 Disciples), this meant to them that the
End of Days was nearly upon them. The urgency of the 12 Disciples is apparent
within the writings of Peter and John and later on Paul. Later, in another setting,
Yeshua will teach a series of parables that attempts to flesh out what the
Kingdom of Heaven is like and therefore how this impacts people from both a
spiritual and an earthly, physical standpoint.
Christ anticipates that not only will several in the crowd doubt the veracity of
some of what He is teaching, but also that there will be people who will come
along afterwards to try and undo or slander the truths He has taught sort of
the 1st century version of Fake News. Therefore in verse 15 Jesus speaks a
warning about the false prophets.... the producers of the Fake News.... and
describes them as wolves in sheep's clothing. That is, these wolves are not
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
Jewish religious leaders who are attempting to rightly teach the Hebrew Bible but
have misunderstood some of it. Rather these are religious leaders and zealots
at first Jews and then later within a few years, Gentiles.... who masquerade as
one thing, but are actually another. Their tradecraft is deception. But what is
more, these wolves will not be terribly easy to identify because the sheep's
clothing they wear is that of pious Jews who attend synagogues, do the rituals,
and at least outwardly obey the Law of Moses.
Open your Bibles to Matthew 7 and we'll start reading at verse 15.
RE-READ MATTHEW 7:15 - end
Last time we discussed exactly what a prophet was, and was not, in Yeshua's
day. Rather than go over it again I'll briefly sum it up. First, we must not think in
terms of the Old Testament prophets, nearly all whom operated in concert with
one king of Israel or another. Second, in general we also must not think in terms
of a prophet who brings a new and different oracle from God (that is, they come
saying "thus says the Lord"). And Third, whereas God at times showed an Old
Testament prophet a glimpse of the future, that was no longer the case by
Yeshua's time except perhaps for John who penned Revelation. Jews believed
that the canon of the Bible was closed. There were no new writings that should
be seen on the level of inspiration as the Hebrew Bible that had had no additions
in about 4 centuries. So a so-called New Testament prophet was essentially a
Bible teacher. They taught on what already existed. They were Jewish religious
teachers who advocated for and interpreted God's Word still in the realm of
what we today would call a Pastor or a Rabbi. I think Paul would, after his
encounter with the risen Christ, epitomize what people in his day would call a
prophet. Some of the prophets more pushed the agendas and Traditions of their
particular group or beliefs. So false prophets were those who misled people and
did not teach the truth. The highly negative expression of a wolf in sheep's
clothing was thoroughly understood in Jewish culture and likely throughout
Roman culture as well since it was first created and written down in the 6th
century B.C. as one of Aesop's Fables. So it is not that Yeshua created a new
expression, but rather He made use of a common one. It is only that He applies it
to false prophets who come to dash the faith and steal the souls of God's
people.
This brings up one other thing: clearly to Yeshua (and to Matthew) false prophets
were a problem in that day. This was not a theoretical or hypothetical issue.
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
Mark, Peter, and John spoke about the problem, and we find it discussed in the
Didache. Because these false prophets disguise themselves as sheep (that is, as
one of God's people who is honest, gentle, and of the faith), it can be quite
difficult to know which prophets are worth listening to and which should be
avoided they didn't wear name tags. Therefore in verse 16 Christ tells His
followers how to distinguish who are true prophets (like Paul, Peter, and John),
and who are false prophets from outward appearances. I want to stress that this
is about outward appearances. We have no practical way to know what is in a
person's mind; that is, we need some kind of a means to learn what lies under
the sheep's skin. Christ's method is rather simple: "You will know them by their
fruit".
Knowing them by their fruit means to identity them according to what they do. It
does NOT mean to identify them by their success or lack of success (according
to earthly standards). Let me put this in modern stark terms: it does not mean
that if a pastor presides over a growing 10,000 person church then it is proof
positive that he must be a true prophet. Therefore a pastor over a small 50
person church must be a false prophet. It also doesn't mean that if a Bible
teacher is wealthy and sells tons of books that it is proof that he is a true prophet,
but a Bible teacher who is poor and just scraping by is a false prophet. Nor in
both of these examples is the opposite true. The term "fruit" means first and
foremost spiritual fruit that manifests itself in deeds and works; whether these are
of evil or good character.
Good spiritual fruit doesn't mean only the things that we can't see and are
manifest only in Heaven. It means the kind of fruit that is in line with God's will
and is based on His truth and His instructions to us. It means the righteous things
that we do on earth that result from a Holy Spirit-driven motive and intent. So
next Christ gives us some simple examples from nature about how this works.
Notice how Christ constantly uses nature to help explain the complex and the
ethereal. This is because the same Creator of the ethereal also created the
physical. So while in one sense the ethereal and the physical are two different
realms, in another sense they are both cut from the same cloth so the God␂principles that govern both realms operate on the same basis. Thus the natural,
physical realm that surrounds us (a realm we humans are built to perceive)
serves as a good illustration and explanation of the ethereal realm, which we
cannot see, touch, or hear with our human senses.
There is another good reason to use the natural world to explain the super␂3/13

Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
natural: it remains true no matter how much time passes and no matter the
culture. That is, time, place and language doesn't change the realities and the
truth of it. Therefore neither do the realities and truth of how to spot a religious
snake-in-the-grass posing as a harmless little bunny rabbit. And what Yeshua
proposes is that we make our judgment about these prophets based mostly on
what we see them do. However even this makes a big assumption that we first
know God's Word well enough to know what is right and wrong, good and evil,
false and true. This is why Christ first spent some hours instructing the crowd in
the correct interpretation of God's Torah prior to telling them how to recognize a
false prophet.
The first example of how a member of the congregation of God is to judge the
fruit of a prophet is to state the obvious from nature; a thorn bush (a useless thing
that can harm you) cannot produce edible and delicious grapes. And stickery
thistles (another useless and bothersome thing) cannot produce edible and
delicious figs. The grapes and figs are symbolic of righteous things. But perhaps
the deeper principle is what we can call "like for like". Light produces illumination.
Dark produces darkness. Evil produces wickedness, and good produces
righteousness. It cannot be otherwise. In some ways I find it interesting that
Christ continues with this line of thought because it is awfully simple and self␂evident; His was hardly a complex or new thought. Yet he continues on. Why?
Because as human beings we have a tendency to over-complicate matters, and
to find ways around things that are clearly questionable or even obviously wrong
but we'd rather not face it because we find some kind of benefit in it. Let me put it
in terms that at some point most adult Christians have personally faced or at
least heard about. A Pastor who is dearly loved by his congregation does wrong
things, and teaches wrong things, but he is given a pass because he is someone
who is so loved and revered that the congregation feels that he cannot be so bad
as to not be believed and followed. We've all heard of a Pastor who has stolen
from his church; or committed adultery or molested a child. And yet sometimes
immediately the congregation will rush to his defense, declare him forgiven, and
then blindly move on ready to continue to believe his every utterance about
God's Word. There is no better example of ignoring Christ's like-for-like principle;
that is, the inherent inability of a thistle to produce figs.
And lest Jesus's listeners get too caught up in the specifics and think Christ is
saying that this principle only applies to certain situations, He expands it to the
nearly universal by saying: "Likewise, a healthy tree produces good fruit and a
poor tree produces bad fruit". In other words, His first examples used cases from
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
nature where wild bushes aren't fruit bearing under any circumstance; they are
not like for like. Who would go searching through a thorn bush hoping to find
grapes? Not even a child would think to do that. No one would because it is not
like-for-like. Thus the lesson is this: don't overlook the obvious. We today say it a
different way. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck..... it's
probably a duck. And yet there are those who will look at the duck and see a
swan. Let me give you an extreme, but real, example: Adolph Hitler. Hitler was
early on in his political career an obvious tyrant and monster; and yet he
professed Christianity. And because the Lutheran Church was so prominent in
Germany, and because it was overtly anti-Semitic in its theology, Hitler claimed it
his Godly duty to (among other things) rid the world of the Christ-Killers: the
Jews. Therefore the Lutheran Church supported him as did, at first, the Catholic
Church for similar reasons.
But now in verses 17 and 18, we're dealing with the less obvious. We're dealing
with something that at first glance is a like-for-like situation. We have fruit trees
doing what God designed them to do: bear fruit. And yet, everyone knows that
not all fruit trees produce good fruit. Some of them fail at what they were
designed to do. The fruit appears as expected, but never fully develops or it
develops what appears to be normally, so it doesn't taste good. The problem is
that the average person won't know whether the fruit is good or bad until they
taste it. Therefore this is an even more dangerous situation than the first example
of the thorn bushes and thistles. Thus the illustration that a poor tree (a poorly
developed tree) can't produce tasty fruit, and a well developed tree can't produce
inedible fruit (and vice versa). So the like-for-like principle applies, but it is more
nuanced.
This is not a new thought as we first find it in the Book of Job.
CJB Job 14:4 Who can bring what is pure from something impure? No one!
And later in the Bible in John.
CJB 1 John 3:9 No one who has God as his Father keeps on sinning,
because the seed planted by God remains in him. That is, he cannot
continue sinning, because he has God as his Father.
Now let me challenge you a little bit while I preach a little bit. Should we take
Christ's, and Job's, and John's statements to mean that a kind of rigid
5/13

Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
predetermination has taken place in that the human realm is divided into 2 parts,
and those that inhabit each part can never change their minds and cross over
into the other? Did Yeshua mean that a poor tree can never become a good
tree? Or that a good tree can never cease to be a good tree? This is no small
matter, because essentially that is the basis of Calvinism, for instance. The early
Church Father Chrysostom thought deeply about this troubling matter and
concluded the following in his commentary on the Book of Matthew:
"Christ saith not this: that for the wicked there is no way to change, or that
the good cannot fall away, but so long as he is living in wickedness, he will
not be able to bear good fruit. For he may indeed change to virtue, being
evil; but while continuing in wickedness he will not bear good fruit".
I fully agree with Chrysostom's statement. We must not take Yeshua's
statements where He is using natural examples for spiritual principles as
absolutes or as sole determining factors, but rather they are meant as
generalizations. Wicked people can change, as can good people change. Maybe
we should think of these statements in a similar way as we would a proverb. That
is, we know it is a good rule of thumb to live our lives by; but there can be
exceptions and so it is not necessarily true 100% of the time. And the same goes
for the summation Christ offers in verse 20: "So you will know them by their
fruits".
But before He offers that summation He says something that ought to always be
at the forefront of our thoughts and actions. It is that fruit trees than don't produce
good fruit get cut down and burned up. Being in Florida in citrus country, that fact
is abundantly evident because some of the citrus trees planted in the large
orchards just never give off the tasty fruit expected and so they are literally cut
down and burned up. Yeshua is speaking of judgment.... or better the Final
Judgment. To be clear: this is an End Times judging that is being spoken about; it
doesn't mean that a false prophet, or someone who doesn't produce good fruit,
will necessarily experience a divinely orchestrated calamity during their life as a
consequence. But it does allude to the idea that all who follow Christ are
expected to produce good fruit. And therefore those who don't are counterfeits.
Remember: good fruit is evidence of righteousness and bad fruit or no fruit is the
evidence of a counterfeit follower. Naturally everyone won't produce the same
fruit or in the same quantity; rather it will be according to what our individual gifts
and talents are, and also according to God's explicit will and purpose for our
lives. So, Believers: are you producing fruit? Is it good fruit? Or are you perhaps
6/13
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
producing no fruit at all? A fruit tree that produces no fruit is just as subject to
judgment as one that produces bad fruit.
We must also face that some false prophets are going to be so good at deceiving
that they may never be found out; or, they won't be found out until it's too late. I
think it could be that they eventually convince themselves that they are true
prophets, thus falling into the trap built by their own deception. David Koresh, the
leader of that strange religious cult in Waco, Texas whose teachings and actions
eventually cost so many lives, might be a good example of this variety of false
prophet. Going back a bit further to the late 1970's, another false prophet named
Jim Jones led over 900 people, including himself, into a mass murder/suicide.
While I don't want to take this too far, I think what we're all concerned with is fruit
in the religious context. So in the religious context of our lives (and I use the term
religious loosely), can we really always know from their deeds when a Pastor or a
Rabbi is telling us God's truth and with a pure motivation as a true prophet? Let
me give you an example of what I mean that is in the mainstream Christian
sphere.
Over the centuries the Christian faith has been severely permeated with false
teachings and erroneous doctrines. I would say that as profoundly scholarly as
was Martin Luther, his deeply imbedded prejudice against Jews could not be
contained as merely personal; it spilled over into especially his later writings
about his faith. And so the large church denomination that evolved from his
breaking away from the Catholic Church naturally adopted the teachings and
beliefs of their namesake. At the core of those teachings is a not so subtle anti␂Jewish sentiment that colors many long-standing Lutheran doctrines in ways their
congregations often fail to recognize. Those doctrines remove Israel and Jews as
God's precious treasure and transfers it to Gentile Christians. It divorces the
Jews from their homeland, Israel. It makes Christ as not really Jewish but rather
as some kind of a generic everyman. It makes Jehovah the Old Testament God
of the Jews, and Christ the New Testament God of the Gentile Church.... and so
much more. So was Luther a poor tree bearing poor fruit? Was he a good tree
that bore good fruit but also some bad? How can we know?
In Luther's time and for a long time afterward, Bibles were hard to come by for
the common man (most of whom in the gentile world of his day couldn't read
anyway). So perhaps the common man who had little to go on for what the Bible
actually said other than what their Pastors taught them, could get a pass. But
how about today? How about for the past 100 or more years in the West when
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
Bibles have been readily available and at a price ranging from affordable to free?
Does not the modern common man have the means at our fingertips to read the
Bible and learn for ourselves what constitutes God's instructions versus what
men, past or present, claim? The fact that so many blatantly false doctrines are
still taught as biblical truth from pulpits, and accepted without hesitation as truth
from congregations, ought to tell us that relatively few people are interested
enough to seek out the truth in the Bible to test what they're being told. And so
often even when they might discover the written truth in the Bible that contradicts
what they are being told, they continue supporting and being part of the
congregation and denomination that continues to spew falsehoods because it's
embedded in their long held traditions. Are these among the False Prophets that
Jesus speaks about?
You see, the onus is on us to go further than merely invoking generalizations like
"you will know them by their fruit". How do I know what good fruit is, and what
bad fruit is, if I'm not instructed in the matter? It's not as though I know it as an
instinct that I'm born with; rather such knowledge must be acquired. And if I don't
actively acquire the knowledge of God's Word, then I can't spot a false prophet
by their outward appearance (in the form of their deeds), which in the end
revolves around what they teach (which is what prophets do). And just as much, I
can easily encounter a true prophet and reject him as false if all I know are
manmade doctrines. I can hear the truth, but insist on measuring that against the
falsehoods I've been taught, and if it doesn't match what I've always thought was
truth I might reject it and label him as a false prophet. Yeshua, as the truest of
prophets, would go on to suffer slander and accusations of being a false prophet;
and that had much to do with why He was executed.
Now we come to one of the hardest few verses in the entire Book of Matthew. I
want to read them again before we discuss them.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
This is another of those biblical passages that is controversial and is spun in any
number of ways, often so that it conforms to some predetermined doctrines.
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
From the 30,000 foot view, we see that Jesus says that there is a segment of
Jewish society that He will reject and bar from entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
Clearly, Jesus is the gatekeeper to the Kingdom and makes the determination
about who enters, and who is shut out. I think it is appropriate to expand that
rejected segment to the gentile community as well, because the followers of
Yeshua expanded their range and evolved from nearly all Jewish to nearly all
gentile. The question about this segment of society is: what is their spiritual
status? Are they non-Believers in Christ? Are they those who profess Christ but
in reality are pretenders and counterfeits? Or are they actual Believers but they
have failed to carry out their obligations as part of Yeshua's flock? How a
denomination answers this question will have much to do with how others of their
faith doctrines are constructed.
Perhaps the most pertinent part of the first few words of verse 21 is to
understand what Yeshua means when He says that not everyone who calls Him
"Lord, Lord" will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. There are a few possibilities
but the way Luke has it phrased I think puts a finer point on it.
CJB Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me, 'Lord! Lord!' but not do what I say?
In other words, if you don't follow what Christ teaches, how can you turn around
and call yourself a follower? A follower, by definition, follows what their master
teaches and the example of how he lives. Essentially we have a Hebrew
oxymoron developed here. It fits in with the statement in chapter 6 verse 24 that
no one can be a slave to two masters (itself an oxymoron). He is not saying "you
are not a follower", He is asking a rhetorical question to the crowd; something to
make them think. Some Bible commentators see Him as speaking about the false
prophets; I don't. Certainly they might be included within this group that will be
rejected from the Kingdom, but they don't form the whole group or even the bulk
of it.
Using a bit of common sense, why would anyone call Yeshua "Lord" if they didn't
claim membership to His group of followers? To use Christian terms: only those
who are part of the Church would refer to Jesus as Lord. And while technically
the term "Lord" (kurios in Greek, adon or adonai in Hebrew) is a rather generic
term for showing respect (like saying "sir"), Yeshua was a common blue collar
worker in His day and such a title would not have been used of Him except in
how it was meant; in the religious context. That said, we should not think at this
moment beyond what has happened thus far. Yeshua has not publicly claimed to
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
be the Messiah nor the Son of God. So those who determined to follow Yeshua
would have seen Him as their chosen religious leader. John the Baptist also had
his following, as did several venerated Rabbis such as Shammai and Hillel.
"Lord" (in the sense of "master") would have been a common way of addressing
them all. Still, even before His public announcement, He dropped hints of His
uniqueness and of a relationship with The Father that went beyond being but one
of many who worshipped Him and thus in Jewish colloquial expression called
God "Our Father".
So, says Christ, don't call me your master if you don't follow the ways I have laid
out for you. Logical. Rational. Rather a point of common sense. But there is
another element to this response that in hindsight we can understand. The
element is Yeshua's role as Savior. I'll say again: at the time of the Sermon on
the Mount, being Savior was not yet put forward publicly. We of course can look
back and see through some of the things that Jesus said and on into a deeper
meaning because we have the advantage not only of retrospect, but also we
have the recorded history of the revelations of His identity that Christ eventually
made (some of which even after He made them many Jews still didn't
understand). So knowing what we know from later pronouncements of Christ and
from the writings of Peter and Paul and John who followed Yeshua, we could
rightfully make verse 21 read:; "Not everyone who says to me "Savior, Savior"
will enter the Kingdom of Heaven...." The point being that knowing His true
identity and mission, and merely calling upon His name doesn't save nor does it
indicate someone who is saved. Perhaps not in Jewish society so much, but
throughout Roman society, calling on the names of various gods for various
purposes was common and customary. So if someone wanted something from
the God of the Jews they could decide that perhaps this Jesus fellow might be
the right name to use to get God's attention and fulfill their petition.
At the same time, again in retrospect, clearly by now (if He hadn't earlier) Jesus
knew what and who He was. He was to be judge at the End of Days to determine
who would be ushered into the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, and who would not
be allowed in. But let me also say that this is a two-stage process. The Kingdom
of Heaven had arrived with the appearance of John the Baptist. So those who
would trust Christ as Savior would be immediately made part of the fledgling
Kingdom on earth such as it was. You, who today trust Messiah Yeshua, are
right now part of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. And yet it is a Kingdom that is
still developing towards its complete fulfillment that will not happen until Yeshua
returns to us. So the Kingdom is for the earthbound now, and for the eternal
10/13
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
bound later.
So if calling on Yeshua's name is not how one enters the Kingdom, then what is?
The first requirement, says Christ, is: "only those who do what my Father in
Heaven wants". Notice the term "my Father". Right there Yeshua dropped a big
hint that no doubt some in the crowd noticed, and especially so His 12 Disciples.
The correct term that a Hebrew could sometimes use to refer to God
was avinu "Our Father" but never "my" Father. The term avinu was also used
sometimes to speak of Abraham. The point being that Christ went from
acknowledging a national relationship with Yehoveh, to a direct familial
relationship. God literally was Jesus's father.
So no matter how we translate those words, Jesus sets down a requirement that
goes well beyond a public declaration of allegiance to Him. In fact, the real
allegiance must be to Jesus's Father. And even more than allegiance, a follower
must be a doer. Yes, Believers, this means that the nice warm fuzzy feeling we
get about trusting Christ is not sufficient. We must be active. We must seek the
will of The Father and carry it out. And that will goes far beyond the event of our
salvation. Clearly the biological brother of Yeshua, Ya'akov (known better in our
Bibles as James), got this message loud and clear and understood its great
significance.
CJB James 2:14 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have
faith but has no actions to prove it? Is such "faith" able to save him?
Yeshua's response to the rhetorical question James asks is: "no". It is not that
good works brings on salvation. It is that the evidence of salvation brings on good
works. And by good works I mean righteous deeds that have been motivated by
the will of The Father. Only a faith accompanied with righteous deeds is an
authentic faith.
Verse 22 continues the thought with:
CJB Matthew 7:22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we
prophesy in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we
perform many miracles in your name?'
The term "that Day" is a Hebrew expression meaning the Day of Judgment, also
called the Day of the Lord. It is that day that every human will have to present an
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
account of their life to God.... and bear the consequences or the rewards for it.
And here we see Yeshua essentially claiming a status as God's agent to be that
judge. No doubt the people sitting before Christ caught that and some would
have accepted it and the majority would have scoffed and grumbled at such a
thought. So the context and setting for the straw man that is pleading his case
with Yeshua is that he is standing before the Great Judge at the End of Days.
And his claim for acceptance into the Kingdom is that he prophesied, expelled
demons, and performed miracles in Yeshua's name. Once again, acts and deeds
are not the determining proof of our salvation.
There's always been considerable disagreement over what it means to do things
in Christ's name. It could mean a number of things.
1) It might mean in Yeshua's authority and power.
2) It might mean that if one can do similar things to what Christ did, then perhaps
that person is Christ returned.
3) Perhaps it is that false prophets and counterfeits use Christ's name merely to
gain access to the Believing congregations.
4) Maybe, as do the pagans, Jesus's name gets used like a magic word or an
incantation.
It is my view that it means all these things. It means using His name for whatever
false or perverse purpose one might have. And clearly in verse 22, those who are
teaching in Christ's name, expelling demons in His name, and performing
miracles in His name do so for one of these perverse reasons. Because in truth,
real followers of Christ are encouraged to teach, expel demons and do miracles
in His name. So it is not that there is something wrong in these 3 deeds; it is the
motive and intent of the doer that is wicked.
Christ's response to this is terrifying:
CJB Matthew 7:23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 7 never knew you! Get
away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
At the Great Judgment the Great Judge will reject those who plead their case in
such a way. Yeshua knows their hearts and minds. He refuses to grant them
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Lesson 25 - Matthew 7 cont 2
entry into the fulfilled Kingdom of Heaven.
But when He speaks of "workers of lawlessness", much of the institutional
Church nearly has a heart attack, or they just read by this and pay little attention.
But this verse connects back to chapter 5 verse 17-19. Remember: the subject
is entry into the Kingdom of Heaven and its prerequisites. The Greek word used
here for lawlessness is anomia. The KJV prefers to use the term iniquity and the
NAB says evil doers. Why choose those words that seem to deviate from literal
translations? The Greek word for law is nomia (and nomos), and so the word for
having no law it is a-nomia. But acknowledging this opens up a can worms
because what law can Jesus be taking about except the Torah Law.... the Law of
Moses? He obviously isn't talking about any kind of secular law whereby
somebody breaks one of those laws. He doesn't mean Roman law. The only law
that matters because it affects a Believer's eternal status is God's law as He
made so very clear earlier in His sermon, back in chapter 5, and specifically as it
connects to a person's place in the Kingdom of Heaven. And what did He say?
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Chapter 7 verse 22 closes the circle and settles the matter. Lawlessness for
Jesus is Torah-lessness. It is trying to operate outside of God's written
commandments. Entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven requires more than calling
on Christ's name. It requires obedience to God's Torah. We'll explore that matter
further next time.
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 26, Chapter 7 Continued 3
In our previous lesson in Matthew chapter 7, Christ continues His Sermon on the
Mount by making this unnerving statement in verses 22 and 23.
CJB Matthew 7:22-23 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't
we prophesy in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't
we perform many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their
faces, 'I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
We're going to focus the bulk of our time together today on this passage that
ought to be a shot across our collective and individual bow, because too easily
Believers.... especially casual Christians.... dismiss it and think that this could not
possibly be speaking about them or their congregation. What is a casual
Christian? There is little better description of that than what we find in
ICorithians. Paul put it this way as He spoke to the congregation of Christ
Believers, Jews and gentiles, in the City of Corinth:
CJB 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 11t is actually being reported that there is sexual sin
among you, and it is sexual sin of a kind that is condemned even by
pagans- a man is living with his stepmother! 2 And you stay proud?
Shouldn't you rather have felt some sadness that would have led you to
remove from your company the man who has done this thing? 3 For I
myself, even though I am absent physically, am with you spiritually; and I
have already judged the man who has done this as if I were present. 4
In the
name of the Lord Yeshua, when you are assembled, with me present
spiritually and the power of our Lord Yeshua among us, 5 hand over such a
person to the Adversary for his old nature to be destroyed, so that his spirit
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
may be saved in the Day of the Lord.
A casual Believer, or a casual Christian, is one who practices disobedience to
God, and is even proud of it. Notice that while the immediate consequence on
earth for a casual Christian may be little more than expulsion from the
congregation, the eternal consequences begin upon the arrival of the Day of the
Lord.
In our previous lesson we discussed that among Jews in the 1st century the term
"on that Day" was a shortened form of "The Day of the Lord" and it meant
Judgment Day. It pointed to the day that the history of mankind and the world as
it currently operated (and operates) ends, and a new era dawns. On that day all
humanity will be judged by God in a judicial sense. That is, all will stand before
God as a defendant in a court of law and be judicially judged with the effects of
the verdict lasting for eternity. The judgment will be rendered according to our
works and deeds while we were still living. Admittedly, the common view of how
the world would end, what would happen next, even what death itself brought
next (if anything) was not a decided matter among Jewish religious authorities in
the New Testament era and so it presented nothing like a firm or commonly held
conviction within Jewish society. However what was generally understood was
that God would judge each human at that point (or more likely in the Jewish
mindset of that era, each Jewish human).
Therefore to help explain what people could expect on Judgment Day, Christ
makes it clear within the theme and context of what He is saying that it is He who
will act on behalf of The Father to make those judgments. The fundamental
criteria He will judge by is 2 things: first whether He "knows" us, and second if we
are or are not "workers of lawlessness". We should notice that the first criteria
depends on the second. That is, if one is lawless, then Christ does not know us.
But the question now becomes: what does it mean to know us, and what is
lawlessness? His saying "I never knew you" cannot possibly mean that the
individual standing before Him on the Day of Judgment was a stranger to Him in
the literal sense that He had no prior knowledge of that person's existence. And it
cannot mean that He never knew that person's character and inner being prior to
the moment of Judgment. Rather to "not know" means: I renounce you. I do not
accept you as a member of the Kingdom of Heaven. You are not one of My own.
This interpretation of what Jesus meant is illustrated by Paul who uses the term
"to know" in a pertinent passage in 1Corinthians.
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
CJB 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: we know that,
as you say, 'We all have knowledge." Yes, that is so, but "knowledge" puffs
a person up with pride; whereas love builds up. 2 The person who thinks he
"knows" something doesn't yet know in the way he ought to
know. 3 However, if someone loves God, God knows him.
Paul makes a kind of riddle by employing a play on words using the terms "to
know" and "to have knowledge" several times and in several ways, all with
slightly different meanings. That is, within this short passage "to know" can mean
to have knowledge. To "have knowledge" can mean to possess information.
Later Paul uses "to know" in the sense of having a belief or a firm conviction
about something. And then finally Paul says that if someone loves God, then God
knows him. But God knowing someone cannot mean merely possessing
information about them, or having a conviction about them, or simply being aware
of their existence. Notice how Paul first talks about knowing and knowledge from
the human perspective. Only at the last does he talk about it from the divine
perspective. And from the divine perspective "to know" someone means that God
accepts that person as one of His own provided that person loves Him. Therefore
it has the same meaning in Matthew 7:23. For Christ to "not know" someone
means to not accept them; it means to reject them.
But on what grounds does Christ reject that person or persons? He says it is
because they are workers of lawlessness. Most Bible versions say "lawlessness"
(which is a good, literal translation of the Greek anomia), but some others like
the KJV say "iniquity" or in a few translations like the NAB it is translated as "evil
doers". Why the difference? While I cannot get into the minds of the translators
with any kind of certainty, from the outside I can see only one reason: it is to blur
what is actually said and meant in order to lead us to a different conclusion than
what Christ intended. What is the motive for doing that? Because if we accept the
obvious meaning, then it throws a monkey wrench into the works of some rather
widely held church doctrines.
To best understand what Christ meant by "lawlessness" I'd like to substitute the
term Torah-lessness, or perhaps The Law of Moses-lessness. I have no doubt of
this interpretation because if we take the phrase the way it is most often taught,
then it means that if we are criminals or violators of any system of civil laws on
earth, then He rejects us. Can our adherence to manmade legal systems.... some
of them horribly corrupt and ungodly, be what Christ will use to determine our
eternal worthiness to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? As Paul might say:
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
"Heaven forbid!" Thus lawlessness can only mean the lack of obedience to the
Law of Moses.
This subject, and the general subject of the Law of Moses as it pertains to
Believers, is a mammoth undertaking. So at this time I am going to take us on a
significant detour to examine it. To start our detour we must backtrack to the
beginning of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.
In Matthew chapter 5 after He has made a series of statements about 'how
blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who show mercy, and those who
seek peace' Yeshua suddenly pauses when He seems to realize that the huge
Jewish crowd listening to Him (and perhaps those who would read His words in
the coming centuries) might misunderstand what He was saying or have some
objections to His words. He perceived that they might have thought He was
pronouncing a new set of laws and commands; that is, a new Law of Jesus. I can
imagine Him standing up, scanning the huge crowd and making eye contact with
those nearest to Him, and then earnestly cautioning His rapt listeners using these
words of Matthew 5:17-19:
CJBMatthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Christ said that He did NOT do the very thing that a majority portion of His
Believers today, and for the last 16 to 17 centuries, say that He did: abolish the
Law of Moses and replace it with His own commands. I challenge the nearly
universal Church doctrine that the Law of Moses is dead and gone. I believe that
this subject, which is only recently starting to be re-examined by a small segment
of the Body of Christ, is most appropriate at this time because we appear to have
entered the final stage of mankind's salvation history that leads to universal
judgment.
Little has divided the gentile Church from our earliest faith roots (as but an
offshoot of 1st century Judaism) more than the determination of what the effect of
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
the Old Testament Biblical Law ought to be upon Christians. My intent is
therefore to establish a context for us (as Believers) to comprehend the Law
within the boundaries of the teaching of the overall Bible and our faith in Yeshua
as Savior, perhaps in a different way than you have ever considered it. I will do
this by FIRST establishing the point of view of the Apostle Paul who is at once
the most difficult, most controversial New Testament contributor but who is also
the most prolific and influential writer upon whom so many of the doctrines and
beliefs of the Christian Church have been established.
Let's start by defining the term "The Law" because there is more to it than
meets the eye. Before we can rightly discern what Jesus meant by the lack of
law, anomia, (lawlessness as taken from Matthew 7:23), we first have to know
what the biblical term "law" is referring to because it can mean different things in
different usages. The Bible, Genesis to Revelation, is a thoroughly Jewish (or
more technically, Hebrew) construction. Therefore we must consult Jewish
scholars to understand the context and backdrop of its meaning. When a
Christian sits down to discuss The Law with a Jew, the two parties have entirely
different concepts of what the discussion is about. Christians think of The Law as
being a series of strict rules and commands, do's and don'ts, and blessings
and "curses" in the OT Law of Moses. Jews on the other hand see The Law as
consisting of far more than what is written in the Old Testament. Judaism says
that Moses did NOT write down a// that God gave him on Mt. Sinai. Most of what
God told Moses, it is said, was handed down and passed on by word of mouth,
from generation to generation over the centuries. And, by shear volume, this
additional Law called the Oral Law far outstrips the written Law (that which was
given on Mt. Sinai). But there is also Halachah, the foundation of
the Talmud. The Talmud is a compilation of Jewish Rabbinical instructions and
rulings that is designed to give the Hebrew people laws and ordinances that can
be observed outside of the direct and written Laws of Moses, but (according to
the Rabbis) those rulings are within the intent of the Law of Moses. It is due to
the present absence of a Temple and Priesthood, which are necessary to enforce
much of the Law of Moses, that is why these law of the Rabbis are considered
not just valid but necessary out of practicality. This version or kind of law
eventually became more popularly known among Jews by another broad
name: Tradition. However it is also often included under the general heading of
"Torah" or even just "Law".
With this rather broad Jewish understanding of the term "The Law" in mind, I'd
like to tell you the Jewish position about the Law; and even more important to
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
our lesson today, their perspective on how Christians deal with the Law because
it is this perspective that in turn gives rise to the nearly universal
Jewish opposition to Christianity. First Judaism sees Christians as having
declared all the rulings and commands of the Law as null and void.
Second, Judaism says that Christians believe that the Law was an essentially a
negative, wretched, rigid and faulty institution.
Third, Jews believe that Christians see grace as strictly a New Testament
innovation that played no role among Israel's religion (that is represented by the
Old Testament) prior to Jesus. And that Believers in Jesus say that there is now
a strong distinction between God's Law and God's Grace, that the two are
mutually exclusive, and one must choose one over the other; law or grace.
Therefore there is a great divide between the faith of Jews and the faith of
Christians. Their conclusion is that Christians MUST believe that the God of the
OT is a fundamentally different god than the God of the New Testament
otherwise Christ followers could not believe such things.
Interestingly, the Jews are not too far off the mark in their perception of what the
institutional Church believes and teaches, are they? There is a thread of thought
woven tightly throughout mainstream Christianity that the god of the Jews is the
subject of the OT, and the god of the Christians is the subject of the NT.
Therefore the OT Law is for the Jews, and the NT grace by faith... the Law of
Jesus... is for Christians.
Jews will (correctly) argue that grace is part and parcel of God's Law. That is,
grace is the entire point of the Sacrificial System whereby an innocent animal
pays the price of atonement for a human person's sins. The animal, then, is a
substitute for what is rightly due to humans for sinning: death. They see the Law
a divine gift to mankind of the greatest benefit and providing marvelous joy.
Further, they believe that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The
very first Christians, who were overwhelmingly Jews, did NOT hold to the
viewpoint that the gentile dominated church has developed over the centuries as
a core theological principle the anti-Law view. Rather, from a historical
perspective, it was only around 70 years after Christ's death when gentiles
began to take over the leadership of this Messianic movement (as the first
followers of Christ were called) that this anti-Law view first raised its ugly head.
So Jews see that most Christians believe that now, because of Jesus, the Law is
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
dead and gone, having been replaced by grace by faith (and they point to Paul
as having said that). But did the Jewish Paul actually hold that view? Did Paul
believe and/or teach that the Law was to be abandoned and replaced because it
was bad and inferior? Let's examine Paul a little bit, because Paul's words are
the primary source for modern Christian doctrine.
One must bear in mind that Paul was not just any ordinary Jew; he was highly
educated in Jerusalem at the esteemed school of Gamaliel, and was well on his
way up the religious social ladder as a Pharisee of Pharisees. Few knew the Law
(Tradition and biblical) as Paul knew the Law. Now, the question for us is, as a
result of Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, did
Paul give up the religion of his Hebrew forefathers for something new? Did he
stop observing the Law of Moses and instead go on a crusade to convince other
Jews to give it up, and for gentiles who wanted to follow Christ to ignore it? Was
it his intent that followers of Yeshua were to never again celebrate any of the
Biblical Festivals? That they should quit going to the Temple and should shun the
10 commandments of Mt. Sinai that were set down by God and given to Moses?
Let's begin to get our bearing on Paul, the man, by reading a small excerpt from
Acts.
READ ACTS CHAPTER 21:15 - 26
Clearly James the Just, the biological brother of Yeshua and the supreme leader
of the Believing Jews in Jerusalem didn't think Paul had quit observing the Law.
Yet there were rabble-rousers among the religious Jews who accused Paul of
TEACHING against the Law in all its forms. James had a solution to this
slanderous accusation: put Paul to a very public test. Paul was told to go with
certain men, described as brethren meaning Messianic Jews Christian
Jews who had taken the vow of a Nazarite, and to go the Temple and observe
the standard Jewish purification rituals that accompany these vows. James fully
expected Paul to comply and here in Acts 21 we see that Paul did as was
suggested without balking in any way! So was Paul being a phony just to please
James? Many, if not most, denominational leaders will answer in the affirmative.
If we're going to understand Paul and to define him in his proper Jewish context,
we must begin by asking ourselves a very basic question: did He agree with
Yeshua on every point, or not? And as we peel the layers back a bit deeper we
must also ask: did Paul teach what Jesus taught about the Law of Moses, or did
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
he teach someone different?
Let's revisit the Sermon on the Mount.
READ MATT 5:17-19
CJB Matthew 5:17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the
Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell
you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened.
Yeshua has just said in His sermon that He has NOT abolished the Law, nor
should anyone ever SAY it has been abolished, nor should it ever be taught that
even SOME of the laws have been modified let alone replaced by anything that
He would say. So did Christ tell several thousand people at the Sea of Galilee
that His coming and His teachings did NOT abolish or replace the Law, but then
a few years later speaking from Heaven He said the opposite to Paul, and then
sent Paul off to tell people NOT to obey the commands of the Torah? To pay no
attention to what Yeshua taught when He was alive and on earth?
Without question the Law is something that never should have been removed
from its divine place as central to trust in God and to His Messiah. Therefore it
never should have been removed from Christian doctrine and it must be restored.
The lawlessness, the anti-Law view, must end. It is more important to our faith
than ever, today, IF we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. According to
Matthew 7:23 our eternity will be greatly affected by our decision on this matter.
I want to give you some points to ponder about the true biblical nature and
character of The Law of Moses as explained in the Scriptures.
• The Law was never created to be a source of justification or
salvation.The Law of Moses was not given by God for redemption, and
never used as such at any point in history. The Law was created and given
to a people (the Hebrews) who were a/readyGod didn't redeem Israel
from Egypt by means of the Law; God FIRST redeemed them as a free gift
of deliverance from bondage, and then a few months after their redemption
He brought them to His holy mountain.... Mt. Sinai... to give them His Law.
I propose that this is same pattern that is unchanged and intended for all
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
Believers. FIRST we receive Christ, THEN we receive God's
commandments. Because without first receiving the Lord, and more
importantly the Lord acceptingus, we have no ability to properly carry out
His commands in the spirit they were intended. Let me say this another
way: Yeshua says in His Sermon on the Mount that The Law, the Torah,
is our manual for living the redeemed life, as a member of the Kingdom of
Heaven. It is not (and never was) a means to redemption.
• The Law tells us what sin is, and it reveals to us our sinful natures.
The Law, the Torah, gives us the knowledge and consciousness of sin. I
suspect that most of you accept that rather easily because that generally is the
standard doctrine in most denominations. Yet in the same breath it is equally as
often said that the Law was and remains ONLY for the Jews. Here is the
question: if God intended that the Law was ONLY to be studied and obeyed by
the Jews, how is it that a gentile Christian can say that a Jewish-only Law is OUR
source for the knowledge and consciousness of sin if it does not apply to us?
• Trusting Christ confirms the Torah and The Law.Let's read Romans
3:28 through 4:3.
CJB Romans 3:28-31 28 Therefore, we hold the view that a person comes to
be considered righteous by God on the ground of trusting, which has
nothing to do with legalistic observance of Torah commands. 29 Or is God
the God of the Jews only? Isn't he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is
indeed the God of the Gentiles; 30 because, as you will admit, God is one.
Therefore, he will consider righteous the circumcised on the ground of
trusting and the uncircumcised through that same trusting. 31 Does it follow
that we abolish Torah by this trusting? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, we
confirm Torah.
CJB Romans 4:1-3 1 Then what should we say Avraham, our forefather,
obtained by his own efforts? 2 For if Avraham came to be considered
righteous by God because of legalistic observances, then he has
something to boast about. But this is not how it is before God! 3 For what
does the Tanakh say? "Avraham put his trust in God, and it was credited to
his account as righteousness."
The context for this vital section of the Book of Romans is summed up in Romans
3:31 when we see that Paul makes the point that trusting in Messiah does not
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
abolish the Law and in fact actually validates it! But the punch line of this entire
statement is framed in verse 2 of Romans 4 where it speaks of justification. Paul
says that if someone tries to use their obedience to the Law as their
righteousness before God; that is, as a means to justification, they will incur
God's wrath. Why? Because obeying the Law is wrong? Is it obedience to
something that is faulty or no longer exists? No; it's because justification is NOT
what God created the Law created to do. Trust in God and to the Messiah He
sent to us, and the righteousness that trust imputed upon us, is the one and
ONLY means to justification. And, with the advent of God on Earth, Jesus Christ,
faith in Christ is the one and only means to justification and to try to use
something else for this purpose such as obedience to the Law of Moses.... is
not only wrong and ineffective, it is also offensive to God. Yet that hardly means
that obedience to God's laws and commands is now irrelevant. Being a Believer
equips us to be more devoted to The Law, because we can now do what is
commands in the proper spirit. Do you see this? Yeshua said that His purpose
was to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it. For without the Law, how will we know
what pleases and displeases God? How will we know what sin and holiness is?
How will we calibrate our moral compasses? Only accepting the truth of the
Gospel is needed for Salvation; but the Law remains fully valid and it is there to
guide us through our lives on earth and into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is to teach
us right from wrong, and sin from righteousness. You see, after we become
saved THAT is the moment when we should begin to seek this knowledge of the
Law, and to learn it so that we know how to DO it! To properly incorporate God's
laws and commands into our lifestyles and behaviors that make us reflective of
God's ideal. Do it in reverse, and you indeed can get an unholy legalism.
4) The Law acts as our protector. By our being obedient to the principles of
the Law, we are living within a Kingdom of Light and Truth designed by the
Creator. The Lord constantly tells His people not to wander outside of the
boundaries of this Kingdom, because outside of it is nothing but deceit and
darkness and death.
A good question right about now ought to be: how do we 21st century Believers
who do not live in an ancient Hebrew culture, obey the Law in the way and spirit
that Paul prescribes? Step one is by acknowledging that the Law and the Grace
of Christ are not mutually exclusive; rather they are complementary. Christ
redeems, the Holy Spirit reveals and guides, and The Law instructs and protects
us.
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Lesson26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
The intent of The Law is to instruct Believers in God's principles and that is what
we should focus on. The New Testament rests entirely upon the foundation of the
Torah and The Law, and so the NT generally expects its readers to already know
the principles of The Torah and The Law.
Let's return for a moment to how Judaism views the "righteousness before God"
aspect of the Law. One of the prime assumptions within the Church is that Jews
endeavor to work their way to Heaven by being obedient to the Law and so
Judaism is a religion totally reliant on human deeds and behavior as a self␂justification, while Christianity is a religion 100% based on grace and thus for us
works and deeds and especially obedience to God's commandments are either
secondary or might even present a danger to our Salvation. It might surprise you
to know that Jews do NOT believe that being obedient to the Torah (the Law) is
what takes them to Heaven. For one reason Jews don't believe that after death
one GOES to Heaven to live with God.
I think this quote from a well-known Jewish website called Judaism 101says it
best:
QUOTE: Some people look at these teachings and deduce that Jews try to
"earn our way into Heaven" by performing the mitzvot. This is a gross
mischaracterization of our religion. It is important to remember that unlike
some religions, Judaism is not focused on the question of how to get into
heaven. Judaism is focused on life and how to live it. Non-Jews frequently
ask me, "do you really think you're going to go to * if you don't do such␂and-such?" It always catches me a bit off balance, because the question of
where I am going after death simply doesn't enter into the equation when I
think about the mitzvot, l/l/e perform the mitzvot because it is our privilege
and our sacred obligation to do so. l/l/eperform them out of a sense of love
and duty, not out of a desire to get something in return.
Jews believe that their greatest duty to God, and the greatest joy they can attain
during their life on earth, is to know that their obedience to the Law is pleasing
the God of Israel, and there is practically no thought of what happens when life is
over.
Christianity has moved toward a different extreme. While Jews generally have
little thought about life after death, for Believers our lives on earth is often viewed
as having but modest meaning and instead most of our thoughts and efforts point
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
towards life after death and all its Heavenly rewards. We see our works and
behavior as having a very limited role in our lives; instead it's our belief in Christ
and our good thoughts that are everything.
Because the point of this detour is to bring us to a concrete understanding of
Matthew 7:22 and 23, and what Yeshua means by "workers of Lawlessness" I
want to once again quote Paul.
RSV 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, 2 not to be
quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter
purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has
come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come,
unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed,
the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so␂called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of
God, proclaiming himself to be God.
Who is this man of lawlessness? We all understand that he is the Anti-Christ,
don't we? So what does this man's lawlessness refer to? Is he disobedient to
Roman law? To Syrian law? To American law? To International law? Is the anti␂Christ simply a modern super-scofflaw like Jessie James or Bonnie and Clyde
who has no regards for the different laws created by the many different societies
and nations? When the Bible refers to law it only ever means one thing: The Law.
The Torah. The Laws of Moses. God's laws. Our possible entry into the Kingdom
of Heaven is certainly not measured by manmade laws. So this man of
lawlessness is the epitome of a worker of Torah-lessness. He is a man who will
thumb his nose at God's laws and commandments, and God's moral definitions
of good and evil.
Therefore The Law is important and valid and relevant for us not only for the
several reasons we've discussed, but because if we don't know The Law we will
hardly be able to recognize the Anti-Christ who will be primarily known by him
being anti-Law being against God's Torah. Being against the Law of Moses.
Being a worker of lawlessness.
Bottom line: This warning about lawlessness is not to pagans. This warning is to
those who claim to rely on Yeshua's name, and who claim to be part of the
Believers' congregation the world over. Some of these people will be intentionally
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Lesson 26 - Matthew 7 cont 3
counterfeit in order to inflict harm; others will deceive themselves and think they
can claim Christ, but at the same time deny God's commandments and do what
is right in their own eyes. Yeshua calls these the "workers of lawlessness" and
they will be denied entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
This ends our detour and we'll take up verse 24 and move towards completion of
the Sermon on the Mount the next time we meet.
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 27, Chapter 7 and 8
We'll conclude Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount today, which we have spent 17
lessons studying because of its incomparable value, and we'll also open the door
into Matthew chapter 8. But first let's take a look back on the all-important (and
not just a little bit scary) topic from last week about what Yeshua meant by what
He said in Chapter 7 verses 22 and 23.
CJB Matthew 7:22-23 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't
we prophesy in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't
we perform many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their
faces, 'I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
The phrase of our focus is "workers of lawlessness". The bottom line is that after
a thorough study of this term last week, the conclusion is that the term
"lawlessness" can only indicate one thing: "Torah-lessness" or "The Law of
Moses-lessness". It is the Greek word anomia being translated that most literally
means "without law". We even find Paul using this same term (many years after
Yeshua's time on earth) to describe the anti-Christ. Working backwards from
Paul, we have to ask ourselves a basic question: is the anti-Christ called the
"Man of Lawlessness" because he thumbs his nose at societal civil and criminal
laws? If so, according to which set of human laws is he rebelling? International
law? American law? European Union law? Sharia law? My question is somewhat
rhetorical in that the answer is obvious: it can be none of these manmade law
codes. The anti-Christ is called such because He is by nature against (he is anti)
God. The only laws that God validates are the ones that He has laid down for
mankind: the biblical Law of Moses; the anti-Christ wants none of that. So it is
that in Jesus's statement in verse 23 that "workers of lawlessness" is a term
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
describing all those who deny and/or disobey God's commandments; the Torah,
The Law. Remember: there was no such thing as a New Testament in Yeshua's
day and such a thing wouldn't exist for nearly 2 more centuries after His death
and resurrection. So neither Christ nor Paul could in any way be referring to the
supposed New Testament laws that replace the Old Testament laws. The
reference to "lawlessness" can only be to the Old Testament laws since that was
the only Holy Scripture in existence in that era, and especially since Yeshua's
entire sermon is based on His teaching and authoritative interpretation of the
Torah in light of the recent arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Therefore when taken in proper context "workers of lawlessness" include non␂Believers, fake Believers, and self-deceived Believers. It is my opinion that a
goodly portion of the Church is, and has been for centuries, self-deceived
because of the adoption of doctrines that specifically deny the relevance of The
Law of Moses for Christ followers and in fact legislates against following it. Yet
there is a gray area in between a "worker of lawlessness" and a person who is, in
chapter 5 verse 19, relegated to being "least in the Kingdom of Heaven" for not
obeying The Law and for teaching against it.
CJB Matthew 5:19 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and
teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the
Kingdom of Heaven.
That is to say that in 7:23, the "workers of lawlessness" are those who are denied
entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. But in 5:19, whoever disobeys The Law and
teaches others to do so will be those who are given entry into the Kingdom
(based upon their trust in Messiah Yeshua), but they will be placed (forever) on
the absolute lowest rung of whatever societal structure exists within the Kingdom
of Heaven. Where that fine but hazy line exists between those two designations I
do not know. However in both cases the issue is a chosen and determined
disobedience to God's Torah. So the wise thing for a Believer to do in order to
avoid either of these eternal consequences is to quit listening to a blinded Church
that says that the Law is dead and gone and that Christ has replaced the Law of
Moses with a Law of Jesus (something that doesn't biblically exist); and therefore
once we get our salvation we can sort of retire because subservience to God or
unquestioned obedience to any divinely given rule is legalism and thus to be
avoided as a bad thing. This doctrine is an agenda driven lie and it will lead us to
a very harsh outcome that Christ Himself has warned us against. I plead with
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
you; if you value your eternity, then out of self-preservation I suggest you
consider fleeing such a congregation even if it means being ostracized from your
social circle. The one thing I can assure you is that you will lose some of the
relationships you've had with friends and acquaintances in that congregation; so
the count the cost. Yet, which means more to you as a Believer: obeying God
and His Word and reaping those eternal rewards? Or disobeying God and His
Word and suffering the consequences?
Let's read Matthew 7 starting at verse 24.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 7:24 - end
Yeshua says that every man that hears His words and DOES them is a like a
wise person who builds the foundation of his house on the rock. In a different
setting Luke has Yeshua saying the same thing, only slightly differently.
CJB Luke 11:28 But he said, "Far more blessed are those who hear the
word of God and obey it!"
What is being expressed is the Hebrew concept of shema. Shema means to
hear and obey, or to hear and do. The concept is rather simple. In all ages it is
fallen man's tendency to want to be emotionally uplifted by hearing fine words of
truth, but then when it comes time to put those words into action, passivity or
ambivalence sets in. Jesus is telling His audience that while it is to their merit that
they came to hear Him, and many listened intently and being there and hearing
and agreeing with Him was good, but insufficient. Do not we see the same thing
happening in both Synagogue and Church in modern times? Perhaps even we
ourselves are guilty of it. We feel very good about ourselves that we set aside
that hour or so each week to go to a worship service and to sit quietly and listen
to the sermon. But once we leave our seats and get back to the real world, do we
remember what was said? Or more importantly, does it convert to actions and
deeds?
Not too long before he passed away, in a TV interview Billy Graham confessed
that after decades of follow up his organization had done on the millions that had
left their seats and come forward at his Crusades, only a little over 1% continued
on in any recognizable way with the commitment to Christ that they had so
enthusiastically made there. The 99% heard and were moved by it; but they did
not do. And because they didn't do, their rush of conviction to make a positive
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
change in their lives quickly faded away. Yeshua will, at a later time, actually
address this issue in a famous parable about sowing seeds in various kinds of
soil. God gave the basis for this ordinance and principle of shema, and the
outcome for ignoring it, in Deuteronomy 28.
CJB Deuteronomy 28:15 "But if you refuse to pay attention to what ADONAl
your God says, and do not observe and obey all his mitzvot and regulations
which I am giving you today, then all the following curses will be yours in
abundance:
For the next few verses Jesus gives an illustration of how valuable it is to pay
attention to what He has just taught and to live it out. So He draws a simple
analogy that is self-evident to everyone present: the man who builds his house
on rock versus the man who builds his house on sand. Clearly not one in His
audience would build his house on sand anymore than we would. So the point He
is making is easily understood.
For us, the thing to understand is that He is speaking mostly about the foundation
of the house.... an analogy for our spiritual foundation. That is, every house
necessarily starts with a foundation. Any experienced builder will tell you that the
foundation and the soil under it is the key to it all. Begin with a faulty foundation
or unstable soil and everything above it will be shaky and short lived. Begin with
a firm soil and a solid, correctly constructed foundation, and everything above it
will be safe, secure, and long lived. The foundation He is speaking about is The
Torah.... The Law of Moses. Or in more modern thinking, The Bible (all of it, not
just the New Testament). If the foundation is built on rock then it means our
spiritual foundation is built on proper doctrine. If the foundation is built on sand,
then it is built on poor and incorrect doctrine.
Notice that what happens next has to do with when calamity strikes. That is,
Christ's point is about the inevitable tough times that come into every person's
life, Believer or non-Believer, if we live long enough. Sand or rock, when the
weather is good (indicating good times), then everything seems safe and secure.
The foundation stays in place and so the house seems to be properly built. But,
when the weather turns foul (indicating bad times), the foundation is put to the
test. If it is a good foundation, the house will survive the storm. But if it has a bad
foundation, the house will not.
To do the will of the Father in Heaven is the prudent thing for us to do and is
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
evidence of the good fruit that Yeshua spoke about earlier in His sermon.
Friends, modern Christianity has put a permanent happy face on our faith walk;
or more appropriately faith "stroll", although in reality too often ours is a lazy faith.
We believe that we should trust in Christ and our reward will be nothing but fair
weather and smooth sailing ahead. But then the inevitable and unexpected
happens, and because of the poor and shaky doctrine we have been taught, we
blame God for our troubles feeling that He has failed in His promise to protect us
from bad things happening in our lives. Many walk away from God disillusioned
and feeling jilted. These are those who built their houses on sand most did so
unknowingly, or perhaps a better word is to say they did it ignorantly. So to ignore
Jesus's words, and to believe that God's laws and commands, which Christ has
been urging us to uphold, are no longer relevant to a Christian, is to build one's
house on sand. I can say it no more plainly than that, for that is precisely what
Christ is teaching.
Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount has now come to a close. He has spoken for a
long time, addressed many subjects, and summed it all up in the last few verses.
Now the Gospel writer Matthew makes a comment. He says the crowd Jesus had
talked to was amazed by what they had heard. It was not only the Godly
principles He taught (some long forgotten), but rather it was the authority by
which He spoke. There was no equivocating. There was no quoting or borrowing
from one of the renowned and known teachers or speakers of His day to validate
what He taught. Matthew says He spoke far above the Torah teachers. It is
important to understand who Christ was being compared to. Where our CJB says
"Torah teachers", the Greek is grammateus. It more literally translates to
"scribes". In Yeshua's day "scribes" were the primary teachers in the
Synagogues. Thus most scribes (perhaps all) were Pharisees and while they no
doubt taught God's Word, it was taught within the context of Jewish Tradition.
Yeshua taught within the context of the biblical Torah; not Tradition. While not all
Tradition is to be held suspect, Tradition cannot be compared to God's immutable
Word. When we hear God's Word told in truth, it is transformative.
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 8.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 8 all
As usual, we need to ignore the chapter marking and understand that the first
verse of what we call chapter 8 connects with the final verse of chapter 7. So,
immediately following the conclusion of His speech, Yeshua and His Disciples go
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
down from the hills above the Galilee and journey a few miles to where He was
living at that time: Capernaum. Along the way, as one might expect, large
numbers of people who heard Him speak followed Him. What we read about Him
doing 2000 years ago, they witnessed in person. He miraculously healed 3
people. It could well have been more who were healed (and probably was), but
Matthew liked to record things in threes.
I want to remind you that no doubt the people who followed Him down the
mountain came expecting miracle healings. After all, to this point Jesus was still
seen by the Jews as a Tzadik, a Holy Man, because healing is what a Holy Man
did. Yeshua had not yet revealed that He was the Messiah nor had He plainly
disclosed that He was divine.
During His walk back to his residence He encountered a person with a skin
disease. Nearly all Bible translations will say "leper"; but the CJB has it right
when it says Tzara'at. I don't have to describe to you what a leper is; it is a
dreadful, disfiguring disease that does terrible things to the person who receives
no medical treatment. Tzara'at is a special kind of skin disease that includes a
number of skin maladies. The unique feature about it is its source: it is God␂imposed upon a person as a means of discipline and punishment.
We need to notice how Matthew structured his narrative. We have Yeshua go up
a mountain, and then come back down a mountain, and then we have Him
dealing with a person stricken with a skin disease. We find this same pattern with
Moses, whom Matthew is quite intent on comparing to Christ. Numbers 12 tells
the story Moses' sister Miriam who spoke against her brother, complaining that if
Moses could prophesy then so should she. God struck her with Tzara'at for her
rebellion and apostasy. Moses prayed to God to deliver her from her skin disease
and God said He would, but only after she was separated from her people for 7
days. So now we find Christ, God incarnate, heal a person with skin disease. But
there is more to this story.
Hours earlier Christ had told people that in order to enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven one needs to ask, seek, and knock. So Christ didn't notice this sick
person and go to him; rather the sick person sought out Christ, knelt before Him
(meaning he sort of blocked His path and made himself noticeable) and asked to
be healed. Yeshua said He would heal him. We are meant to notice the
terminology. The word "healed" is not actually used. Instead the afflicted man
asked Yeshua to make him clean. This is because ritual cleanness is the central
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
issue for a person that has been divinely struck with Tzara'at. That is, generally
speaking, the various skin ailments that one could receive as punishment were
not fatal. Instead they made the person ritually unclean, which meant they had to
be isolated away from all others so that they would not pass their uncleanness to
someone else by touching them. Such a thing was not only devastating from a
social status standpoint, but it could be economically devastating as well
especially if a family man was stricken because it could almost immediately throw
the entire family into poverty.
I find it ironic that even in the 21st century, in the most advanced societies, that
getting a disease that requires isolation (or isolation to keep from the disease)
reveals the tremendous economic impact isolation and separation can have on
people. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has caused millions and millions of
people to be thrown out of work or to lose their businesses mostly because of the
government imposed isolation. So when we read in the Bible about the plight of
people isolated due to ritual impurity, perhaps we have a better idea now of just
what that meant for them in both social and economic terms.
Please pay special attention to what Christ does: He precisely follows the Law of
Moses in dealing with this diseased man. Why would we expect anything else?
Yeshua has just come from teaching for several hours about the need for
following the Torah law, and specifically and unmistakably saying that in no way
did He abolish it or even modify it. Believe me; those many Jews looking on, as
well the man who was stricken, knew exactly what the procedure was during the
period of impurity and then the procedure for emerging from it. So had Yeshua
deviated from it at all, it would have been immediately detected. Thus the terms
clean and cleansed are correctly used several times. The same story is told in
Mark 1 beginning at verse 40, and it is nearly word for word as in Matthew's
narrative.
Some of the skin diseases these Jews contracted were long term; some were life
long. Because they required isolation for as long as the infirmity lasted, there was
little more feared and dreaded than Tzara'at. I say this because one of the
objections to the reliability of this story is that first we are told that great crowds
followed Yeshua down the mountain; and then the diseased man, who is
unclean, approaches Him. After healing the man Yeshua says not to tell anyone
about it. It seems incredulous that a huge crowd witnessed this, but the man is
supposed to keep what is already public, secret. In reality, this man would have
been isolated along with others that had his disease, and would not have been
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
out wandering the streets. Jesus had to have passed along an area where the
isolated unclean lived. While admittedly I'm speculating, it is not imaginable that
when the man with Tzara'at suddenly appeared and approached Yeshua that the
crowd didn't quickly back away in fear. How far back I'm not certain, but you can
bet their "social distancing" was a lot more than 6 feet! Thus when we read that
Christ cleansed him, and then told him not to say anything, the crowd probably
would not only have not overheard the conversation, but perhaps didn't even
know the man was healed. Typically the stricken wore sackcloth as a sign of
mourning and as an outward warning so that the other townspeople should steer
clear.
Some Bible scholars also question this story as not authentic because they say a
proper Jew would never touch a person with Tzara'at as it was against the Law
of Moses; that is not true. There is no Torah law against touching an unclean
person; however there was danger in doing so. It would have brought with it the
contracting of that person's ritual impurity; so people didn't do that. I don't know if
other Holy Men might have done such a thing as touching an unclean person; but
Jesus did. And what is so interesting is that Christ did what only God could do:
He cleansed. What should have happened is that the unclean man passed his
uncleanness to Christ; because a clean person cannot pass along their
cleanness to an unclean person. It is a one way street. And yet, that is exactly
what Yeshua did. His touch passed His own ritual purity along to the impure man
making him clean. I want to repeat; this was not a healing per se. From the
Jewish and biblical viewpoint, this was a cleansing; healing and cleansing are
two different things.
Next Yeshua tells the man to go to the priest AND to offer the sacrifice that
Moses commanded. This is precisely what the Law of Moses says a person who
is potentially cleansed of their Tzara'at is to do. He is to go to a priest to be
inspected. If the priest pronounces the person as cleansed he is released from
his isolation and then usually an altar sacrifice is to follow. If ever there was
continuing proof that Yeshua had not abolished The Law of Moses it is here
because He specifically instructs the man to follow the Law as found in Leviticus
13 and 14. But why is the man not supposed to say anything to anyone about the
cleansing? There's been a few theories put forth about this, but none of them
hold any water. The one with the most consensus is that Jesus didn't want to
divulge who He was just yet. However a Holy Man healing a person afflicted
with Tzara'at, and then the cleansed person telling others about it, would have in
no way unmasked Jesus as the Messiah. Nonetheless, in the hindsight of
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.....

Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
Christian history, the many miraculous things Yeshua did definitively add up to
the conclusion that He was the Messiah that Israel had hoped for; but not the one
they expected.
In verse 5 Yeshua finally arrives home in Capernaum. There He is confronted
with a worried Roman soldier; a Centurion. On its face this is kind of a peculiar
story because we have a Roman army officer (no doubt a gentile) approaching a
Jew, hat in hand, and asking for his help. It is interesting that we find a few
stories in the New Testament involving Centurions and it can be generally said
that they are upright men of honor and have respect among the Jewish
community. It seems that this Roman soldier has noticed the authentically
miraculous healings of Yeshua and so trusts Him. He doesn't seem to confess
any belief in the God of Israel, nor does he mention anything resembling a
religious faith in Christ. However clearly the Centurion is both desperate and sold
on Jesus's power to heal regardless of how He manages to do it. So the
Roman explains that his orderly is paralyzed and in suffering. More likely this is
not an orderly but rather a house slave. Yeshua offers to go to the Roman's
home and to heal the servant (we don't know whether the house slave is a Jew
or gentile).
Most Bible versions say that the Centurion begins to address Yeshua by calling
Him "Lord". The CJB says "sir". The Greek word being translated is kudos and it
is the equivalent of the Hebrew adon or adonai. It is a word of respect. It can be
translated as sir, Mr., master, and yes, lord. But little "L" lord. However over the
centuries because the word can be translated to "lord", then it is assumed that
the Roman meant it in a religious way because it is so common for Christians to
refer to Jesus as "The Lord". This is not what the Roman army officer was
implying. Saying "lord" was neither an indication that he had converted to the
Hebrew religion nor that He was declaring a religious allegiance to Yeshua. He
was simply being respectful and courteous, especially because he understood
that Yeshua was a miracle healer and He was the best hope for saving the life of
the servant.
The soldier declines Yeshua's offer to go to the officer's home in order to heal the
young man. The officer was of course aware that it was Jewish Tradition that
gentiles were automatically considered unclean, and therefore so were their
homes. The belief was that a Jew entering the house of a gentile would be
rendered ritually impure and thus have to go through the hassle of a period of
time of isolation and purification, then an immersion. Out of an abundance of
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
politeness, rather than ask Yeshua to go against His culture and religious
Traditions, the soldier says that it is not necessary for Him to actually be present
with the house slave to heal him; all that has to be done is for Yeshua to order it
and it will occur. And he thinks this is so because as a soldier, he is a man under
the authority of one over him, and so whatever he is ordered to do it is dutifully
carried out. And further, since he has 100 men under him, he is confident that if
he issues an order, it will be carried out whether he is present or not. For all the
wrong reasons, the Centurion was actually on the right track.
Yeshua is astonished and says that He has not known anyone in Israel with as
much trust as this gentile; a soldier who actually represents oppression to most
Jews. Bible translations will more often than not say faith instead of trust.
Regardless, let's not get carried away. This is NOT a religious trust or faith that
the Centurion holds in Jesus. However Yeshua's response about the lesser trust
present among the Israelites is meant in a religious context. The Centurion holds
a kind of deep, confident, unequivocal conviction that this Jewish Holy Man can
heal his very ill house slave, and Yeshua sees it as an excellent model for the
kind of deep, confident, unequivocal trust that His followers ought to have in the
God of Israel and His Son. What we have found so far is that even as concerns
His 12 Disciples, whatever trust they have in their Master amounts to "seeing is
believing". So the kind of trust that is based on an invisible promise and the
uttering of a word (instead of visible proof or a sign) is what Yeshua wants to see
from His followers. The sad reality is that Israel, those who were elected by God
to be the natural inheritors of His Kingdom, have not lived up to their calling.
Ironically, this gentile Roman soldier (an enemy) better expresses what a healthy
faith looks like than does Israel.
Verse 11 says something that on the surface feels out of place. Some Bible
scholars use it as proof that all that Yeshua has been teaching has being
concerning the End Times, and not the present. Actually, while this statement is
indeed speaking of a future time, likely it is also Christ expanding on the matter of
Israel and their place in the Kingdom of Heaven. He says that many will come
from the east and the west (presumably traveling to the Land of Israel) in order to
take their place at a banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven. And strangely that
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will also be present. First: while it is not across the
board, generally speaking in the Bible when the compound term east and west is
used, it applies to the exiles and dispersed of Israel. Second: when north and
south are used together, in general it applies to gentiles (again, this is not
universal in the Bible but it does seem to be a pattern). Considering the context
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
of Yeshua's statement, then I think He is speaking about the return of the 10
Israelite tribes (the so-called 10 Lost Tribes) that were dispersed to the east and
west by Assyria in the 8th century B.C. This is a prophesied event, most
famously recorded by Ezekiel chapters 36, 37, and 38. Assuming that Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob are there in the flesh so to speak, then this must be occurring
after the general resurrection that is to come. But it also moderates Yeshua's
negative comment about this Roman soldier having more faith than any one in
Israel to indicate that despite a general unfaithfulness in Israel, the descendants
of the Israelite exiles will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.
And yet He says in verse 12 that those born for the Kingdom will not be allowed
in but rather they will be rejected to the live in the darkness that is the condition
that all who are excluded will experience. So who are these that are born for the
Kingdom, but excluded? Let me first say that in no way should we read-in the
word "all".... that is "all" who are born for the Kingdom. Rather it is that among
those born for the Kingdom some (perhaps the majority) will be excluded. The
Greek word being translated as "born for the Kingdom" is huios, and it more
literally means "sons of the Kingdom". Again, the subject's context seems to be
Israel, so these sons are apparently those of Israel who are indeed born as God's
people, yet most will not be allowed into the Kingdom. Why? Judging from
Christ's statement in 7:23, it is because these are natural born Israelites that
refuse to sincerely trust Yeshua as God's Son, Lord, and Savior. The idea is that
not all Israelites will automatically be granted citizenship in God's Kingdom. This
would have been a startling pronouncement because the Jews of that day
believed that being born as Jews guaranteed them a place in the eternal
Kingdom; it was, and remains, not so. Clearly Christ taught the Apostle Peter this
reality about Israel as well. Open your Bibles to 2Peter chapter 2.
READ 2PETER CHAPTER 2:1 - 17
All whom Peter said would be cast into darkness is specifically about certain
members of Israel, thus I have little doubt that Matthew 8:10 - 12 is also speaking
about certain members of Israel.
This episode concerning the Centurion concludes with Yeshua confirming that
because of the officer's trust that Yeshua can do what He says He can do,
Yeshua has already done it. The house servant was already healed before the
Centurion went home. Indeed, the soldier was correct; merely Yeshua's word
could heal.
11 / 12
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Lesson 27 - Matthew 7 & 8
We'll continue with Matthew chapter 8 next time.
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 28, Chapter 8 Continued
As we delve deeper and deeper into Matthew's Gospel, to this point we have
found three elements to be always present and repetitive; therefore it is crucial
for us to notice them and to understand that Matthew has constructed his Gospel
around them. First, Matthew presents Yeshua of Nazareth as the second Moses
and thus paints Him in that role as the "prophet like me" that Moses prophesied
would come. Second, the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. It arrived when John
the Baptist appeared as a type of Elijah (or, perhaps better, having the spirit of
Elijah) announcing that a path is being made in the wilderness for the coming of
the Lord. Thus, everything that happens and every utterance of Christ is to be
taken in that knowledge and context because it marks the beginning of new era
that ushers us into the final era. And third, Matthew highlights the ongoing
relevance and efficacy of The Law of Moses for Jesus's followers; only now it is
to be accomplished in light of Believers having the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and
of Messiah's demand (given in the Sermon on the Mount) that these laws and
commandments from His Father are to be taken to an even higher level in our
lives, with not only outward but also inward moral perfection as the goal. Not only
our behavior is to be conformed to the will of God, but also our intents and
motives.
Many Bible scholars and commentators, as well as numerous of those esteemed
men who established the original faith doctrines of the thousands of Christian
denominations, would generally agree with my observation as concerns the first
two of these three elements we thus far find constantly present within the Book of
Matthew. Few would agree with the third element even though a plain, logical
(even historical) reading of Matthew's narrative reveals it with a great degree of
clarity. I have long found it fascinating and not just a little puzzling why it is this
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
way; and what or who the source of this anti-Law of Moses viewpoint was. I also
know from the many emails sent to me that not just a few of you might like to
know how this happened and what the earliest Church thought about this matter;
and if this anti-Law stance of the modern Church has always been with us. So
before we continue in Matthew chapter 8, we're going to take a substantial detour
to look into this rather important matter that has, to my way of thinking, sent the
Church hurtling towards the very darkness that Christ was warning against. The
way to do this is to study the writings of the Early Church Fathers.
This is going to be a bit lengthy because I'm going to present to you some of the
writings of the Early Church Fathers. Because context matters, I'm not going to
quote only a phrase or a sentence, but rather a paragraph or more. So be
patient, but please also be focused. This is information that every Believer
needs.
There is a long list of what are commonly called Early Church Fathers. These are
Bishops, teachers, and scholars that include the very earliest 1st century Church
leaders (apart from the original Apostles) all the way up to 8th century Church
leaders. The main dividing points are whether each served in the east or the
west, and whether each lived and wrote before or after the Council of Nicea. It
was at the Council of Nicea early in the 4th century, convened at the behest of
the Roman Emperor Constantine, when the Christian Church began to morph
into something more recognizable to us today as the institution that it has
become. At Nicea and later at Laodicea the many independent Churches
underwent a consolidation of authority to be based in Rome, with a centralized
Church government, and under a set of common faith doctrines and principles
(although some of the attending Bishops rejected those doctrines and so many of
those churches grew on their own outside the authority of Rome). The vast
majority of these faith doctrines have shaped and tooled especially the Western
Church from that day forward, for the better or worse.
The earliest of the Early Church Fathers is Clement of Rome. Clement was born
about 30 A.D., around the time of Christ's crucifixion. So he was alive during the
lifetimes of the original 12 Disciples. Not a great deal is known about his early
history, or exactly when He became a Believer. What is known is that in the later
part of his life he became a member of the Church government of the Church in
Rome; thus he had power and authority. What makes him so important for what
I'd like to show you is that he represents the absolute earliest of the Church
Fathers that operated at a time when Jews still represented the bulk of Church
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
leadership. It is believed that Clement was a gentile and probably a Roman. He
was personally discipled by both Peter and Paul. We find him mentioned most
prominently in the Book of Philippians, when he was working alongside Paul at
the City of Philippi about 57 A.D.
CJB Philippians 4:3 / also request you, loyal Syzygus, to help these women;
for they have worked hard proclaiming the Good News with me, along with
Clement and the rest of my fellow-workers whose names are in the Book of
Life.
Near to or shortly after Paul's death Clement wrote Epistles to various of the
Churches that Paul had established because Clement was a natural successor to
the martyred Paul having been at his side and learning his doctrine from him.
This is a good time to mention that many epistles written by various early church
leaders were floating around the many Believing synagogues (which is what the
earliest churches were), as were several Gospel accounts of Christ's life. It would
not be until early in the 3rd century that a Church council convened and chose
from among quite a number of these authoritative documents the few that would
be declared holy with the purpose of establishing the first Christian Bible: what
we call the New Testament. So Clement's letters carried much weight, as did
Paul's, Peter's, and John's.
Unfortunately, few of Clement's works have survived; we only know of the
existence of the others because they are given mention by later Church fathers
such as Polycarp, Papias, and Eusibius. However we do have what has become
labeled as the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians penned by Clement that reveals
some important information about his faith principles and his foundational beliefs.
Since there is no known rebuttal of his viewpoint from his era, nor does he
disagree with any of the New Testament writings that would come later, it is
reasonable to conclude that his can be taken as the earliest doctrinal viewpoint
not only of gentile members of the Church of Jesus Christ, but also of its
leadership....Jew and gentile. His Epistle is wonderful reading but for the sake of
time and for our purposes I will give you only of a couple of excerpts that are
especially eye opening and characteristic of his entire Epistle, while at the same
time pointing out that the reason for his letter to the Corinthian Church that Paul
had established was that the Church there was in turmoil and fighting amongst
themselves. The wolves in sheep's clothing that Yeshua warned His followers
would come, the false prophets that were to arise within the Church, were the
problem. But the problem behind the problem was disobedience to the Laws of
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
Moses, although perhaps not in ways we might instinctively suspect. Here is
Clement of Rome:
These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the
depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all things in [their
proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated
times. 1 He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be
performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the
appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to
be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all
things being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be
acceptable unto Him. 2 Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the
appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the
laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to
the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and
their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is
bound by the laws that pertain to laymen.
Put on your Jewish mindset for the moment to understand what the gentile
Believer and Church leader Clement is saying. He says that the Believers of
Corinth are duty bound to do all things in their proper order. By order he means
from a Christ follower's perspective the things (ritual things) that are to be done,
when they are to be done, and who is to do them. The things that the Believers at
Corinth are to do (and therefore this pertains to any and every group of
Christians) are the rituals that the Lord has commanded to be observed at their
stated times (or, better, at their appointed times). Therefore Clement goes on to
say that the required offerings (sacrifices) and the way they are to be presented
are fixed by God, and therefore are to be done in a pious manner so that such
observances cannot change and will be pleasing to God. This means that when
one presents their offerings they should occur at the appointed times (biblical
feasts for example) so that they will be accepted and blessed by God. And further
that doing the things that are the laws of the Lord means they are thereby
avoiding sin. That is, to NOT do these laws and commandments as they are
prescribed is sin... and clearly this can only be referring to the Law of Moses.
While so many in the Church will twist his term "the laws of the Lord" into
meaning "the laws of Jesus" (which is simply not so), we find Clement making it
clear that it can only be the Law of Moses (the biblical Torah) he is speaking
about because he then devolves into saying that the Priests must do what the
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
Lord commanded, as well as the Levites, and then laymen as well (there is no
record of Yeshua issuing instructions to Priests and Levites). Priests and Levites
each have their own roles that cannot be assigned to the common class of God
worshippers....laymen. Yet layman also have their own set of responsibilities (in
Clement's language, their own order). Let's read a little further in the 1st Epistle
to the Corinthians by Clement.
Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living
in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not going beyond the
rule of the ministry prescribed to him. Not in every place, brethren, are the
daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the
trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not
offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is
offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers
already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is
agreeable to His will, are punished with death. Ye see, 3 brethren, that the
greater the knowledge that has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is
the danger to which we are exposed.
The first thing we can conclude from his words are that since he speaks plainly
about the Temple and the altar and the sacrifices thereupon, he wrote this Epistle
prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. But also notice that clearly
Clement was addressing a controversy. It seems that some in the church of
Corinth were offering the daily tamid (the every day sacrifices prescribed in the
Law of Moses), as well as offering some of the other classes of sacrifices like
peace offerings, sin offerings and trespass offerings locally, in Corinth. This could
only be happening at an altar the Corinthian Believers built, probably associated
with their synagogue (the church) at Corinth. But, that was not their right or
position to do so. These sacrificial rituals were to be done only by Priests and
Levites and only at the Temple in Jerusalem. So what we find is that Clement,
the earliest gentile Church Father, Paul's and Peter's understudy, understands
that the Law of Moses including the ongoing Temple sacrifices pertain to
Believers. But.... Believers cannot change the Law in the name of Christ such
that laymen can now perform sacrifices, or that these sacrifices can now be
performed in Corinth or any other place they might choose. Rather, these must
only be done by Priests at the Temple altar in Jerusalem as prescribed by the
Law. There can be no stronger or straightforward endorsement than Clement's of
the continuing relevance and authority of the Law of Moses, as it stood for
centuries, for ALL Believers.
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
Those of us, the minority in the Church, who believe in Yeshua as Savior, and
that only His blood and divine grace can save us, and at the same time also
know from Yeshua's own words that we are duty bound to continue following the
Law of Moses (not as a means of gaining our salvation but rather as proper
evidence of it). This is something that is exactly in line with what Clement was
taught by Paul and Peter and so he himself continued the doctrine. We don't
have to speculate about this since it is recorded for us.
Another very early Church Father, Papias, was born when Clement was about 40
years old, and he seems to have personally known Clement. Although there are
but fragments of his works available to us, we learn this important fact from
Papias:
Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and
each one interpreted them as best he could.
So what we are reading in our New Testament from the Jewish Matthew was first
written down in Matthew's and Christ's birth language, Hebrew, and this fact
lends further weight to Clement's position concerning what he was taught from
the Jews Peter and Paul. When we maintain the Jewish context (both cultural
and religious) that the New Testament was written in, and Matthew's is the most
Jewish of the Gospels, clearly the earliest Christians knew that they were to
continue obeying the Law of Moses. However some Believers outside of the Holy
Land went so far (too far) by trying to perform the Priestly duties of the Law
themselves, and doing them where ever they happened to live (in this case in
Corinth). So from around 50 A.D. to around 90 or 100 A.D., the generally held
belief within the Church was that the Law of Moses was still relevant, valid, and
to be obeyed by both Jewish and gentile Believers. However the "how" of it was
being hotly debated within the Church whose congregations were dispersed in
foreign nations outside of the Holy Land.
As we read the works of succeeding Church Fathers we see a decided turn
from how to do the Law as Believers, to these leaders being against the Law and
then even against Jews. We find this reality boldly expressed in the writings of
the Early Church Father Justin Martyr. He was born in 110 A.D. and died at only
55 years old. But, he wrote profusely and his works are greatly revered and
taught within Christian Seminaries, at least partly because so many of his
documents are complete and well preserved. They are also well pleasing to a
gentiles-only Church. I'll read to you some excerpts that he wrote, which come
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
from one of the most famous documents in all of Christendom: A Dialogue with
Trypho.
By all accounts this is a true encounter that the gentile Christian Justin Martyr
had with the Jew Trypho (and during part of the conversation some of Trypho's
Jewish friends were present). And so in "A Dialogue With Trypho" we read about
this back and forth conversation between Justin and Trypho. I want to read a few
excerpts from it so that you can see what Christianity had already become by
around 150 A.D.; only perhaps 60 or 70 years after the Church Father Clement
lived, governed, and wrote.
(Justin Martyr says) "Is there any other matter, my friends, in which we are
blamed, than this, that we live not after the law, and are not circumcised in
the flesh as your forefathers were, and do not observe Sabbaths as you
do? Are our lives and customs also slandered among you? And I ask this:
have you also believed concerning us, that we eat men; and that after the
feast, having extinguished the lights, we engage in promiscuous
concubinage? Or do you condemn us in this alone, that we adhere to such
tenets, and believe in an opinion, untrue, as you think?"
"This is what we are amazed at," said Trypho, "but those things about
which the multitude speak are not worthy of belief; for they are most
repugnant to human nature. Moreover, I am aware that your precepts in the
so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great, that I suspect no one can
keep them; for I have carefully read them. But this is what we are most at a
loss about: that you, professing to be pious, and supposing yourselves
better than others, are not in any particular separated from them, and do
not alter your mode of living from the nations, in that you observe no
festivals or sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circumcision; and further,
resting your hopes on a man that was crucified, you yet expect to obtain
some good thing from God, while you do not obey His commandments.
Have you not read, that that soul shall be cut off from his people who shall
not have been circumcised on the eighth day? And this has been ordained
for strangers and for slaves equally. But you, despising this covenant
rashly, reject the consequent duties, and attempt to persuade yourselves
that you know God, when, however, you perform none of those things
which they do who fear God. If, therefore, you can defend yourself on these
points, and make it manifest in what way you hope for anything
whatsoever, even though you do not observe the law, this we would very
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
gladly hear from you, and we shall make other similar investigations." So Justin Martyr says that there are all kinds of slanderous accusations by Jews
about what Christians do, even including cannibalism and having wild festive
orgies. Let me pause to point out that by this time gentiles fully controlled the
Church; Jewish Believers had been marginalized and mostly pushed out. So
what Jews said about Christians was essentially a retort and response to what a
gentile, exclusionary Christianity now falsely claimed against Jews. A tit for tat if
you would.
Trypho responds to Justin that he is intelligent and observant enough to know
that some of the more outrageous things said about Christians aren't true.
However, he does believe that some other things said are true and they
completely puzzle him. He says that he has carefully read the Gospel (which of
the several in circulation at that time we don't know, but my bet is that it was
Matthew's because his was written at first in Hebrew and was written to Jews in a
Jewish context). And these things that puzzle him are: how can you read the
Gospel and say you believe what was written, and then turn around and refuse to
obey the Law of Moses as a basic doctrine? How can you defend dropping the
feasts, the Sabbath, and refuse circumcision when the subject of the Gospel,
Jesus, Himself obeyed these laws and has said His followers should, too?
Trypho, it seems to me, received some of the truths of the Gospel better than did
Justin Martyr. It's only that Trypho rejected it on the principle of Yeshua of
Nazareth being the Messiah and the Son of God.
Here is Justin's response to Trypho's accusation:
"There will be no other God, O Trypho, nor was there from eternity any
other existing" (I thus addressed him), "but He who made and disposed all
this universe. Nor do we think that there is one God for us, another for you,
but that He alone is God who led your fathers out from Egypt with a strong
hand and a high arm. Nor have we trusted in any other (for there is no
other), but in Him in whom you also have trusted, the God of Abraham, and
of Isaac, and of Jacob. But we do not trust through Moses or through the
law; for then we would do the same as yourselves.
Justin then goes on to attack a few of God's laws and commandments of the
Torah.
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
"And God himself proclaimed by Moses, speaking thus: 'And circumcise
the hardness of your hearts, and no longer stiffen the neck. For the Lord
your God is both Lord of lords, and a great, mighty, and terrible God, who
regardeth not persons, and taketh not rewards.' 4 And in
Leviticus: 'Because they have transgressed against Me, and despised Me,
and because they have walked contrary to Me, I also walked contrary to
them, and I shall cut them off in the land of their enemies. Then shall their
uncircumcised heart be turned. 5 For the circumcision according to the
flesh, which is from Abraham, was given for a sign; that you may be
separated from other nations, and from us; and that you alone may suffer
that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and
your cities burned with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your
presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.' 6 For you are not
recognized among the rest of men by any other mark than your fleshly
circumcision. For none of you, I suppose, will venture to say that God
neither did nor does foresee the events, which are future, nor foreordained
his deserts for each one. Accordingly, these things have happened to you
in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets
before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him, and in Him who
sent Hirn-God the Almighty and Maker of all things -cursing in your
synagogues those that believe on Christ. For you have not the power to lay
hands upon us, on account of those who now have the mastery.
So Justin (who is now sarcastic and talking down to Trypho) says that
circumcision of the flesh is only for Jews; and Jews are circumcised only because
they are rebellious and evil before God. That is, circumcision has always been
more punishment and curse than blessing. And further, Jews have no place in
leading Christians (laying hands upon us), because gentile Christians are now in
control (those who now have the mastery). A little more of Justin:
"Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and impose on you
other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your
unrighteousness, and that of your fathers,-
"Moreover, you were commanded to abstain from certain kinds of food, in
order that you might keep God before your eyes while you ate and drank,
seeing that you were prone and very ready to depart from His knowledge .... So we see that by about 150 A.D. it had become doctrine that Christians not only
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
should not obey the Law, they saw God's commandments as inherently bad and
essentially God created them to be a curse set upon a people (the Hebrews) and
given to them due to their unrighteousness.
It gets worse from there forward as the Early Church Fathers that follow Justin
Martyr become more and more entrenched in anti-Jewish, anti-Law rhetoric and
doctrine until we come to the time of the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., which
began a series of ecumenical council meetings that wrote and forever embedded
within Christianity those same anti-Jewish, anti-Law views of Justin Martyr that
would have startled and dismayed the earliest Church Father, Clement of Rome.
Sadly, Justin Martyr is held up by the institutional Church as exemplary and his
views are to be taken dearly and more or less followed as doctrine. Therefore it is
not hard to trace what happened within Christianity that it became anti-Law of
Moses and anti-Jewish, as it corresponds directly to the deaths of Peter, Paul,
and John, the end of the authority in the Church of Jewish Apostles and gentiles
like Clement, and then the takeover of gentiles who very quickly abandoned and
then outlawed anything within Christianity that even resembled something that
the Jews did. By definition this included no further obedience to the Law of
Moses and the end of observing God-appointed times like Sabbath, the biblical
feasts, the ordinance of male circumcision, and more.
I believe I've said enough to get my point across. It was not my intention to teach
a course on the Early Church Fathers today, but rather to show you the path that
was taken so early in the development of Christianity to disavow the Law of
Moses. So we'll stop here and get back into Matthew chapter 8.
We ended last time at verse 13, the story of the Roman Centurion in Capernaum
asking Yeshua to heal his ill house slave. While it is erroneously taught that this
is about a gentile coming to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that is not
evident in this story. There is nothing said about a conversion. It is only that the
Centurion knew of, or was eyewitness to, Yeshua's miraculous healing powers
and so asked Him if he would do the same for his house slave (obviously this
servant was dear to the Centurion's heart). Yeshua was not astonished because
this gentile soldier had a religious faith in Yeshua or was perhaps a secret
convert (such was not the case); rather He saw the unyielding trust in Yeshua's
ability to heal as a good illustration for the Jews to pattern themselves after as
the unyielding type and depth of faith they ought to have in God. But because so
many Jews in general (He calls them "those born for the Kingdom") have nothing
like this kind of faith, then Christ says the consequence is that they will not be
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven but rather will be thrown into the darkness
outside of it. Bottom line: a deep unequivocal trust in God is needed to be part of
the Kingdom; a trust that is reflected in their lives and actions. Simply being born
of a Hebrew heritage does not give any Jew a free ticket into the Kingdom of
Heaven. Only those Jews who heed the warning shall enter the Kingdom.
Let's read a little more. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 8.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 8:14 - 17
The Gospel of Mark also reports on the story of Yeshua going to Peter's house to
tend to Peter's ill mother-in-law. Before we discuss it, let's read Mark's version.
CJB Mark 1:29-31 29 They left the synagogue and went with Ya'akov and
Yochanan to the home of Shim'on and Andrew. 30 Shim'on's mother-in-law
was lying sick with a fever, and they told Yeshua about her. 31 He came,
took her by the hand and lifted her onto her feet. The fever left her, and she
began helping them.
So from Mark we learn that Yeshua had been in a synagogue in Capernaum,
along with his brother James and His disciple John (the eventual writer of
Revelation). This has to have occurred after Yeshua had returned to Capernaum
from speaking His Sermon on the Mount. Although it is hard to tell when because
Mark never even mentions the Sermon on the Mount. The 3 men went to Peter's
{Shimon's) house (apparently the disciple Andrew was also living there at the
time) where Christ would perform yet another miracle healing. One take away
from these couple of verses is that Peter indeed was a married man (although his
wife, and the existence of children, is never explicitly mentioned).
Yeshua touched Peter's mother-in-law by taking her hand, and she was healed
(specifically healed of her fever). Then, because the healing was immediate, she
got up out of her sickbed and began to serve Yeshua. In the Jewish culture of
that day, as it pertains to women, to "serve him" didn't hold a religious meaning.
Rather it merely meant to prepare and serve Jesus a meal. The lack of detailed
information and Jesus's knowledge of the woman's illness implies a closer
relationship with her than with the others He healed. That is, she seems to have
been known and familiar to Him.
I think another, but much shorter, detour is in order. The truth of this story is
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
further validated by the discovery of Peter's house in Capernaum; a rather well
preserved archeological sight. Peter's house is only a hundred feet or so from the
ruins of a large synagogue. However those ruins are of a later synagogue built in
the 300's A.D., which likely lies upon the ruins of the earlier one (such was the
way things were done during biblical times). I've had the pleasure of taking many
of you there on tours to Israel. At present a Catholic Church is built over the sight.
That is to say, it is a building built on pillars above the ruins of Peter's house to
both commemorate it and to preserve it.
Peter's house was typical of the era; small, simple, and unadorned. However
archeologists discovered that perhaps late in the 1st century or very early in the
2nd there were additions to it, including an octagonal structure built around the
original, with the original walls plastered and incorporated into the newer
structure. There is little doubt that Peter's house was well known among early
Believers and held to be very special (probably because it was with Peter that
Yeshua lived), and so it was used as a small church that was later expanded to a
larger one.
During Yeshua's day Capernaum was a medium-sized town of about 1500 or so
people; obviously it was a fishing village as it was built on the shore of the Sea of
Galilee. But it also lay along an important trade route so the town was a mix of
Jews and non-Jews mostly Romans. Doubling back to the story of the Roman
Centurion we read about, he actually lived in Capernaum, which explains his
presence there. The Romans always carefully guarded the all-important trade
routes so a garrison of soldiers stationed there would be logical. It would have
been a very short walk from Jesus's encounter with the Centurion to the
Centurion's house for Christ to heal his house slave. So even though the rules of
Jewish Tradition made the homes of gentiles unclean, they lived side by side with
Jews. The Romans and the Jews encountered and worked with one another daily
and thus the Centurion would have been well schooled about Jewish attitudes
and customs towards gentiles.
As a history buff and a former archeology major at university, it is always
important to me to notice what kinds of materials were used for construction.
Peter's house and the subsequent additions to it over the next couple of
centuries were made of the local stone: basalt. Basalt is volcanic in origin. In fact,
the volcano that spewed out the basalt and lava that came to be used for the
construction of Capernaum is to be found at what is known today as the Golan
Heights. So the buildings and houses at that time were very rough looking,
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Lesson 28 - Matthew 8 cont
although the hardness of the basalt stone made the homes very sturdy and has
allowed these structures to survive for centuries (and they will survive for many
more; their real enemy is earthquakes). Thus the first and most obvious clue that
the present synagogue in Capernaum is not the original one from Christ's time is
that it was built using limestone, which had to come from some distance away; an
expensive operation that a village of Jewish fishermen could never have
contemplated.
So although Christ was born in Bethlehem, and He lived for many years with His
parents in Nazareth, during His days of ministry on earth He lived most of the
time in Capernaum. Luke's version of this story puts several pieces of it together,
so we'll conclude today with it.
CJB Luke 7:1-10 1 When Yeshua had finished speaking to the people, he
went back to K'far-Nachum. 2 A Roman army officer there had a servant he
regarded highly, who was sick to the point of death. 3 Hearing about
Yeshua, the officer sent some Jewish elders to him with the request that he
come and heal his servant. 4 They came to Yeshua and pleaded earnestly
with him, "He really deserves to have you do this, 5
for he loves our people␂in fact, he built the synagogue for us!" 6So Yeshua went with them. He had
not gone far from the house, when the officer sent friends who said to him,
"Sir, don't trouble yourself. I'm not worthy to have you come under my
roof- 7
this is why I didn't presume to approach you myself. Instead, just
give a command and let my servant recover. 8 For I too am a man set under
authority. I have soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes;
and to another, 'Come!' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he
does it." 9Yeshua was astonished at him when he heard this; and he turned
and said to the crowd following him, "I tell you, not even in Isra'el have I
found such trust!" 10 When the messengers got back to the officer's house,
they found the servant in good health.
We'll continue in Matthew next week.
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 29, Chapter 8 Continued 2
We took another extensive detour last week in our continuing study of Matthew
Chapter 8 to explore some of the Early Church Fathers in order to trace their
viewpoint on the all-important matter of Believers in Christ having an obligation to
follow, or not to follow, the Law of Moses. What we found was that the very
earliest Church Father of record (Clement of Rome) was discipled at the knee of
both Peter and Paul, and actually served with Paul for a time. He was so involved
with the Church at Corinth that following Paul's death Clement wrote letters
(theologians call them epistles) to the congregation there. Clearly Clement was
seen as Paul's successor and had authority. As history shows, Clement also
became part of the Church government in Rome.
Clement's recorded position was that gentles as well as Jews who follow Messiah
are to obey the Torah (the Law of Moses). He knows nothing of the anti-Jewish,
anti-Law fiction eventually developed by the gentile Church leadership that is
sometimes called the Law of Jesus or the Law of God. This pro-Law of Moses
position was not only recorded by Clement in his one surviving epistle but also
repeated by later Church Fathers Papias and Polycarp. What we find is that after
the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., and after gentiles took over control of the
Church starting about 100 A.D., the Church Fathers naturally, as a result of their
esteemed positions, were the ones who advocated these various forms of anti␂Law and anti-Semitism.... at first rather mildly and then more militantly until we
arrive at the time of Justin Martyr in the mid 2nd century. Justin Martyr was
openly and forcefully anti-Law, anti-Jew and in his famous treatise called A
Dialogue with Trypho he laid out his argument that Christians should not follow
the Law or do anything that Jews do (feasts, Sabbath, day of worship, etc.)
because the Jews were the Christ killers and God had given them over to evil. In
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
fact, Justin Martyr said that the Law of Moses itself was a negative institution
imposed upon the Israelites as they left Egypt as a punishment due to their
wickedness.
From this point forward, the Church was nearly entirely gentile in government and
congregation and so in the early 300's at the Council of Nicea, headed up by
Emperor Constantine, the Church laid down a set of authoritative faith doctrines
(they were at that time call canons) that embedded the anti-Jewish, anti-Law of
Moses as a principle foundation of Christianity that has been embraced and led
astray ever since. Without apology or hesitation I stand opposed to this view and
mindset because it is also quite anti-Jesus, even if it is done so out of the same
ignorance I had as a young man. After all; Jesus could not have made it more
clear in His Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew chapter 5, as He
issued a command (along with a stern warning as to the consequences) that all
of His followers were to obey the Law. Further that no one should ever construe
anything He said that day, or ever, as meaning He has abolished the Law of
Moses, changed it in the slightest way, nor has He created a new Law of Jesus.
But Christianity in general has followed the lead of Justin Martyr and nearly all
the gentile Church Fathers that succeeded him and as a result have disobeyed
Yeshua's explicit instruction thus, sadly, steering the institutional Church
dangerously off course. Here at Seed of Abraham Ministries Torah Class we
shall continue to endeavor to teach and to follow the Law of Moses as Yeshua
has instructed us to do, as much as is possible in the 21st century, and in forms
that represent modern circumstances and realities. We plead with our brothers
and sisters of the faith to reconsider, repent, and reconnect with the entire Bible
and to once again embrace full obedience to God's laws and commands. We
acknowledge that we do not, ourselves, do it perfectly. Whenever it is clearly
impractical or impossible to follow a commandment to the letter due to the
circumstances of our modern times, including the lack of a Temple and
Priesthood in Jerusalem, we shall follow the Law of Moses in the spirit it is
intended, guided by the Holy Spirit that Christ Himself sent to us. And at the
same time pray for God's forgiveness when we fail. These issues of the
relevance of the Law and of the totally Jewish character and culture of Yeshua
are assumed throughout Matthew's Gospel.
Next we discussed the matter of the Roman Centurion who came to Jesus to ask
that He heal the soldier's house slave. After that we addressed Yeshua walking a
few steps from the synagogue in Capernaum to Peter's house where his mother␂in-law lay ill with a fever. Messiah merely took her hand and instantly healed her.
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
We also spent a bit of time discussing that Peter's house has been found in
Capernaum and has been excavated and preserved such that visitors to the Sea
of Galilee can see it. Having been there many times I can say that for me,
personally, it is a most moving and affirming experience.
Let's continue with Matthew chapter 8 beginning at verse 16.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 8:16 - end
Here we find Yeshua continuing to do what Jewish Holy Men (tzadikim) do; heal.
In the first 15 verses we found Him healing an interesting array of people; a
person with Tzara'at(a spiritually caused skin condition), then a Roman soldier's
house slave, and then a woman (although He of course knew her well). What is
the common theme among all these folks? They not only don't represent Jewish
religious hierarchy they are also the powerless. We need to be paying attention
starting now as to the position that Yeshua is putting Himself in. He stands in
obvious opposition to the Jewish leadership, while standing with the common
man. I think it would be fair to say that He quite naturally identifies with regular
Jewish folk because that is not only His own background, but also He sees the
injustice built-in to 1st century Jewish society. Considering the things He's doing
and the following He's gaining, without permission or authority granted from
either the Priestly leadership or the Synagogue leadership, He is setting sail on a
collision course with both.
It bears repeating because otherwise we lose all context for what is happening: in
no way do those following Jesus around, begging Him to heal them or a family
member, think of Him as divine or as their prophesied Messiah. He indeed has
dropped some abstract hints of His true mission and identity that hardly anyone
present could have caught. In fact, as we move through Matthew we'll find that at
this point those closest to Him His family and His 12 Disciples.... didn't think of
Him as any more than a righteous Holy Man. John the Baptist thought of Him as
something special, someone who was indeed prophesied about, but even he
wasn't entirely certain that Yeshua was the Messiah because up to now Yeshua
had not plainly said so. Thus the hoards who came to Christ, and He spoke to in
the hills above the Sea of Galilee, came primarily seeking healing from all
manner of afflictions. And those who followed Him down the mountain, and those
who joined the crowd in Capernaum, also came for healing. So far we have seen
Christ heal physical ailments. Now in verse 16 we see Him heal an evil spiritual
ailment: demon possession.
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
We must also understand that while the Jewish people were so very glad and
excited for this new Holy Man, Jesus, to have arrived, what He was doing was
not so different than what they had seen before from other famous Holy Men who
were miracle healers like Honi the Circle Drawer and then a few years
later Hanina Ben Dosa, both of whom ministered prior to Christ's birth. These
Holy Men were considered as ultra-pious and so their words and prayers were
much coveted by the people. In other words, Yeshua's miracle healings had a
precedent; so these miracles were expected of Him since He had proved Himself
to be a Holy Man, and in none of the Gospel accounts did He ever deny it. Had
He not done the miracles, He would not have been so sought after.
So Yeshua the miracle worker drew people to him (even some gentiles) like
moths to a flame. Jesus turned no one away and effortlessly healed all who came
to Him. It has been pointed out to me that we must not overlook that Yeshua's
healing and His word (His instruction) are organically tied together. Because
Moses is the model after which Matthew patterns Christ, it is informative to read a
pertinent comment made by Philo. In his Vitas Mosis chapter 1, Philo says this:
Moses exemplified his philosophical creed by his daily actions. His words
expressed his feelings, and his actions accorded with his words, so that
speech and life were in harmony, and thus through their mutual agreement
were found to make melody together as on a musical instrument.
Although this was a statement about Moses, it would be difficult to find anything
more lofty and true in the character and deeds of Christ. So we must not read
past Matthew recording that Christ healed the demon possessed and all who
came to Him with but a "word". In ancient times speech was seen as something
great and mysterious; words were thought to possess actual, tangible power. In
our day we don't think of words that way. So when Yeshua merely spoke and the
evil spirit left the possessed man, it held a different connotation for those Jews
that witnessed it than how we think of it now.
Matthew then goes on to say (from his Believing Jewish mindset) that what
Yeshua was doing was in fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4. Matthew says: "He himself
took our weaknesses, and bore our diseases". This is a loosely fashioned quote
from Isaiah; not an exact one. Nonetheless Bible scholars don't doubt that this is
meant to be understood as a quote from Isaiah 53. So Matthew, able to see from
the perspective of hindsight, tells us that Yeshua is the subject of Isaiah chapters
52 and 53. I've mentioned on a few occasions that it was Jewish practice when
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
referring to Scripture not to quote long sections but only short passages. The
short passages were not meant to be taken alone but rather they were to direct
the reader to the entire section of the Holy Scripture that was pertinent. Since in
those times there were no such things as chapters and verses or page numbers,
then there was no other way for them to communicate the reference to a
Scripture passage. The intent was for the reader to recognize the passage and
then consult what was written surrounding it.
While I won't do an extensive study of Isaiah 52 and 53, these are short chapters
and we need to understand what Matthew was telling us by his directing us there.
So we will read them completely as would have studious Jews from Yeshua's
time. Turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 52.
READ ISAIAH CHAPTERS 52 AND 53 all
These 2 chapters represent one of the most remarkable messianic prophecies in
the Bible. It has been taught thusly in Christendom since the first Jewish
Believers emerged. Matthew essentially identifies Yeshua as "the suffering
servant", which is one and the same as His being "God's servant". So Matthew is
connecting Christ's works of miracles with Him being God's servant. Clearly the
crowds following Yeshua didn't make that same connection and Judaism in
general to this day doesn't either. Judaism either denies the messianic nature of
Isaiah's words or they say this doesn't pertain to Yeshua of Nazareth. Especially
the Orthodox will claim that Judaism does not and never has seen Isaiah 52 and
53 as referring to anything but Israel itself. That is, Israel (the people) are the
suffering servant; not a Messiah. But in fact, a number of Rabbis from the past
have recognized the messianic message of these words and written about it.
There are many, but here is a small sample.
In Midrash Tehillim, Psalm 16.5 we read this portion: Rabbi Levi taught in the
name of Rabbi Idi: Suffering is divided into 3 portions: One, the Patriarchs
and the generations of men took; the generation that lived in the time of
Hadrian's persecution took; and one, the lord Messiah will take."
Ben Ish Chai commented on the Talmudic passage Sanhedrin 93b in this way:
"...through afflictions, the Messiah rises to great spiritual heights. In
addition, his afflictions atone for Israel so that they can continue to live and
perform mitzvot. Since without the Messiah, these mitzvot would not have
been done, he is a partner in Israel's mitzvot. Thus because He loaded him
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
up with afflictions like millstones, He loaded Him up with mitzvot as
well. the Messiah is Israel's guarantor; he has undertaken suffering to
atone for Israel's sins in order to shorten the exile".
Even the Zohar, which is the book of foundational faith statements of mystical
Jewish Kabbalah, Shemoth, Section 2, speaks about the same attributes of
Messiah and it largely mirrors Christianity's doctrine on the matter. This rather
unexpected comment about Isaiah 53 is recorded: "When the Messiah hears of
the great suffering of Israel in their dispersion, and of the wicked among
them who seek not to know their Master, he weeps aloud on account of
those wicked ones amongst them, as it is written: But he was wounded
because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities.
The souls then return to their place. The Messiah, on his part, enters a
certain Hall in the Garden of Eden, called the Hall of the Afflicted. There he
calls for all the diseases and pains and sufferings of Israel, bidding them
settle on himself, which they do. And were it not that he thus eases the
burden from Israel, taking it on himself, no one could endure the suffering
meted out to Israel in expiation on account of their neglect of the Torah. So
Scripture says: Surely our diseases he did bear, etc. A similar function was
performed by Rabbi Eleazar here on earth. For, indeed, beyond number are
the chastisements awaiting every man daily for the neglect of the Torah, all
of which descended into the world at the time when the Torah was given.
As long as Israel were in the Holy Land, by means of the Temple service
and sacrifices, they averted all evil diseases and afflictions from the world.
Now it is the Messiah who is the means of averting them from mankind
until the time when a man quits this world and receives his punishment." So the claims many within Judaism make that Judaism does not, and never has
recognized Isaiah 52 and 53 as speaking of the Messiah are not accurate. Yet
we must understand that the reason behind this false claim is because of their
hatred of Christianity and the strange type of un-biblical, un-historical Jesus that
Christians have come to worship. It is no different than the false claim by
Christianity that in the Sermon on the Mount Yeshua abolished the Torah and the
Prophets, and later that Paul denounced the Torah and told Jews and gentiles
alike that it was an ugly, faulty covenant that they were to disavow and disobey.
These false claims are made because of the writings of the Early Church Fathers
who fomented hatred of the Jews and thus an insistence that all things Jewish
(and especially The Law) must be denied and shunned: in time, even the entire
Old Testament.
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
Verse 18 explains that when Yeshua saw the crowds He gave orders to His
Disciples to take Him to the other side of the Lake. Yeshua was still at
Capernaum and some of His Disciples would have had their fishing boats there
so a boat was easily obtained. Why did Yeshua instruct His Disciples to leave
Capernaum? Did the crowds grow so large as to become unruly? Were the
numbers so great that there would have been no end to the healings requested?
Was He exhausted (yes, Jesus was human and got just as tired and worn out as
we can)? Was it simply time to take His miracle healing ministry elsewhere? We
don't know. But we do know that it was Yeshua's idea to leave; He commanded
His Disciples to get a boat and take Him to the other side of the Lake. Where was
the other side of the Lake? A few verses later we're told that He arrived in the
territory of the Gadarenes. Capernaum was at the Northwest part of the Sea of
Galilee and the territory of the Gadarenes was at the Southeast part of the Sea;
about a 45 degree angle across the Lake, so the journey was around 12 miles.
But before He boarded the boat a Scribe approached Him. While the CJB
correctly calls this person a Torah-teacher, the official position was called Scribe.
And indeed they were Torah-teachers even better, they
were Tanakh-teachers....who operated within the synagogue system. That is,
they had no attachment to the Temple or to the Priesthood. The Scribe calls
Jesus didaskalos in Greek, which translates to teacher in English. Because this
Scribe was almost certainly a Pharisee, it would have been in this context that he
was speaking to Christ. Thus the KJV rightly translates the Greek as Master
because a run-of-the-mill teacher was not the Scribe's intent when He addressed
Yeshua. Rather he sees Him as having authority, and thus we find the term
Rabbi used in the CJB. Rabbi means "great one" and fits well with the scene
taking place, here. The Scribe asks if he can accompany Yeshua; he says he will
follow Yeshua wherever he goes. "To follow" meant to come under the authority
of someone. This was the standard way that the religious Jews chose a Rabbi (a
Master) to sit under and be discipled during that era (as opposed to the way that
Yeshua, the Master, chose His first disciples).
Yeshua responded to the Scribe in a rather unexpected way. He quotes an
ancient folk expression about foxes having holes to live in, and birds having
nests, but then adds that the Son of Man has no home of his own. Now clearly
the meaning is that Yeshua cannot promise this Scribe a place to live or food to
eat because Yeshua lives day to day at the hospitality of others. Having said He
has no home, He doesn't mean it literally. His mother Miriam was still living (and
as far as we know she was still living in her own home, the same one in Nazareth
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
that her husband Joseph brought her into when they were first married), so
Yeshua of course could go there. But at this point in His ministry Yeshua was an
itinerant preacher and healer. What is most important about this statement is
Christ calling Himself "The Son of Man".
"Son of Man" was a favorite title that Yeshua regularly called Himself. Clearly
Jesus had much respect for the prophet Daniel as in Matthew chapter 24 He
speaks of him and a prophecy Daniel made concerning a son of man.
CJB Daniel 7:13-14 13 " / kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming
with the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the
Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership,
glory and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should
serve him. His rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and
his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Because Yeshua now identifies Himself as Daniel's son of man, we understand
something that Daniel and his readers couldn't have. You see, the term "son of
man", which was written down in the Book of Daniel in Aramaic, is bar-enosh.
It's Hebrew equivalent is ben-adam. While it literally is translated to English as
"son of man", what it meant to the ancients was "human being". However now in
hindsight we understand that we can view Daniel's words in both
the P'shat sense and in the Remez sense. That is, the P'shat is that this
"someone like a son of man" means "someone like a human being". However in
the Remez it hints at something more. "Son of Man" now becomes a title for the
Messiah; a human being that is indeed a man, but more than a man. "Son of
Man" is a name Yeshua called Himself more than 80 times in the New
Testament, but He also used the term "Son of God". The standard interpretation
of these two titles is that Son of Man speaks of Christ's humanity, and Son of
God speaks of His divinity. However in reality, it is the reverse. Son of God was a
term used in the Bible for Israelite kings long before it was used of Christ; and
there was no thought that these kings were deity. The subject is fascinating but
extensive. I spoke in depth on it in my Torah Class study on Daniel lessons 19
and 20; so you can go there for further study.
Nonetheless clearly (at least clearly to Matthew) Christ did not mean to say that
this "human being" had no home of His own. Rather the mysterious person that
Daniel spoke about was Yeshua of Nazareth as the Messiah, and here He was
standing there, in person, on the Sea of Galilee and publicly claiming Daniel's
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
"son of man" title for Himself.
Now in verse 21 yet another man comes forward and wants to go with Christ.
This man is already a disciple (a follower, but not one of the original 12 Disciples)
so it is not someone making a new or sudden decision. His request to do
something first before He follows Christ reminds us of Elijah and Elisha.
CJB 1 Kings 19:20 He (Elishah) left the oxen, ran after Eliyahu and said,
"Please let me kiss my father and mother good-bye; then I will follow you." Yet we mustn't take this too far, because Elijah gave permission for Elisha to
indeed do as he asked, while Yeshua did the opposite. So what are we to make
of Christ's response to the disciple's request to go home and bury his father?
That is, saying to him "let the dead bury the dead". Some see this as very harsh.
Others see it as breaking more than one Torah command; first to honor your
parents but also the mandatory requirement to bury the deceased immediately
and to go into 7 days of mourning. All kinds of solutions to this have been
proposed including that it is a Hebrew or Aramaic expression that has been
mangled or obscured by translating it to Greek. In the end it DOES mean
something, and I think clearly it means that following Yeshua in faith trumps all.
But it certainly can't mean to break the Law of Moses in order to do it! My
suggestion is that it indeed sounded harsh to the disciple and probably to the
crowd surrounding Christ. But then again, think about what He would say a bit
later than lands in a similar manner upon a listener.
CJB Matthew 10:37 Whoever loves his father or mother more than he loves
me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than
he loves me is not worthy of me.
As severe as that sounds, Luke's version is even stronger, as he puts the same
thought in the negative.
CJB Luke 14:26 " If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his
mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own
life besides, he cannot be my talmid.
I believe what we have in Matthew 8 is this: we must not think that here stands a
Jewish son in Capernaum talking with Yeshua after leaving his father at home, a
corpse, and still not buried! That would have been the height of breaking both
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
biblical law and Jewish Tradition. While there were several nuances in Tradition
about burying the dead, it is unthinkable that a son would leave his dead father to
go hear a person speak (even a Holy Man) and then return later to handle the
burial. Death and burial were very serious matters that pre-empted nearly
everything. The matter of familial involvement could not be subcontracted out
except in the rarest of circumstances. On the flip side, however, is that if a parent
were very elderly or sickly, his son might not wish to venture far because his duty
to be present for the burial and all its arrangements was a deeply embedded
virtue in Jewish culture. It wasn't like today when, because of embalmment, a
burial can be postponed for a while to make it more convenient for all family
members to arrive and attend. So while in no way can I be certain, these realities
to me add up to the disciple's father not actually being dead....yet... but rather the
son wanting to go back home and enjoy just a little more of the good life until his
father did eventually pass, and the disciple was finally ready to follow the
Messiah as his true Master, but on his own timetable and terms. To me, this is
where the lesson lies. Otherwise we have a cranky Jesus telling this young man
that he must forego standard Jewish burial practices for his father, or that the
spiritually dead ought to bury the physically dead, thus putting this disciple in an
impossible bind through no fault of his own.
So how do we measure Yeshua's responses to these two followers? And how
does this fit with the prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah that He came to suffer terribly
and unselfishly for the sake of sinful humanity? We find a super-compassionate
Holy Man on the one hand, and a rather abrupt no-nonsense Master on the
other. Here's what we must recognize about Our Savior: He is a complex being.
Our Lord is greatly merciful and loving (just as His Father is); ready to comfort us.
Yet He is not one whose "goodwill towards men" can be trifled with, or taken for
granted or under the assumption that it will be given under any circumstance. He
indeed is Savior, but He is also Lord and King and therefore while He gives love,
He expects to receive love. And, like His Father, the love He seeks amounts to
obedience.
How many thousands perhaps millions.... of people have heard the Gospel
message and said that they "weren't ready" to accept it, yet. As much as not, it
was not because they didn't suspect it was true; it's that they understood enough
to know that they couldn't continue the lifestyle they were leading if they turned
away from their sins, and turned their life over to Yeshua. When people ask me
why human beings sin and even continue to, knowing better, I tell them it's
because we enjoy it. We like the sinful things we do otherwise we'd be quick to
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
give them up. How many thousands of millions of people will live in eternal
darkness because they assumed they had a lot more time to live, and then
maybe in old age they would finally turn to Christ, only to die suddenly before
they made that decision. And how many more had their hearts moved by hearing
the truth, but didn't make thinking about it or acting upon it a priority. Instead their
thoughts turned back to everyday life, its temptations and its challenges, never
again to think seriously about salvation. The issue Jesus was addressing with the
disciple who wanted to go back home until his father died, was allegiance and
priorities that potential followers of His must necessarily face. For in the biblical
realm, love is closely linked to allegiance and loyalty. Allegiance and loyalty
establish the order of our priorities. Remember what Christ said earlier in the hills
above the Lake:
CJB Matthew 6:24 No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate
the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first.
You can't be a slave to both God and money.
Thus after saying it as a principle, Yeshua has now demonstrated it in practice in
dealing with the Scribe and the potential follower as He was about to board a
fishing boat to cross the Sea of Galilee.
In verse 23 Yeshua is now on the boat and heading for Gadara with several
disciples on board. Suddenly a storm blows up, the Sea begins to churn, and
dangerous waves start lashing at the small boat He is in. The disciples are
certain their death is imminent and begin to panic. These boats are meant for the
calm waters of the Lake; they are not designed to fight against this kind of severe
weather. As the disciples (who are fishermen used to being on the Lake) become
alarmed we find Yeshua is fast asleep.
For those who have toured Israel with me, you will have visited the Jesus Boat
museum at the Nof Ginosar Hotel in Israel. They have an actual fishing boat
made in that same period, which was buried in the mud of the seashore, and
discovered by a man who lived on the associated Kibbutz. Viewing it helps us
understand how small and puny a boat like this would be against a raging sea.
But it also makes us ask: how in the world could Jesus sleep on such a crowded
and uncomfortable craft, let alone in the midst of it becoming tossed about in a
storm?!
And yes, these sorts of storms do blow in suddenly and can be quite perilous. I
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
was out on the Lake on one of the rather large tourist boats that can hold 100
people or so when some foul weather suddenly blew in. We were in no danger
but the swells and then waves formed in a matter of minutes. It was
uncomfortable enough that the trip had to be cut a little short or risk having some
seasick passengers to contend with. I could immediately imagine what it must
have been like for that little fishing boat that had just set sail from Capernaum as
it bobbed around on the churning waters.
No doubt this story was recorded in all 3 synoptic Gospels because of its close
association with another prophet that Yeshua identified Himself with: Jonah.
Christ said:
CJB Matthew 12:40 For just as Yonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the depths of the earth.
Notice how He manages to connect not one but two prophets and prophecies to
Himself: that of Jonah and of Daniel. The subject of Matthew 12:40 was of course
Jesus speaking about the burial cave He would repose in after His crucifixion.
However note the similarity between Jonah's Mediterranean sea adventure and
Christ's on the Sea of Galilee in our story of Matthew chapter 8.
CJB Jonah 1:1 The word of ADONAl came to Yonah the son of Amitai: 2 "Set
out for the great city of Ninveh, and proclaim to it that their wickedness has
come to my attention." 3 But Yonah, in order to get away from ADONAl,
prepared to escape to Tarshish. He went down to Yafo, found a ship
headed for Tarshish, paid the fare and went aboard, intending to travel with
them to Tarshish and get away from ADONAI. 4 However, ADONAI let loose
over the sea a violent wind, which created such stormy conditions that the
ship threatened to break to pieces. 5 The sailors were frightened, and each
cried out to his god. They threw the cargo overboard to make the ship
easier for them to control. Meanwhile, Yonah had gone down below into the
hold, where he lay, fast asleep. 6 The ship's captain found him and said to
him, "What do you mean by sleeping? Get up! Call on your god! Maybe the
god will remember us, and we won't die." There's more to be gleaned from the story of the tempest on the Sea of Galilee.
And we will explore that the next time we meet.
12/13
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Lesson 29 - Matthew 8 cont 2
13/13

Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 30, Chapter 8 and 9
We are in the midst of several miracle stories of Jesus. The first involved
cleansing a man who had Tzara'at. The second was healing a house slave of his
infirmities (at the request of a Roman army officer), without Christ even being
present with the sick person. The third was healing Peter's mother in law. The
fourth we'll continue to discuss today, which is Christ compelling the storm and
the sea to quiet. The fifth will be about demon possession.
Before we get there I must say something. These miracles did not, and do not, in
general change the minds of staunch non-Believers. Among the Jews of the early
1st century healings occurred (and were expected) when a Tzadik, a Holy Man,
came along (as rare as that was). So Yeshua's miracles didn't change many, if
any, minds and cause His Jewish countrymen to accept Him as their divine
Messiah. When we have our ears and eyes closed, and carry around hearts of
stone, no amount of miracles and wonders will turn us to God. This is why when
we read about the End of Days in Revelation, with all the amazing and terrifying
signs, chaos and cataclysms (happenings foretold in the Bible that can be
nothing else but divinely caused) there is no accompanying world-wide revival.
We aren't rewarded as we read of the global destruction by being told that
millions and millions of non-Believers will turn to God as result. Rather, the
majority will shake their fists towards Heaven and curse Him. As it turns out, the
purpose of these divine signs and miracles was, and will be, as Matthew says in
chapter 8 verse 17 concerning Yeshua's wondrous deeds:
CJB Matthew 8:17 This was done to fulfill what had been spoken through the
prophet Yesha'yahu....
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
Yeshua's miracles of healing and cleansing were done because the Father keeps
His promises. The proof of it is the relative few over the centuries who have
accepted Yeshua as God's Son as compared to the countless billions of
earthlings that have come and gone into the darkness over the centuries, despite
His display of awesome miracles, His undeniable resurrection, and the detailed
fulfillment of many ancient prophecies. Was it Christ's miracles that convinced
you to trust Him? It certainly wasn't for me. It was that God did a work in me....
while I was completely unaware.... preparing me, and then telling me the truth.
Those signs and miracles we read about in the Bible certainly are faith affirming;
but they are not what we have faith in, nor are they what leads us to faith. These
were done because God is faithful to His Word even when His people aren't.
Nothing has changed. And as we read a little more about the sudden storm on
the Sea of Galilee, we'll find that Jesus' actions and words that immediately
subdued that storm are not what convinced His Disciples that He was far more
than a miracle worker. Rather, it simply jarred them and caused them to be
astonished, affirming in them that they had hitched their wagons to an
incomparable Master.
Let's re-read a few verses in Matthew chapter 8.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 8:23 - end
We left off last week with the knowledge that as the storm that suddenly erupted
on the Sea of Galilee began tossing the small fishing vessel that He and His
disciples were in, Christ was asleep as the others in the boat with him were afraid
and in panic mode. While we could probably read-in some highly spiritual
elements and make good allegorical use of the fact that Yeshua was asleep in
the tempest, I'm not sure that is Matthew's intent. When we go back to verses 16
- 22 we find that Yeshua had spent the entire day healing and dealing with large
crowds of people pressing in all about Him. He was a human being, and subject
to getting tired just as with the rest of us. I can't escape the obvious that one of
the reasons He got into the boat was as a practical means to escape the
demands of the endless crowds, and secondly because He was mentally,
emotionally, and physically exhausted. The Book of Mark contains the same
story, but it adds a bit different perspective.
CJB Mark 4:35-41 35 That day, when evening had come, Yeshua said to them,
"Let's cross to the other side of the lake." 36 So, leaving the crowd behind,
they took him just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
him. 37 A furious windstorm arose, and the waves broke over the boat, so
that it was close to being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern on a cushion,
asleep. They woke him and said to him, "Rabbi, doesn't it matter to you that
we're about to be killed?" 39 He awoke, rebuked the wind and said to the
waves, "Quiet! Be still!" The wind subsided, and there was a dead
calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you no trust even
now?" 41 But they were terrified and asked each other, "Who can this be,
that even the wind and the waves obey him?"
So, Yeshua laid down in that cramped little boat on top of a cushion and
immediately fell off to sleep. As the waves grew and the boat began to be tossed
around, it was not sufficient in itself to awaken Him. But, the panicking Disciples
(probably a bit reluctantly) roused Him.
Did they waken Him thinking He would calm the storm? Nothing we have read
would indicate that they thought He had such powers. Rather, He was their
Master and leader, and it was only natural that as their situation appeared to be
growing more and more dire, He certainly had to be made aware it. And yet, it is
too obvious a matter to bypass that Christ's Disciples were devoted to Him such
that they followed Him and obeyed Him in whatever capacity and situation. And
so when things got out of control, they quickly turned to Him not knowing what
else to do. Yet devotion and trust are two different things. It was typical for
disciples to be devoted and loyal to their Master. But trusting in them to the point
of releasing their cares to him and even discounting the outcomes of their own
lives was another matter. Therefore when Yeshua awakens and sees the
situation, He chastises His Disciples and tells them that they have no trust (in
Him). Mark adds two words to Christ's chastisement that don't appear in either
Matthew's or Luke's version: "even now". Even now. "Even now" implies that the
things that He taught His Disciples and the miracles He had performed in their
presence ought to have elicited more of their trust; but it hadn't. Christ was none
too happy about that.
We should always notice the frankness of the Gospel accounts concerning the 12
Disciples; nothing is papered over. These men are ordinary. They have their
weaknesses and frailties, and their rather small level of faith at this moment (at
least it is small in Christ's eyes) is among their human flaws. This takes us back
to the beginning of our lesson. As much as one might reason and expect that it
should, it would not be His astounding miracles, even ordering the storm to
abate, that reveals Yeshua as the Messiah or that He is God incarnate and thus
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
bring about complete trust in Him. It would be two things that makes those hand␂picked Jewish disciples true Believers: the Spirit of God preparing them (which is
what we are witnessing in progress) and then Yeshua telling them the truth about
who He is (this hasn't happened yet in Matthew) and them accepting it.
I doubt that any of the Jewish Tzadik miracle workers that suddenly appeared in
the years before Yeshua calmed waves and stopped storms (there is no record
of such a thing). So this was an aspect of Christ that the disciples had never seen
before or even imagined. No doubt the image of Jonah had to have been
conjured up in their minds as later they thought about what they had
experienced; although the circumstances were not identical. We're left to
understand in every Gospel version of this event that clearly the Disciples had no
explanation for Christ's power and command over nature. Quickly the narrative
turns to what happened immediately after the incident of the storm.
The boat arrives on the other side of the Lake, in the territory of the Gadarenes.
There is a bit of a scholarly disagreement over who these people might have
been, some suggesting they were the Gerasenes and not the Gadarenes. There
is a problem with either choice. The former were residents of a city located about
30 miles from the Lake. The latter was associated with a city located nearer to
the Lake, but still over 6 miles away. Therefore some scholars think that it was
neither. Instead it was the people of Gergesa because indeed it was a lakeside
village. The other disagreement is whether or not these people were Jews (or
better, Israelites). There is nothing historically recorded that seems to be able to
clear up this matter. Names of people and places change over the centuries with
alarming regularity, and so we can only speculate. I choose not to speculate
about the name of the people because their exact name is not the point of the
story. I do agree that whether or not they were Israelites matters significantly, but
again, we can't be certain. Samaria, for instance (a region on the west bank of
the Jordan) was a mixed population of gentiles, Jews, Jews married to gentiles,
and even some number of other non-Jewish Israelites that had long ago married
gentiles and remained in the area. So it is not impossible that the territory Jesus
landed in was similarly populated especially because it was on the east side of
the Jordan River, outside of the Holy Land.
Even so, the involvement of pigs in the story of demon possession tells me that
gentiles were present because the idea of Jews or leftover Israelites raising
herds of pigs is just too farfetched. Thus we begin with two unnamed men of
unnamed origin that come out of some burial caves where they were living in
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
order to confront Yeshua. Theses men were controlled by (possessed by)
demons and they were so fearsome and unhinged that a road traveling by their
area was avoided.
Let's talk about the mere concept of demon possession because within the
Church the subject is controversial and shunned by many who believe that such
a thing doesn't exist. Like so many other subjects in the Bible (the opening of the
Rea Sea, even Jesus rising from the dead), demon possession is immediately
latched onto, declared as suspect, and dismissed by scientists, anthropologists
and psychiatrists. Rather they say that these supposed demon possessed people
were actually mental patients, because long before the medical field advanced to
its present stage the only explanation that the ancients had for the bizarre
behavior of some people was demon possession. Therefore the same people
depicted in our story could have been treated with psychiatry and medications
had it been available.
And yet I know reliable people who have personally dealt with demon
possession, and although I have witnessed but one case of it, there is not a
doubt in my mind that it is quite real and still relevant for our era. So while I
believe that no doubt mental illness existed among some in Christ's day, that
doesn't preclude the existence of demon possession in others. So our story in
Matthew (that also appears in Mark 5 and Luke 8) is not about the mentally ill but
rather it's about the demon possessed. There are slight differences in this story
among the 3 Synoptic Gospels, such as there being 1 possessed person in two
of the accounts and two persons in Matthew's. The number of possessed plays
no real role in the event; the issue is that they ARE possessed by demons
(unclean spirits) and it has caused them to be violent and uncontrollable. How
they got that way in the first place is beyond the scope of the story.
The mention of the possessed men living in a burial cave is important in
Matthew's story because it speaks to them wallowing in a ritually unclean state in
every way imaginable. A burial cave is an inherently unclean place because a
dead body is there. There is little more ritually impure thing in the Jewish religion
than a corpse and death. Yet these men were, with little doubt, gentiles and not
Jews. Living in a cave that was not also used for burial wasn't unusual; and for
pagans, living in burial caves was in some cases not seen as necessarily gross
or wrong especially for cultures where their religion involved ancestor worship.
Caves to this day form good housing in some cultures, as it did in Yeshua's day.
Even in Grenada, Spain there are still people who have turned caves into
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
housing. So once the men became demon possessed, and made unclean, then it
could do them no more harm to live in a burial cave. Besides; who is to say that
they saw themselves as unclean in God's eyes? You see, that is one of the big
dangers in gentile Christianity disavowing The Torah of Moses and thus knowing
nothing about it. Just because a Christian doesn't KNOW he or she is unclean or
breaking God's commands doesn't mean in God's eyes they aren't. Ignorance of
God's laws and of one's own spiritual status doesn't excuse it.
What is fascinating is that these demon possessed men came out of their caves
and screamed at Christ; not disrespectfully but rather in fear. They wanted to
know why He was here, at this time, and not at the appointed time (which they
thought would be at a later date). They called Him Son of God and wondered if
He was here to torture them sooner than scheduled. So here we see that these
demons know the real identity of Yeshua, even though the 12 Disciples don't.
The demons understand that He is divine and that there is an appointed time for
them to be dealt with and tormented, and that the timing of it coincides with Jesus
being present on earth. These demons know a lot about Christ and their destiny;
but evidently they don't know everything.
I'll pause here to address something important; clearly the New Testament
identifies that there are 2 latter days or End Times. If you want a more extensive
understanding of this go to my study of the Book of Daniel. But the short version
is this: the 1st latter days was that era leading up to and including the 1st coming
of Christ. The 2nd latter days will be the era leading up to and including the 2nd
coming of Christ (we may well even be living in that era). The people of Christ's
time knew only of the 1st latter days and had no expectation of a 2nd. Thus when
Yeshua spoke of the Kingdom of God, and of certain things that will happen at
the End, the Jews that heard Him thought He was speaking about this happening
nearly immediately. For Jews the appearance of the Messiah was concretely
associated with the arrival of the End Times. And for them the judgment of
demons was also directly tied to the End Times. This is why we see Peter, Paul,
and several other New Testament Believers so passionate about getting the
message of salvation out; they felt a pressing urgency because they totally
believed that the End was imminent and would happen in their lifetimes because
the Messiah had come. For them promise and theory became fact and reality.
Thus when I read the story of these demoniacs who are in terror and surprised at
Jesus's appearance, it tells me that they, too, know nothing of 2 latter days and 2
appearances of Christ on earth; they only knew of 1 a later one. So they were
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confused. What they did seem to know is that at a divinely preset time,
coincidental with the appearance of the Son of God, the condition of their
existence as evil, unclean beings would be forever changed. Torment and
darkness is their eternal future. However, that time was not yet and just like
human beings do, they wanted every last second of existence they could have.
Rather than Yeshua judging them and sentencing them to torment (which is what
they fear is about to happen, but relieved when it doesn't) the demons plead with
Him that they be relocated to another and different unclean place as a kind of
interim or partial judgment: inside pigs. And yet, from a Torah perspective pigs
are not inherently unclean animals. Rather they are only prohibited as being used
for food. Even so, in Christ's day pigs were (by Jewish Tradition) considered
inherently unclean, even to touch. Remember who is writing this Gospel and who
he is writing it to. Matthew is a learned Believing Jew and his Gospel is being
written to Jews. So there is a huge hint in Christ's response to the demons that
the Day of Judgment, the End of Days, is not here yet but it will come some
unknown time later and judgment that includes the sphere of spiritual evil will be
part of that judgment.
Upon receiving permission to leave the men's bodies and move to the pigs, the
now demon possessed herd rushes towards the Lake and drowns. By no means
does this intend that the demons have drowned. One must ask what this rush
towards the water and mass suicide means? Is it just the demons' desire to harm
and kill pigs? Can demons actually inhabit the body of animals and control them?
The suggestion of it is certainly present in the narrative. I don't really have all the
answers to this dilemma but this much is certain: in God's economy, water is a
ritually purifying element for land creatures. Even inanimate pots having ritually
impure contents in them can be cleansed by being immersed in water. So since
the matter of ritual impurity is such a focus in this story of demon possession then
surely the pigs running headlong into water must signal a real danger to these
unclean demons.
In any case the pigs die, and so in another sense the demons are right back into
an unclean space.... where they belong. In other words, this story is built upon an
irony, perhaps a paradox. Christ allows the unclean spirits to go into the unclean
pigs that then run into a source of cleanness, water, only to drown and then have
the unclean spirits right back in the unclean corpses of the pigs. Due to their
aversion to both gentiles and pigs I suspect that Jews reading this would have
found this story to be pretty comical.
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
Interestingly Matthew doesn't tell us what happened to the men that had been
possessed by these demons but were now freed. No doubt it is because for him
they are not the issue. The issue is Christ's command over the spirit world....
including the demonic spirit world.... as well as the demons fully understanding
Yeshua's identity and their ultimate destiny of judgment as tied to His presence.
Likely it was also because these men were gentiles, making them of little interest
to Jews, except that it put gentiles in the unfavorable light that Jews generally
viewed them. Even so Mark does tell us that as Christ gets ready to board the
boat and depart, the now exorcised men ask Him if they can come with Him; He
says no. They need to go back to their own people (gentiles) and tell them how
merciful "The Lord" has been to them. Yeshua is not referring to Himself but
rather to His Father. I suspect that in the original Hebrew that Matthew penned
His Gospel the word was not the Greek kurios (lord) but rather Yehoveh, God's
name because that fits the context so much better.
The men who had tended the now dead pigs (around 2000 of them according to
Mark, a sizeable and valuable bunch of animals) go running into their town to tell
everyone what happened. The townspeople come out, upset, and insist that
Christ leaves, no doubt because pigs represented a big part of the local economy
and they didn't want to risk losing their own herds to this mysterious Jewish
man's abilities.
Before we leave chapter 8 I want to address something that is perhaps of interest
only to me: why did Jesus go to these particular people on the west side of the
Lake? Did He intentionally choose this place, knowing beforehand that He was to
go there to have this confrontation with the demons? We have no clue, except to
perhaps think about it logically. In Capernaum Jesus boarded a small fishing boat
to get out into the Lake to escape the crowds. He was exhausted from a very
long day, fell asleep in the boat, and in the meantime a storm blew up. He was
awakened, spoke to the storm, and it quieted down. But by now the boat had
been pushed along, not controlled by its rudder but rather by the direction of the
fierce wind and waves to the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. It was by
God's providence that they landed where they did, not by intention.
Folks we can use this adventure as an analogy and a story of encouragement. I
know for a fact that many of us have been blown, at times rudderless, on the
winds and waves of life to the place where we are today. Some of that journey
may have been, maybe it still is, uncomfortable if not terrifying. If we belong to
the Lord, however, then unbeknown to us and according to His providence, it was
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
He who controlled those winds and waves of our lives to land us right where we
belong; right where He wanted us. And now that we're here we are to embrace
the mission and purpose that we never set sail for, and thank Him.
Let's move on to chapter 9.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 9 all
We have in chapter 9 another series of miracles performed by Christ, the addition
of a new disciple, and some God-principles renewed. We're told that Yeshua and
His Disciples returned to the other side of the Lake to what Matthew calls "His
town" (no doubt it was Capernaum from where they originally set out). There a
paralyzed man was brought to Yeshua in hopes of him being healed. The Gospel
of Mark adds some important information to the story.
CJB Mark 2:1-5 1 After a while, Yeshua returned to K'far-Nachum. The word
spread that he was back, 2 and so many people gathered around the house
that there was no longer any room, not even in front of the door. While he
was preaching the message to them, 3
four men came to him carrying a
paralyzed man. 4 They could not get near Yeshua because of the crowd, so
they stripped the roof over the place where he was, made an opening, and
lowered the stretcher with the paralytic lying on it. 5 Seeing their trust,
Yeshua said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Perhaps the main addition has to do with how the paralyzed man was brought to
Jesus. Four men who must have cared deeply for him went so far as to cut an
area through the roof of the house where Yeshua was and then lowered the man
down. We're told that they did this because the house was so crowded. We don't
know whose house He was in; perhaps it was Peter's. One can only imagine the
crowds that anxiously waited for this miracle healer to return with the hope that
somehow they might get near enough to get Yeshua's attention and have their
afflictions cured.
Many years ago I heard a Pastor speak about this in a message he entitled "The
Stretcher Bearers". It made such an impact upon me that I want to share just a bit
of it with you. In this story we have a very ill man that could not help himself
because he was unable to move. However 4 men who cared enough.... no doubt
close friends or family each took a corner of a stretcher and did what had to
be done. The human reality is that it is kind of rewarding if not exciting to be a
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
stretcher bearer. To be a stretcher bearer one has to have the health and
strength to do it. It means that as a stretcher bearer your health, and probably
your life, is in some kind of good order. Not everyone wants to bother to be a
stretcher bearer; but Christ has taught us that we all should be. That is how we
love our neighbor.
An old adage is that it is easier to give than to receive. So true. But it is also
easier to carry the corner of a stretcher than to be laying on it. As a stretcher
bearer we still have some control; as for the passenger, life has become
somewhat out of control. Nobody wants to be the person on the stretcher
because it means some tragedy, accident or illness has unfolded upon us.
Especially men are wired to be stretcher bearers; but we're not wired to be on
that stretcher. It hurts our pride, our ego, and makes us feel impotent. So the real
story is not about the bearers of the stretcher, it's about the man that is on it. And
Matthew being Matthew he focuses not on the carriers....he doesn't even mention
them... but the victim.
The harsh reality is that while most Believers don't mind being a stretcher bearer
it is nearly devastating to have to give up our independence and become the one
who needs to be carried. The even harsher reality is that at some point probably
all of us will be on that stretcher. Will we have those around us who want to pick
up a corner and lift us up? How will we react? Might we be grateful to be carried?
Or will we be in denial and bitter? Will we shake our fist at God, angry because
we've been such a faithful stretcher bearer for others, so we think that we don't
deserve to be the one that now needs help? Or will we bend to God's will and
allow ourselves to grow in faith as a result?
The thing I've learned that has been most valuable to me having been both the
carried and the carrier is this: as the one on the stretcher we should never take
away the blessing of the bearers by being bitter, ungrateful, angry, or ashamed.
We should never try to shoo them away and declare that we don't need their help
when in fact everyone can see that we do. If we're the Lord's, and we're in need
of being carried, then God has placed us there for a reason. Maybe it is because
one or all of those carrying our stretcher needs a blessing. Often it is for us to
learn humility. There is little more humbling.... especially to a male.... of having to
be carried.
So whoever this paralyzed man was that was being carried to Jesus, even let
down through a ceiling, he was not in the happiest of positions. As a paralytic in
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
the 1st century, he was in control of nothing. His future was bleak. In his humbled
state this afflicted man received from Yeshua exactly what he needed to, and
could, hear: forgiveness from the sin that he was full of. And yet, was atonement
what the man or his 4 friends were looking to Christ for? No; it was healing. So
now after our speaking to the principle of the stretcher bearer, we find this
challenging matter of sin being coupled with infirmity.
Biblically, what is the connection between sin and illness? Yeshua didn't say
"arise and walk" to the paralyzed man. He didn't say "be healed". He said "have
courage, son, your sins are forgiven". It is interesting that in only one other place
in the New Testament do we find Yeshua directly forgiving the sins of a particular
person. In Luke 7 we read this:
CJB Luke 7:44-48 44 Then, turning to the woman, he said to Shim'on, "Do you
see this woman? I came into your house- you didn't give me water for my
feet, but this woman has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with
her hair! 45 You didn't give me a kiss; but from the time I arrived, this
woman has not stopped kissing my feet! 46 You didn't put oil on my head,
but this woman poured perfume on my feet! 47 Because of this, I tell you
that her sins- which are many!- have been forgiven, because she loved
much. But someone who has been forgiven only a little loves only a
little." 48 Then he said to her, "Your sins have been forgiven."
In the case of the paralyzed man are we to conclude that it was sin that caused
this man's condition? And if that is the case, then what Jesus did was to address
the underlying cause of this man's disability (sin) as opposed to the disability
itself. No doubt in that era sin and physical affliction were connected. There was
another important incident whereby Yeshu connected sin and sickness.
CJB John 5:5-14 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight
years. 6 Yeshua, seeing this man and knowing that he had been there a long
time, said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" 7 The sick man answered, "I
have no one to put me in the pool when the water is disturbed; and while
I'm trying to get there, someone goes in ahead of me." 8 Yeshua said to him,
"Get up, pick up your mat and walk!" 9
Immediately the man was healed,
and he picked up his mat and walked. Now that day was Shabbat, 10 so the
Judeans said to the man who had been healed, "It's Shabbat! It's against
Torah for you to carry your mat!" 11 But he answered them, "The man who
healed me- he's the one who told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" 12 They
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
asked him, "Who is the man who told you to pick it up and walk?" 13 But the
man who had been healed didn't know who it was, because Yeshua had
slipped away into the crowd. 14 Afterwards Yeshua found him in the Temple
court and said to him, "See, you are well! Now stop sinning, or something
worse may happen to you!"
To this point it certainly sounds like Yeshua is instructing that sin causes
infirmities and sickness. And we have many people and denominations that take
hold of this and make it a doctrine that if one is sick or disabled then it was
because of some sin or another that this person committed, so until they confess
that sin and are forgiven they have no hope of being healed. Unfortunately, this
also labels that person as an especially egregious sinner and Believers tend to
accuse that person of causing their own illness.
Despite what Christ has said thus far about sin and sickness, we also read this in
John.
CJB John 9:1-3 1 As Yeshua passed along, he saw a man blind from
birth. 2 His talmidim asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned- this man or his
parents- to cause him to be born blind?" 3 Yeshua answered, "His
blindness is due neither to his sin nor to that of his parents; it happened so
that God's power might be seen at work in him.
The Early Church Fathers had different takes on sin and sickness with Hilary of
Poitiers in the 4th century probably coming closest to a middle ground. In his
commentary on Matthew 9 and the man on the stretcher he says:
The paralytic is a descendant of the original man, Adam. In on person,
Christ, all of the sins of Adam are forgiven we do not believe the
paralytic committed any sin that resulted in his illness, especially since the
Lord said elsewhere that blindness from birth had no been contracted from
someone's sin or that of his parents.
So, this is our dilemma. Is sin and sickness directly connected or is there no
connection or is there a connection sometimes? Or are we to look at it more like
Hilary in that what causes illness is the sin nature that we all inherit from Adam,
as opposed to sins of breaking the Law of Moses? If so, why do staunch, faithful
Believers get sick?
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Lesson 30 - Matthew 8 & 9
In the end I cannot provide a simple answer. Assuming that Christ was not
merely mouthing words in order to play into the traditions and customs of His
Jewish culture, then it is undeniable that He indeed drew a direct link between sin
and sickness. Even so, it seems to be on an almost case by case basis such that
only God knows when a person is ill due to sin, and when he or she isn't.
Perhaps the only thing that we can do.... and maybe that is the lesson.... is to not
suppose that we are in a position to make that judgment about an ill person.
Rather, not knowing the source of their infirmity, we pray for them asking both for
forgiveness of sins and for their healing. This seems to be what James is saying
at the end of his letter.
CJB James 5:13-16 13 Is someone among you in trouble? He should pray. Is
someone feeling good? He should sing songs of praise. 14 Is someone
among you ill? He should call for the elders of the congregation. They will
pray for him and rub olive oil on him in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer
offered with trust will heal the one who is ill- the Lord will restore his
health; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore,
openly acknowledge your sins to one another, and pray for each other, so
that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and
effective.
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 9 next week.
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 31, Chapter 9
We're going to spend a little more time today with the story that opens Matthew
9; that of the paralytic man who was brought to Christ so that he might be healed.
Let's begin by re-reading verses 1 - 7.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 9:1 - 7
This one paragraph reveals a few important topics for us. The first is the
connection Jesus makes between sin and sickness. And yet another is an
offshoot of the first: exactly what is sin according to Christ and what did the Jews
think sin was? A third topic is that He has just stated that He has the power to
forgive sins on earth. A fourth is that Matthew explains that Yeshua has the ability
to know people's minds.
We explored the link between sin and sickness last week. It is a challenging and
divisive topic; as one can imagine various scholars and denominations have
taken different viewpoints on it. I've discussed with you in Torah Class lessons on
the Old Testament that Roman based Christianity (meaning Protestant and
Catholic) established their doctrines using a Greek mindset and approach. This
perspective leads to the requirement for concrete answers to questions that arise
in the Bible; therefore the solutions are usually of the either/or, this or that, type.
That is, the result is doctrines that produce rigid rules whereby the shades of gray
in the Bible are magically transformed into black or white. Thus regarding sin and
sickness some denominations insist that all disease and infirmities are the result
of the commission of sins. Others accept no connection whatsoever. Some say
there used to be a connection but because of Jesus it doesn't exist any longer.
And still others offer spiritual remedies or have an extensive explanation of which
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
illnesses and infirmities are connected with which sins.
Last week I gave you a few New Testament verses that demonstrate the range of
thoughts about the connection between sin and sickness. It is my view that in the
end we, as humans, can not and do not know when our illness or that of another
is sin based or not. That is, there indeed are instances when God causes us to
have an infirmity that is a direct consequence of our wrong behavior. But there
are also instances that God causes us to have an infirmity that has nothing to do
with our behavior, but rather He is using it to His Glory and for an end purpose
that we likely will never know. And, there are instances when we get ill that are
not because of God's involvement but rather they are caused by all the physical
tangible things that modern Western Medicine seeks to cure through science.
No doubt it is true that because we're all descended from one man that, without
exception, we have inherited the propensity for mental, physical and spiritual
defects. This is often expressed in the biblical concept of something called our
sin nature, which is equally often expressed by the writers of the Epistles as our
"old nature". Through Adam's disobedience and rebellion against God, sin came
into the world accompanied by death. With it came the defects, even though
mankind was never intended to have any kind of defects at all. Adam was without
defect until he disobeyed God and instead believed God's Adversary. So from
the 30,000 foot view, sin and every manner of infirmity is caused by sin in the
sense of the sin nature every human being is born with. So, as pertains to
Christ's pronouncement upon the paralytic that "your sins are forgiven", was it
this man's sin nature that He was referring to? Might it have been, quite literally,
behavioral sins (as meaning breaking one or more of the Laws of Moses)? I don't
know; but clearly for this paralyzed man it was one of the two, perhaps both,
because Jesus saw forgiving him his sins as the actual remedy for his paralysis.
Now I want to talk about the nature of sin. In its most simplistic sense sin (as
Christians usually think of it) is offending God. It is disobedience to Him (often in
some undefined way) and thus it is revolt against the divine authority. It may be a
direct offense against Him (by not worshipping Him properly, for instance) or it
may be an indirect offense in that we do wrong to a fellow human being, which
breaks the Torah command to love your neighbor; and therefore it offends God.
However for the Jews of the 1st century, and especially for the Israelites of earlier
times, sin was not merely a word for a behavioral offense against God, it was a
word that meant pollution. And pollution was seen like an infection; thus the
infection could be spread. Therefore sin and ritual uncleanness were closely tied
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
together. That is, sin may represent the particular offense itself, but uncleanness
was one of the consequences. This is why when sacrifices were made at the
Temple, especially for so-called sin offerings, water immersion of the worshipper
was part of the process.
When I taught you the Torah, especially as regards Leviticus, I showed you that
there were 5 different categories of altar sacrifices, and not all of them dealt with
sin. Those that did had specific aspects of sin and its effects that they targeted.
One of them that most textbooks will call the "sin offering", more accurately ought
to be called the purification offering. That category of sacrifice is, in Hebrew,
called Hatta'at. That is, while one of the 5 categories of sacrifices dealt with
atoning for the specific sin that was committed, and another and different
sacrifice was for re-establishing the relationship with God that was broken due to
the sin, the Hatta'at sacrifice deals with the condition of the worshipper who
committed the sin. And that condition is that as a result of sinning the worshipper
has become polluted.... infected.... impure. So for Jews of Jesus's day and for
centuries before, sin was as much pollution as wrong behavior.
The Jews present at Yeshua's healing of the paralyzed man knew all this. So
traditionally they made a close association between sin and sickness (at times,
too close). So forgiveness of sins as a cure for the condition of the worshipper
(the sickness of the worshipper) was taken for granted. Yet in verse 3 we hear of
the Torah Teachers being upset with Yeshua's pronouncement of forgiveness of
sins as the means by which the man's condition was cured. They had no
problem with the healing itself because Yeshua was seen as a Tzadik, a miracle
healer, and He wasn't the first Holy Man to have appeared. So what was the
problem? First: the Greek word that the CJB translates as Torah Teacher
is grammateus, which directly translates to the English word "scribe". Scribes,
in Jesus's day, were the synagogue teachers of both Scripture and Tradition;
they had no ties to the Temple. They were in no way connected with the Levites
or the Priesthood. So very likely the Scribes in this story taught in the local
synagogue there in Capernaum where all this was taking place. If they didn't balk
at the idea of the link between sin and sickness, nor at the idea of a miracle
worker like Yeshua healing a paralytic, what was the nature of their complaint? It
was that only God can forgive sins and here was Yeshua of Nazareth claiming
that He could, also. That is why they leveled the charge of blasphemy against
Him.
Matthew goes on to editorialize that Yeshua knew what the men were thinking
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
(another thing that within Jewish society was thought that only God could do).
What were they thinking? It was that Yeshua had no authority to forgive. He
called this an evil thought in their hearts. I know I've said it scores of times, but it
bears continual reminding: notice that Christ associated that act of thinking with
the heart organ. Yes, the Greek of this verse is translated correctly and I checked
a number of translations and they all agree. In that era (and for a few hundred
years before and after) people believed that the heart was where the invisible
processes occur that we now know take place in the brain. So whereas today we
associate the heart as but a figurative expression of the seat of human emotion
or even of spiritual connection with the spiritual world, the people, gentile and
Jew, knew of no such thing in Christ's era. Rather the heart was for them
figuratively and physically where the mind and the human will were located. So
when Christ asks which is easier: to forgive sins or to outright heal, the answer is
that they are equal because for Jews sin was the cause of infirmities and
therefore to forgive sins cures infirmities.
Thus Christ answers the Scribes' spoken and unspoken thoughts by saying that
despite what they believe, the Son of Man indeed does have the authority to
forgive sins. Why didn't Jesus just say "I have the authority", rather than using
one of His favorite expressions for Himself, The Son of Man, because his answer
merely muddies the waters? This opens yet another important topic, one that
scholars call eschatology. Big word. But all it means is the study of End Times
happenings. Most modern Bible scholars will say that everything that Jesus did
and said were meant in an eschatological.... End Times.... context. While I agree
with that, most of these scholars wouldn't agree with me about what that actually
indicates. That is, most New Testament Bible scholars say that since the Latter
Days, the End Times, haven't happened yet (in our time) then most things Christ
says as recorded in the Gospels are about the far future to Him, and not in His
present time. I claim that the things He said were in the context of not one
but two Latter Days: the one leading up to His first coming and what happened
soon thereafter, and the second one that is yet to happen but will be marked by
Yeshua's return and what comes immediately before and after. The reality is that
if it didn't work that way it would be counter to the way that nearly all biblical
prophecy operates. That is, a prophecy is pronounced, and then fulfilled, and
then at a later date it is fulfilled again. So it is important that we take what Christ
says as pertaining directly to the people He is dealing with in His time, but it is
also for people in the far distant future to when He was living and ministering on
earth.
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
So why did Yeshua say that the Son of Man had authority to forgive sins? In
Hebrew the term son of man is ben Adam, in every day use in the 1st century it
basically meant human being. That is, it doesn't indicate anyone special.
However, Yeshua was fan of the Prophet Daniel and Daniel used that term (Son
of Man) in a specific and prominent way in one of his prophecies.
CJB Daniel 7:13-14 13 "I kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming
with the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the
Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership,
glory and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should
serve him. His rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and
his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
So while Daniel indeed means "someone like a human being" approaches the
Ancient One (God in Heaven), and to him is given a kingdom and eternal
rulership, obviously this can only be a very specific and unique person that is the
one like a human being. Therefore for Jesus, Son of Man became a specific title
for the person that would be the one given a kingdom and rulership forever:
Himself. Did the Jews listening to Him in Capernaum understand it that way, but
then reject it? Did they gather from what He said that He was the fulfillment of
Daniel's prophecy? I'm sure to most of them it sounded more like Christ was
saying that He was a regular human being but He had been given divine
authority to forgive sins. That is, it is not that He was the divine End Times ruler
of God's Kingdom, even though that is precisely what He was communicating,
because He was saying it through hints and implications that went over the
heads of those He was speaking to.
It has always bothered me as to why Christ seemed to speak about His true
identity in riddles.
CJB Luke 22:63-68 63 Meanwhile, the men who were holding Yeshua made
fun of him. They beat him, 64 blindfolded him, and kept asking him, "Now,
'prophesy1
! Who hit you that time?" 65 And they said many other insulting
things to him. 66 At daybreak, the people's council of elders, including both
head cohanim and Torah-teachers, met and led him off to their
Sanhedrin, 67 where they said, "If you are the Mashiach, tell us." He
answered, "If I tell you, you won't believe me; 68 and if I ask you, you won't
answer.
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
So mere hours before His execution, He was still being guarded about His
identity and anything but candid about being the Messiah. I can't necessarily
answer the question of "why", but clearly except for a precious few (not even the
full number of His original Disciples, not even John the Baptist) no one at this
time believed that He was the Messiah nor that He was divine. He could have
straightened that out so easily; but His claim in this Luke passage is that it would
do no good to say it because the religious authorities wouldn't believe Him
anyway. No doubt He was right. But the vast majority of the time He wasn't
speaking to the religious authorities, He was speaking to the common people.
The point I am making is this: as we continue reading through Matthew we need
to give both His followers and those who hear Him, but don't respond in the
expected way, a bit of a break. Too often Christians read the Gospels and see
the Jews as a bunch of stiff-necked knuckleheads who were either dense or
intentionally rebuffed their own Jewish Messiah; I find that unfair and not
reflective of what actually happened. Look how relatively few people of the
world's population throughout post-Christ history have accepted Him for who He
actually is: Savior; even though we have had the plain evidence of it before us for
2000 years. We have the benefit of hindsight and the teachings of the Apostles
who were eye witnesses. I have no doubt that if we were present when Christ
was still living and teaching, hearing Him with our own ears, we wouldn't be any
different. So those Scribes that questioned His authority to forgive sins were
doing it (at least partly) in the context of the true, biblical principle that human
beings have no power to forgive sin (at least not on their own authority). And
therefore to say that He can forgive sins, Christ is comparing Himself to God.
They didn't get it that Christ actually was God on earth, and that He was the one
both Moses and Daniel spoke about, because He never plainly said so in an
unequivocal way.
In verse 6, Yeshua tells the man to pick up his mattress and go home. This
wasn't a command to heal; it was that by having his sins forgiven he was already
healed and so there was nothing more to do than for the man to go home!
Matthew, the Jewish Gospel writer who is writing to the Jewish people, regularly
focuses on a familiar topic to his readers: sin. Early in his Gospel he even sums
up Christ's purpose and actions primarily in the context of saving God's people
from their sins.
CJB Matthew 1:21 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him
Yeshua, [which means 'ADONAI saves,'] because he will save his people
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
from their sins." Therefore the implication is that all else that comes from saving from sins is but a
byproduct.
Verse 8 confirms something we ought to have taken for granted; there were
many onlookers. This was all occurring in this house that now had a pretty large
hole in its roof; large enough to lower a man strapped to a stretcher. The crowds
were amazed no doubt not only because the paralyzed man could now walk, but
also because how Jesus could respond to the Scribes. We're told that they said a
blessing to God upon understanding more than the Scribes seem to have:
Yeshua was indeed given authority by God forgive sins in order to heal. The CJB
uses the phrase "said a b'rakhah", whereas most other translations say
"glorified" God. The way common Jews glorified God was by saying a blessing to
Him, so the CJB says it most correctly. Let's read a little more in Matthew.
RE-READ MATTHEW 9:9-13
In verse 9 Christ adds another disciple: Matthew (also called Levi according to
Mark). This is the briefest of stories. Yeshua is walking (still in Capernaum), he
sees a Tax Collector sitting at a table, Yeshua says "follow Me" and Matthew
follows. End of story. Unless the Gospel writer Matthew likes to talk about himself
in the 3rd person, and is trying to hide that he is the same as this new disciple,
this story simply adds to the evidence that the Gospel writer Matthew is not also
the disciple Matthew. That the story of Matthew is as a tax collector might be
better expressed that he is a toll collector. Once we understand that Capernaum
lay along the vital and heavily used Via Maris trade route, then knowing that
Capernaum was a substantial commercial fishing village, with Jews and gentiles
living there side-by-side, a garrison of Roman troops commanded by a Centurion
stationed there, and the presence of not one but a few toll collectors makes
perfect sense. The commercial fishermen of the Sea of Galilee had a ready
market for their catch, the Roman troops guarded the trade route and the money
that changed hands daily, and the toll collector took in the customs duties from
the merchants for using the maintained and protected trade route. Capernaum
was no remote, sleepy little fishing village.
Tax Collectors were hated by the Jews. Like the Roman soldiers, Tax Collectors
represented oppression to them because the money they forcibly took in went
only to Rome's coffers. Since we know that Matthew's Hebrew name was Levi,
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
then we also know that he was a Levite. So for most Jewish folks he was very
nearly a traitor. We're given no reason why Yeshua would call him (a
controversial addition to His flock to say the least). However it does follow the
same pattern that has already been established. Yeshua chooses the disciple;
the disciple doesn't choose his Master.
Apparently nearly immediately Jesus went into a house and began eating with
Matthew. Whose house is this? Probably it was Peter's house where Christ was
most likely staying. The second most likely probability is that it was Matthew the
tax collector's house because we're told that other tax collectors and sinners
joined Him and His disciples at the table. We know what the tax collectors were,
but how about the term sinners? Would not all who came, no matter their social
position, be counted as sinners in the eyes of God? In Christ's day a class of
people called am ha'ertz (people of the land), common Jews, were often called
sinners. They were the lowest on the socio-economic ladder and considered too
uneducated and too incapable to be able to follow God's commandments, so
they must be sinners. It might be somewhat equivalent to how Americans view
the homeless. However it is not likely that this is what Matthew is speaking about
because Jesus was the champion of the poorest and most unlovable in Jewish
society. Probably these "sinners" were the resa'im, the wicked among Jewish
society because they did not keep the Law of Moses, perhaps even intentionally
altogether abandoning the covenant God had with Israel. Resa'im was a most
derogatory term among the Jews, and it was very nearly like calling a Jew a
gentile (and those were fighting words). It was usually reserved for the most
wretched of Jewish society like prostitutes, petty thieves and other no-accounts.
From the 1st century Jewish perspective you could barely fit a piece of paper
between what they called a sinner and a tax collector. To say it was startling for
Christ to be sitting and eating with this despised group of people would be an
understatement.
The Pharisees (some of which were the Scribes of the synagogue) immediately
notice and were shocked by what they saw. What was this Tzadik, this most
revered Holy Man, doing with unsavory people like this? The Pharisees
confronted not Yeshua but rather His disciples wanting to know why their Master
would risk sullying His reputation, if not contracting ritual uncleanness, from being
around such a vulgar group. But just as much the Pharisees want to know why
the disciples would choose such a poor Master that would do such a thing.
Yeshua overhead the conversation and answered their question. His response is
wonderful and so very true. A person who is well doesn't need a physician; only
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
someone who is ill. The meaning of this is plain. He has come into this world to
make the unrighteous, righteous. In other words, why would those who are
certain they are already righteous need Him? Those who were eating with Christ
perfectly well understood their low status and how people considered them the
dregs of society. But how, within the world of the synagogue, would the
Pharisees have understood what Christ said? It was that the sinners and the tax
collectors were the sick, the Pharisees were the healthy, but Yeshua was the
healing physician. The implications of such a stance were enormous. He was
encroaching on the position that Pharisees and Scribes assigned themselves as
the physicians to heal the Jewish people of their unrighteousness, and they
weren't going to take an interloper horning in, lying down.
This is something we'd all do well to remember. Most Believers prefer to hang out
and to congregate with people like ourselves. People who are "good" people,
"nice" people, and of course, professed Believers. We're generally uncomfortable
with those who society considers outsiders or derelicts. But of all the people in
this world, it is they who are in most in need of what Jesus offers not because the
rest of us are so righteous and thus have no need; but because they know they
aren't and are likely feel there is no hope for them. I've heard from more than one
person of the lower side of society say something like: "how could God possibly
love me if He knows me?" Yeshua considered His number one priority as
showing these so-called sinners and tax collectors that regardless of what others
might think of them, God does love them and care about them and they aren't
outsiders to Him. All of His created beings are valuable to Him.
Yeshua knew full well that the good folks of Jewish society would think less of
Him for eating and associating with such people; the deplorables. His reputation
would, and did, take a hit. He knew this before He did it, but it didn't matter to
Him because He had a mission to save everyone who would accept Him as their
Savior, not merely the Jewish religious elite, so it was worth the risk. Luke
records this about the reputation He gained from the religious authorities and
others:
CJB Luke 7:34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say,
'Aha! A glutton and a drunkard! A friend of tax-collectors and sinners!'
Christ lectures those Pharisees and Scribes by saying that they are thinking as
they are because they don't understand a rather basic principle of their own
Hebrew faith; one that is written in Hosea 6:6. Matthew doesn't actually quote
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
Hosea 6:6, instead he abbreviates and paraphrases. Unfortunately, much of
Christianity has misunderstood what Christ meant largely due to the unintended
consequence of Matthew's Reader's Digest version of Hosea 6:6, and also
because Bible Teachers and students don't turn to Hosea 6:6 to see it in its full
form. I'll repeat something I've highlighted before: it was the Jewish way to quote
or to use just a few words of Scripture to point a reader to a larger section of
Scripture. That was about the only way to accomplish such a thing because the
introduction of chapters and verses into the Bible wouldn't be invented for
another 1000 years. So upon reading this verse in Matthew it seems to the
Western Christian mind that, aha!, Christ is saying it's time to do away with
animal sacrifices in exchange for grace and mercy. And since sacrifice is at the
heart of the Torah and the Law of Moses, then it can be reasonably extrapolated
that the Torah and the Law of Moses have just been demoted by Christ. But let's
see what Hosea 6:6 actually says. We'll read it in the larger context that Yeshua
intended.
CJB Hosea 6:1-7 1 Come, let us return to ADONAI; for he has torn, and he
will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind our wounds. 2 After two days,
he will revive us; on the third day, he will raise us up; and we will live in his
presence. 3 Let us know, let us strive to know ADONAI. That he will come is
as certain as morning; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rains
that water the earth. 4 "Efrayim, what should I do to you? Y'hudah, what
should I do to you? For your 'faithful love' is like a morning cloud, like dew
that disappears quickly. 5 This is why I have cut them to pieces by the
prophets, slaughtered them with the words from my mouth- the judgment
on you shines out like light. 6 For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices,
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7 "But they, just like men,
have broken the covenant, they have been faithless in dealing with me
So when this is taken in the fuller context, Yeshua's meaning is anything but
about abolishing the Law. The point that Christ is making by invoking Hosea is
that if God's people would have mercy and would also seek knowledge of God,
then it wouldn't be necessary to kill God's innocent creatures from the animal
world and burn up their carcasses on an altar to save the life of the guilty sinner.
Hosea is not repeating himself in a kind of poetic way in verse 6 when he speaks
of mercy and also of knowing God. Humans, God's people, are commanded to
show mercy to our fellow humans.... not to God. He doesn't need our mercy. And
God's people must also have knowledge of God, by means of learning the Torah,
which is all the Holy Scripture they had in Hosea's time, so that they could know
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
what God's laws and commands are. Mercy is the natural result of obeying the
commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself"; and gaining knowledge of
God is the natural result of obeying the commandment to "love God with all your
mind, soul, and strength". This quoting of Hosea spoke directly to the religious
Pharisees Jesus was scolding because the Temple was still standing, the
Priesthood was still functioning, and sacrifices were still happening.
Please take notice: what we see developing is that the Pharisees are carefully
watching Yeshua's increasing popularity among the people, His miracles are
occurring at a blistering pace, and His teaching on the biblical Torah is not only
surpassing theirs, but it is also at times contradicting their teaching because they
taught in the synagogue from the standpoint of the Traditions of the Elders and
Jewish customs as opposed to the plain and written truth of God's Word. It
seems that from Matthew's perspective the Pharisees never learn. In fact they
are closed to learning and their ignorance of God's ways has been harmful to the
people who rely on them for spiritual guidance. Therefore the Pharisees, some of
whom are Scribes, respond by peppering Christ with objections to what He is
saying, trying to run down His character. Yeshua is without doubt openly and
publicly challenging the teaching of the Scribes (who weren't supposed to be
challenged because of their lofty positions), and they have little actual defense.
So when you have no defense, go on offense; and that's exactly what they were
doing.
Open your Bibles again to Matthew chapter 9.
RE-READ MATTHEW 9:14-17
Here we read something that catches many Believers by surprise. It is that some
of John the Baptist's disciples were present in Capernaum as Yeshua healed,
taught, and ate with tax collectors and sinners. From the perspective of 2000
years later, we might wonder how it could be that John who said that he came to
make a path in the wilderness for the One that God was sending, still had his
own flock of followers that were separate and apart from the flock of followers of
the One that God sent? And so we witness in verse 14 an "us versus them"
question. Why do we (John the Baptist's disciples) fast rather frequently (along
with the Pharisees), but Jesus's disciples don't? Naturally Yeshua answers the
question in His typical indirect and enigmatic way that leaves some scratching
their heads, others awe stricken in their spirits with the profoundness of His
words, and a few none too happy about it.
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
Christ says: "Can wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is still with
them? But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from
them; then they will fast." One must be very careful when considering this
saying not to read more into than is there, and yet not to overlook what is only
implied. Many Bible commentators refer to this as another of Yeshua's several
parables; I take issue with that. This is not at all a parable from any Jewish
perspective of His time; rather it is merely an illustration.... a metaphor. Soon, as
we encounter an authentic Parable, we'll discuss what a Parable is, its form and
its purpose.
It is imperative that we not try to make all the particulars about fasting,
bridegrooms, feasts, and weddings pertain to what Christ has said. Illustrations
and metaphors used in the Bible, Old and New Testaments, were never meant to
exhaustively capture every detail of similarity. The illustration is not a cloaked
clone of the object that is being better explained by the use of metaphor. Rather it
is meant to draw a simplistic mental picture; it is a picture of an approximate
comparison and not of an exact match.
The bottom line is that fasting in Christ's day was meant to display two things:
repentance and mourning. For Jews repentance and mourning were usually
connected, although not in every circumstance. For instance during the Holy Day
of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement where repentance of personal wrongdoing
is the order of the day, fasting is the Torah command. The repentant person
mourned over their prior condition. But a mourner could also have been mourning
at the death of a family member or friend and so repentance was not the issue.
Christians in many ways see repentance as involving joy when we think of it in
the sense of deciding to leave our old life and begin a new one with Christ. While
true, that in no way reflects what is being taught here in this story. The other side
of the coin is that a wedding is an entirely joyful occasion that is always
highlighted with a feast. Joy and feasting go together, just as do fasting and
mourning. So the presence of a Bridegroom signals a wedding and a feast and
therefore joy.
Yeshua is not calling Himself a Bridegroom; rather He is merely using the
common knowledge among Jews of the happy tone and procedures of a wedding
to make His point. And the point is that now, while He is still on earth, it is not the
time for mourning; that will come soon enough. Of course that cryptic message
wasn't entirely understood among His listeners. Only in hindsight after the Cross
would that message become clear.
12/13
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Lesson 31 - Matthew 9
We'll continue next week with 2 other illustrations that He uses in response to the
inquiry about fasting as brought by the disciples of John the Baptist.
13/13

Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 32, Chapter 9 Continued
The subject that we'll focus on to begin today's lesson is a dispute between John
the Baptist's disciples and Yeshua's disciples, ostensibly over the subject of
fasting; this is what Matthew 9:14 - 17 revolves around. We'll go forward today in
bite-sized chunks as there is so much to take from these passages. Open your
Bibles to Matthew 9.
RE-READ 9:14 -17
The context is this; Yeshua is still in the fishing village in the Galilee where He is
currently residing: Capernaum. He was dining with some tax collectors and with a
class of people known among the Jews as "sinners". Do not take the term
"sinners" to mean as Christianity thinks of it today. That is, in Christendom a
sinner is either a person who does NOT profess the Savior Jesus, or is a fallen
Christian who is not living out his or her faith in a biblically moral way. However in
Christ's day a sinner was a Jew who had either openly renounced the Law of
Moses (something pretty rare), or much more often showed no outward intent of
following it. Typically these were poor Jews, uneducated, probably not attending
a synagogue with any regularity, and therefore they were considered (especially
by the Pharisees) as those who were so ignorant and uninformed that it was
impossible for them to properly observe the Traditions of the Elders, let alone the
biblical Laws of Moses.
While Yeshua was at the table, some of John the Baptist's disciples spoke to
some of Yeshua's disciples and asked them why they did not fast frequently as
the Baptist's did, and instead didn't fast at all? Notice two things: 1) John the
Baptist was Master over his own flock of followers who felt no allegiance to
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
Jesus. And 2), the only reason these disciples would have fasted regularly is
because they were doing what their Master, John, had taught them as a doctrine.
It is ironic that despite John being the chosen one to announce the arrival of
Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven, nonetheless there is little evidence in the
New Testament that he ever fully understood the nature and mission of Jesus.
Further that his own disciples never felt a real attachment to the ways of Christ,
but rather chose to follow the ways and teachings of John. And clearly those two
sets of doctrines didn't always agree.
Yeshua overhead John's disciples confronting His own disciples and so He
jumped into the fray to correct them. What He said was not a hard put down (as it
seems it was to the young man who wanted to follow Christ only after his father
passed away and was buried). Rather Yeshua's response was merely
instructional, and He used a few metaphors and illustrations to make His point.
The first illustration He used was to compare the circumstances of a wedding
process versus the wedding being interrupted and thereby causing sadness. He
used terms, and a metaphor, that were known not only to every common Jewish
person, but even to the outcasts of society. The subject of the metaphor was a
bridegroom. I said last week that Christ was not saying He was a bridegroom; I
want to take that a bit further. In His brief analogy He certainly meant that within
His story that He was presenting Himself in the role or the character of
bridegroom. But that is not to say that in real life that He was thinking of Himself
as an actual bridegroom of sorts. One might argue that I'm making a distinction
without a difference; however I respond that there is a definite difference between
characterizing oneself as a bridegroom versus comparing oneself to a
Bridegroom as an analogy to make a point. We must be terribly careful when we
find metaphors, illustrations and analogies used in the Bible that we don't take
them beyond their intent. The point of the case that Christ is making is that there
is a time for joy and there is a time for mourning, but those two things are
generally not compatible and so don't happen at the same time. Since marriage
is one of the happiest occasions in the Bible and within Jewish society, then it
contrasts well with mourning, the saddest of occasions. Thus to express such
happiness a bridegroom, by custom, was always responsible to throw a big party
with a lavish feast complete with plenty of wine as its focal point. Mourning, on
the other hand, was to be accompanied with fasting. Please notice; this
illustration of joy and mourning, and what happens with a bridegroom, is only
approximate and not precise. We can find several examples in the Prophets
where joy and mourning DO happen simultaneously. Here is one of the best
2/13
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
known:
CJB Revelation 18:10 -11 10 Standing at a distance, for fear of her torment,
they will say, "Oh no! The great city! Bavel, the mighty city! In a single hour
your judgment has come!" 11 The world's businessmen weep and mourn
over her, because no one is buying their merchandise any more␂Moving down to verse 17
17 Such great wealth- in a single hour, ruined!" All the ship masters,
passengers, sailors and everyone making his living from the sea stood at a
distance 18 and cried out when they saw the smoke as she burned, "What
city was like the great city?" 19 And they threw dust on their heads as they
wept and mourned, saying, "Oh no! The great city! The abundance of her
wealth made all the ship owners rich! In a single hour she is
ruined!" 20 Rejoice over her, heaven! Rejoice, people of God, emissaries
and prophets! For in judging her, God has vindicated you.
The point being that while joy and mourning, feasting and fasting, don't usually
occur at the same time, they can in some circumstances. In the same way we
must not take the bridegroom metaphor... or any metaphor in the Bible.... as
more than a simple, but not rigid or exact, mental picture that humans can better
grasp. So the P'shat sense of Yeshua's illustration with the bridegroom is what
we've already discussed; Yeshua has taught His disciples not to fast for the time
being (this would be about voluntary fasts, not biblically commanded ones) even
though John's disciples have been taught to fast regularly. However
the Remez sense, the hint.... the deeper underlying meaning... is that as a result
of the advent of Yeshua, some things have become incompatible. It is a teaching
with a warning attached.
Here Jesus also drops a hint that while He is here with His disciples for now, in
time He will be gone. And when He is taken from them that will be the proper
time for mourning. I can't imagine that any of the attendees understood the depth
of what He was telling them; so much of what He has said, and would say, are
comprehensible only in hindsight. Nevertheless Christ was implying that while He
was living and ministering, it was to be taken as a time of great joy (after all, the
prophesied Messiah has come; the One who can heal and forgive sins!), so He
wasn't about to have His disciples fast as representative of a time for mourning.
Naturally He did not mean it in the sense of disobeying any of the laws of Moses
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
where fasting was required (such as on Yom Kippur).
As we move on to verse 16 Yeshua uses another illustration to make His point
about mourning and fasting. Or better, about the deeper, underlying meaning of
it: the incompatibilities that are a result of His, and the Kingdom of Heaven's,
arrival. The illustration concerns the patching of an old garment with a piece of
not-yet shrunk cloth. This was another analogy chosen because the mechanics
of patching garments was common knowledge among the common people of all
nations, and not just the Jews. Everyone knew that if you patched a hole in a
cloth garment using a new piece of cloth that has not been previously washed
(and thus shrunk as was the natural thing that happens to linen or cotton cloth as
it gets immersed the first few times) then the first time the newly patched garment
is washed clean the previously unshrunk piece of cloth patch will contract
(shrink), while the old garment will not because it has already shrunk as far as it
ever will. The result is that the new cloth patch pulls away from the stitching and
a hole reopens. But what, exactly, can Christ mean by this?
The standard meaning within the institutional Church is that the old garment
represents the Old Testament (or perhaps only the Law of Moses), and the new
cloth patch represents the New Testament (or perhaps only the coming of the
Messiah). Therefore one was not to try to patch the Old with the New; rather the
old can only be discarded in favor of the new. That is certainly an appealing
interpretation for an anti-Law of Moses, anti-Jewish, gentiles-only Church; but it
doesn't fit the context of the passage very well. And it also doesn't fit well with
Christ's central theme in the Sermon on the Mount that happened but days
earlier when He said that He did NOT come to abolish the Law (the old thing) but
rather to complete it. Further He forthright stated that all of His followers were to
continue to obey the Law down to the last detail. But, they were do so in a new
spirit; a spirit of obeying the command not just outwardly and behaviorally, but
also inwardly in motive and intent.
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
Applying the reality that all analogies and illustrations in the Bible are
approximate and general, not exact and universal, then we need to understand
this from a 1st century Jewish mindset AND in the context we find it in this
passage. The underlying issue is not replacing one thing with another, but rather
it concerns incompatibilities in light of the arrival of Christ and the Kingdom of
Heaven. So for people of that era, what is the problem issue about sewing a
patch onto an older garment of cloth? It is that while the existing garment has
been cleansed by immersion, the newer patch has not. So before applying a
patch, it must first be immersed in water sufficiently until it can match the same
level of shrinkage with the older garment; otherwise the two are incompatible.
There is no hint (and it would never have occurred to a Jewish reader) that the
old garment was to be discarded in favor of a new one. I'll repeat: the issue is
addressing incompatibility. Thus while the old garment needs a patch, it in no
way has lost its usefulness. Conversely, the only thing wrong with the patch
being used in Christ's story is that it has not yet been immersed and washed
clean (and therefore it shrinks), so it won't work well with the garment that is
being patched. This is the P'shat, the plain, literal, simple sense of it. But
the Remez sense goes a bit deeper.
In the Remez the unshrunk patch, the cloth that is yet to be immersed and
cleansed, is NOT to be applied until it has been properly washed so that it can
serve the purpose for which it is intended. By definition a cloth patch is far
smaller than the garment it is being sewn onto. The patch doesn't replace the
garment, or used instead of it, nor is the patch the main feature of the garment; it
only completes the garment so it can be used as originally intended. However a
patch not used properly either doesn't make the garment whole again or it can
make it even worse than it was. What did Christ say in His analogy? "Because
the patch tears away from the coat (the garment) and leaves a WORSE
hole."
Here's what we are to take from this. Christ's teachings (a sort of reformation)
about the Torah were indeed to be applied to what the people thought they knew
about the Torah. But compared to the Torah, His teachings were but a proper
patch placed upon it; not a whole new garment. And why did the old garment (the
Torah) have need of a patch? Because, in context of the passage, God's people
had misused it just as John's disciples misused fasting. Going back to the
bridegroom analogy: Christ was in no way abolishing fasting as biblically
prescribed. He was also in no way abolishing mourning. But He was saying that
the extra rules about when to fast and when to mourn that Judaism (or better
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
Pharisee-ism), Tradition, had added to the Jewish religion while not necessarily a
bad thing, were incompatible with the current circumstances of His divine
presence and of the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
The garment needed the addition of a patch because the wearer tore a hole in it.
The Torah needed a "patch" (Christ's instructions about restoring its true
meaning) not because the Torah was defective but because the wearer of it had
torn a hole in it. The wearers (God's Hebrew worshippers) had, in Yeshua's era
and long before, turned to Tradition and other manmade doctrines about the
Torah and thus had (metaphorically) torn a hole in it. And while Christ's teaching
needed to be applied as the new patch, it had to be done carefully, thoughtfully,
prayerfully and only when the one attempting to apply the patch (a worshipper of
Christ) had properly understood it (had been washed and immersed in His
teachings) so that when applied to the garment (to the Torah) it didn't rip it back
open, making it even worse. This interpretation fits the context of how to make
the new cloth compatible with the old garment (not the other way around), and it
fits with the common knowledge and understanding among the people of that day
about applying a patch to an otherwise perfectly good garment.
Keeping that context in mind, let's move on to another well known saying of
Jesus about not putting new wine into old wineskins. In verse 17 Christ uses
another commonly known procedure as another illustration of incompatibilities;
that of wine-making. Just as with not putting a new (unshrunk) patch onto a used
garment, one wouldn't put new wine into a well used wine skin because the
wineskin (the container) might burst. The term "new wine" indicated a couple of
things in that era. First, it could mean filtered grape juice ready to begin the
fermenting process that would turn it into wine. Second, it could also mean a
lightly fermented grape juice that had a very low alcohol content because the
fermenting process had either just barely begun, or it was intentionally
interrupted. A natural byproduct of fermentation is the production of gases:
ethanol and carbon dioxide. Since the fermentation process necessarily must
occur inside a sealed container (in our case, wine skins), then the pressure of
those gases builds up and the wine skins must be able to contain that pressure
or they will burst and the wine will be lost. Therefore, older wine skins are best
not used in the fermentation process, because after a few uses they will have lost
their elasticity and could burst instead of merely stretching in the same way a
balloon works. Even so, the older wineskins remain valuable and useful as
storage containers for wine that has already completed the fermentation process
and it is now ready for distribution and consumption.
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
The standard Christian doctrine on the interpretation of this is that since we
should not put new wine into old wineskins, then the old wineskins have become
obsolete and are to be discarded; thrown into the trash heap. And as with the
garment and the patch, the old wineskins are said by the Church to represent the
Old Testament, and the new wine that goes into new wineskins represents Jesus
and the New Testament. Therefore the conclusion is that the Old Testament is no
longer useful, and in fact some of it had become defective, and so is to be
replaced with the New Testament. Again, this interpretation not only takes the
passage out of context and separates it away from it's theme of incompatibilities,
it completely ignores the 2nd half of this verse, which is: "No, they pour new
wine into freshly prepared wine skins, and in this way BOTH (old and new
wineskins) are preserved". Some in the Church say this means both the new
wine and the new wineskins are preserved. But the story is about not ruining the
old wineskins and so by putting new wine into new wineskins and not disturbing
the contents of the old wineskins, then both the old and new wineskins are
preserved (just as being careful that a new patch on a garment doesn't ruin the
old garment). We find in some corners of Christianity that this is taken to mean
that it is OK for Jews to keep the Torah (the old wineskins) and worship the God
of the Old Testament for themselves (as a possible means of salvation), while
gentile followers of Christ adopt Him and the New Testament (as the new
wineskins) and this is their means of salvation.
It is important to notice that Yeshua says that both new and old are meant to be
preserved. That is, in the first half of this verse one of the concerns is that the old
wineskins could become ruined if improperly used: " ....the wine spills and the
wineskins are ruined". Who cares if the old wineskins are ruined if they're only
good for throwing away since Christ's advent? The story reflects a deep concern
on not ruining either the old or new wineskins, and therefore not losing the old or
new wine. Rather they are each to be used in such as way as to make them
compatible. The difference between the old and new wineskins is not their value
or relevance, but rather their purpose. One was for the fermentation process; the
other for long term storage. Yeshua's purpose was to save and to inaugurate the
Kingdom of God on earth; that is what was new. However that doesn't mean that
what the older vessel was meant to do had become obsolete. The older vessel
(the Torah) was never meant to contain the fermentation of salvation. Yet both
vessels are relevant and needed and their usefulness is compatible when
properly used together. It's an issue of compatibility; not of superiority or
replacement. To be clear: like all biblical analogies, no matter who is making
them, we are to take them as a generality and not try to draw precise one to one
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
comparisons to the various objects used in the analogy.
Let's read a little more.
RE-READ MATTHEW 9:18-31
These verses return us to Yeshua doing miracle healings. He was still at the
table dining with men of several walks and beliefs, when a person suddenly
entered the scene and interrupted it by kneeling down in front of Him. This
person's position in society is important to the story. He is listed in Matthew as
simply an official. However this account is also told in Mark and in Luke and there
we get some additional and pertinent information about what kind of official he
was; even who he was.
CJB Luke 8:41 Then there came a man named Ya'ir who was president of the
synagogue. Falling at Yeshua's feet, he pleaded with him to come to his
house;
CJB Mark 5:22 There came to him a synagogue official, Ya'ir by name, who
fell at his feet
Although two different Greek words are used to explain the exact title or position
of this man, both essentially tell us that he is a ruler of the synagogue; usually
called the President of the Synagogue. This is the man who is assigned with the
synagogue's daily administration. He is not the same as the Scribe who is the
teacher/preacher at the synagogue. No doubt this must be the man who presides
over the synagogue located there in Capernaum that Jesus Himself attended; so
the man was known to Christ. This explains why the man felt he could interrupt
and why Yeshua didn't admonish him for it.
What did the official want? He wanted the miracle healer, the Tzadik, to come to
his home and resurrect his daughter who had died. We must not take this belief
that Jesus might be able to reanimate his daughter from death as trust in Him as
Messiah or God on earth. So far we haven't witnessed anything that we can call
a "conversion". The man told Christ that if He would come to his home, he just
knew that by Yeshua laying His hands on her, the little girl would be raised from
the dead. All the Gospels agree that immediately Yeshua along with some of His
disciples went with the synagogue official. But on the way there (probably no
more than a few hundred feet) His walk was interrupted by a woman who had a
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
serious problem that had been with her for a long time.
This woman had a hemorrhage that had plagued her for 12 years. By
hemorrhage this means she had a continuing issue of blood as with a never
ending menstrual cycle. The immediate problem with this was less a matter of
her physical health (obviously it was not so severe as to incapacitate or kill her,
since she had lived with it for 12 years) but rather it was the ritual condition that
resulted from it. This flow of blood rendered her ritually unclean according to the
Torah, and this made her an outcast.
CJB Leviticus 15:25 "'If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days
not during her period, or if her discharge lasts beyond the normal end of
her period, then throughout the time she is having an unclean discharge
she will be as when she is in niddah- she is unclean.
This is a huge problem for her. She cannot associate with anyone; she cannot
even enter someone's home. If she was married (and this is not stated) she
couldn't have shared a bed or even a chair with her husband because this would
have transferred her uncleanness to him. It is interesting that biblically, ritual
impurity could infect another simply through touch. Yet sin did nothing of the kind.
Sin was to be eradicated because bad behavior was too often mimicked. And
also because sin could be harmful to another person (a violent person could
injure or murder, for example). So while there is a definite relationship between
sin and uncleanness, they are not the same things and they each have their own
effects, consequences and cures. Her problem was ritual uncleanness and not
sin.
We are told that the woman literally sneaked up behind Christ and touched His
robe. Or better the hem of his garment. Or best, His Tzitzit. Peasant Jews did not
usually have the bottom of their garments hemmed; this was something that the
more wealthy did. A fine hem was part of the mark of an expensive garment. And
these Jews certainly didn't have some type of fringe as an ornamentation that
circled the skirt of their outer garment. But, Jewish men did wear
tassels.... Tzitzit in Hebrew. These Tzitzit were religious in nature and actually
commanded by the Law of Moses.
CJB Numbers 15:37-41 37 ADONAI said to Moshe, 38 "Speak to the people of
Isra'el, instructing them to make, through all their generations, tzitziyot on
the corners of their garments, and to put with the Tzitzit on each corner a
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
blue thread. 39 It is to be a Tzitzit for you to look at and thereby remember
all of ADONAl's mitzvot and obey them, so that you won't go around
wherever your own heart and eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves; 40 but
it will help you remember and obey all my mitzvot and be holy for your
God. 41 1 am ADONAl your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt in
order to be your God. I am ADONAl your God." Naturally Yeshua would have worn them or been in violation of the Law of
Moses. What else stands out is that the woman with the hemorrhage didn't
merely touch His garment, she touched the most holy part of His garment;
the Tzitzit. No doubt she snuck up from behind because no Jew would have
allowed her anywhere near him for fear of contracting ritual impurity. But a
strange thing happened when she touched Him. Not only did He instantly sense
her presence, but her uncleanness did not render Him unclean (which it should
have). The matter of transmitting uncleanness was a one way street. An unclean
person touching a clean person could only infect the ritually pure person; the
cleanness could not flow to the unclean. But in this case, it did! Instantly the
woman was healed. Why? Because that's what Tzadikkim do. Yet I have not
read of a Tzadik that was said to have healed through removing the ritual
uncleanness from a person. This seems to be something that no one had ever
been able to do prior to Christ. In fact, it really wasn't even thought to be a
possibility. Yet, this woman (like the Centurion) held a kind of faith and trust that
accepted, without doubt, that what Yeshua did was real, that He was able to do it,
and that He did more than any faith healer had ever done, even though neither
one of them thought of Yeshua as any more than a Holy Man par excellence who
had the greatest compassion on all who came to Him. Perhaps it was the
outward, although imperfect, display of unequivocal trust that Yeshua wanted the
disciples and the crowds to notice and learn from, even though it certainly was
not a saving kind of trust that would affect their eternity.
Beginning in verse 23, the interrupted story of the synagogue official whose
daughter had died, resumes. Yeshua arrives at his house (just a couple of
minutes away) and immediately notices the flute players (flutes are also called
clarinets) accompanied with the agitation of a number of people who are there.
This well reflects Jewish mourning practices in those days, especially for those
who were reasonably well off financially. Josephus, the Jewish-Roman historian,
who was born not long after Christ was crucified, makes a comment on this
matter; something he was quite familiar with.
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
In his book called Jewish Wars he wrote concerning death and mourning: "
for 30 days the lamentations never ceased in the city, and many of the
mourners hired clarinet (flute) players to accompany their funeral
dirges". Some years later in the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah was recording as
saying: "Even the poorest in Israel should hire no less than two clarinets
(flutes) and one wailing woman". So it's not unlike funerals elsewhere in the
world that certain local burial and grieving customs, regardless of cost, had to be
observed otherwise it was considered rude and uncaring. Surprisingly, Yeshua's
response was to immediately order everyone to leave the house. His reason? He
says she's not dead, she's only sleeping. What He really wanted was privacy and
an end to the mourning.
This statement has caused no end to the debates over this passage. That is,
some say Yeshua was about to resurrect the little girl from the dead; others say
she may have only been ill, perhaps in some kind of catatonic state, but certainly
alive. The first thing I would say about this is that if she wasn't really dead that
would be surprising because it's not like people in every age didn't know what a
dead person looked like and felt like, and even smelled like. The girl was dead;
she was a corpse when Christ arrived.
The use of the word "sleep" and other terms associated with "sleeping" are
regularly used in the Bible when speaking of death. This seems to be a kinder,
gentler way of saying it, but also it indicates that the condition of death is, in
some strange way, not necessarily permanent. And further, especially for those
considered to have lived righteously before the Lord, there is a hope of a
pleasant afterlife. Even in Christ's day death and the possibility of an afterlife was
in no way agreed upon within Judaism. Death and what happens afterwards was
mostly a terrifying prospect such that the one thing people then could agree on
was that it was always better to be alive than dead!
Daniel spoke of death and an afterlife but framed it in the "sleeping" sense.
CJB Daniel 12:2 2 Many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth will awaken,
some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame and abhorrence
So here Daniel likens death to "sleeping", and says there will be an "awakening"
and the results won't be the same for everyone. But clearly, whatever everlasting
life after death looks like, others will experience the condition of shame. In
Psalms we read:
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
CJB Psalms 49:15-16 15 Like sheep, they are destined for Sh'ol; death will be
their shepherd. The upright will rule them in the morning; and their forms
will waste away in Sh'ol, until they need no dwelling. 16 But God will redeem
me from Sh'ol's control, because he will receive me. (Selah)
Then in the Book of John Christ says:
CJB John 11:11-15 11 Yeshua said these things, and afterwards he said to the
talmidim, "Our friend El'azar has gone to sleep; but I am going in order to
wake him up." 12 The talmidim said to him, "Lord, if he has gone to sleep, he
will get better."
13 Now Yeshua had used the phrase to speak about El'azar's
death, but they thought he had been talking literally about sleep. 14 So
Yeshua told them in plain language, "El'azar has died. 15 And for your
sakes, I am glad that I wasn't there, so that you may come to trust. But let's
go to him." The point being that death and sleep were associated words so the matter wasn't
that some ignorant people at this synagogue President's house wrongly assumed
that his daughter was dead, and then some time even passed enough time for
the word to get out and for the girl's father to hire professional mourners and flute
players before Jesus was asked to come and reverse the death of the little
girl. It also was not that Yeshua looked at her and more or less said: quit
mourning; you're all wrong about this; the little girl never died at all! In fact, the
professional mourners and others were pretty offended by Yeshua's statement
that she wasn't dead, but rather only asleep, implying that they were sort of
stupid. Nonetheless He took her hand and she came awake (He made her alive
from her death). So later when Christ, Himself, was also risen from the dead, He
wasn't the first instance of this.
But let's also not bypass an important element to this story. The absolute highest
degree of ritual impurity that a Jew could acquire was to touch a dead body. So
understand the ramifications of this act that Matthew's Jewish readers would
instantly have picked up on. First Yeshua allows an unclean woman to touch the
holiest part of his garment, His Tzitzit, and now He enters the home of a dead
person and He intentionally touches her corpse! In both cases however, He is not
affected; rather He affects those who were unclean and afflicted.... even unto
death! Unheard of. It's no wonder people flocked to Him, did anything to get
before Him, and equally why the Pharisees and then the High Priest were afraid
of Him and wanted to discredit Him. They couldn't fathom anyone doing what He
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Lesson 32 - Matthew 9 cont
did; and they had no way of competing. His miracles were too many, too public,
and too spectacular to deny. Thus we hear these words of verse 26: "News of
this spread through all the region". So the public frenzy about Him was only
going to increase.
Verse 27 has Yeshua healing two blind men. This story doesn't appear in Luke or
Mark. Why Matthew's inclusion of the story about healing the blind? Likely
because the Jewish Tradition at that time was that of all afflictions, blindness was
most closely associated to having been caused by sin. So blind people received
less sympathy and mercy than those with other severe disabilities and, if the
blindness was caused by a sin that an animal sacrifice couldn't cure, then there
was no hope for them. This is highlighted in this passage from John's Gospel:
CJB John 9:1-3 As Yeshua passed along, he saw a man blind from
birth. 2 His talmidim asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned- this man or his
parents- to cause him to be born blind?" 3 Yeshua answered, "His
blindness is due neither to his sin nor to that of his parents; it happened so
that God's power might be seen at work in him.
Notice how Yeshua's disciples took it as a given that either the sin of the victim or
the sin of his parents was the cause of his blindness. So here in Matthew,
Yeshua going to these two blind men to heal them wouldn't have been all that
popular or applauded by the onlookers. And if sin was the cause, then
forgiveness was the only remedy. But no man could forgive sins. Very
interestingly, these blind men shouted out and addressed Him as "Son of David".
Strange. Where did they get that from, and what did it mean? Perhaps they were
aware of Yeshua's family lineage as being a true descendant of David. But then
again so were hundreds of other Jews living at that time descendants of David. It
is puzzling and has puzzled scholars for centuries. Some say it is written here
because Matthew wanted to find a way to connect Jesus to David (to validate the
genealogy he opened his Gospel with) and did it by inserting this exclamation
from the 2 blind men. In other words, these scholars are saying those words "Son
of David" were never actually uttered; Matthew just added them from his own
mind to make a connection. I think Davies and Allison have come up with a
possible reason for their exclamation that at least has some good foundation and
is plausible. And that is what we'll begin our lesson with next week.
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 33, Chapter 9 Continued 2
As we continue in Matthew chapter 9, we left off last time with verse 27 that says:
CJB Matthew 9:27 27 As Yeshua went on from there, two blind men began
following him, shouting, "Son of David! Take pity on us!"
RE-READ MATTHEW 9:27 - end
While it can fly right by us, it hasn't been missed by most Bible scholars who
flinch a bit when they read the words "Son of David". For them, this term "Son of
David" seems out of place, and so it is especially bothersome as to why these 2
blind men would call Yeshua by that title. Son of David is a title, a name, that is
quite technical and in none of the Synoptic Gospels has it been used of Christ up
to this point in His ministry except by Matthew. So what did the term "Son of
David" mean to the Jewish people and to Matthew? Without doubt for Matthew it
was directly tied to the Messiah.
Matthew opens his genealogy of Yeshua in his Gospel with:
CJBMatthew 1:1 This is the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, son of David,
son of Avraham:
The opening words of Matthew's Gospel are meant to place Yeshua directly at
the center of messianic hope. It was intended to identify Him as a direct
descendant of Abraham, the father of all Hebrews, and also of King David, who
was believed to be the royal father of the eternal messianic line. Because
Matthew, the believing Jew, is writing decades in hindsight, some years after the
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
events he was writing about took place, then of course He had already come to
the personal conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah and so that is written into his
Gospel. It had become a common understanding among the Jewish people that
the prophesied Deliverer would be a descendant (a son) of David because David
had been promised that a member of his household would rule upon the throne
of Israel forever. 2nd Samuel records a prophecy of Nathan, the prophet God
provided for King David, as he speaks this to David during the time that he was
the king of Israel:
CJB 2 Samuel 7:11-16 11 "'Moreover, ADONAI tells you that ADONAl will
make you a house. 12 When your days come to an end and you sleep with
your ancestors, I will establish one of your descendants to succeed you,
one of your own flesh and blood; and I will set up his rulership. 13 He will
build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. 14 I
will be a father for him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something
wrong, I will punish him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets
punished; 15 nevertheless, my grace will not leave him, as I took it away
from Sha'ul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Thus your house and your
kingdom will be made secure forever before you; your throne will be set up
forever.
So the idea that the Messiah would be a son of David (a descendant of David)
was first established here. Many centuries later that David-Messiah connection
was well understood within Jewish theology. But there's more to this in this brief
story of the 2 blind men. Hang in there with me because this is going to help you
see this episode in color and not just black and white.
In Hebrew, the original language not only of the Old Testament but also of the
original Gospel of Matthew, Son of David is ben-David. Interestingly, however, in
the Old Testament when the term ben-David is used it always refers to King
Solomon, David's biological son and immediate successor. Knowing this, and
knowing that the only Scripture in existence during Yeshua's era was
the Tanakh, the Old Testament, then what exactly is it that these 2 blind men
had in their minds about who or what the Son of David is, and how does this
apply to Yeshua such that they shouted it out to Him in hopes He would heal
them? Is it that they are saying that unlike any one else so far, they believe Jesus
is the prophesied Jewish Messiah? Or.... could it be that they think of this miracle
working Tzadik that is accomplishing these astounding feats so far beyond any
of the previously known Tzadikkim (Holy Men), not as the Messiah but rather as
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
a sort of second Solomon (I'll explain that in a moment)? After all, there is simply
no sense thus far in Matthew or in any of the Gospels that this early in His
ministry had Yeshua of Nazareth become known as the Messiah among the
Jewish people; not even among His own disciples. And I remind you that many
potential Messiahs had already come and gone, and even more would come
after Christ's death on the cross including men such as Shi'mon Bar
Kokhbah who led the Jewish people in a rebellion against Rome in the 130's
A.D. But this idea of the story of the 2 blind men and a possible connection with
Solomon really intrigued me. After all, while Yeshua drew people to Him through
His stupendous miracles, He also had gained a reputation as a fount of Wisdom
that stood above even the Jewish religious authorities; Temple or Synagogue.
And who in Israelite history was known most for his wisdom? Solomon.
Let this idea sink in a moment. I suggested in earlier lessons that while Yeshua's
miracles were amazing to behold, those miracles were NOT what led the people,
Jews or gentiles, to believe He was the Messiah. And I also suggested that
especially among those who came in later generations (including ours) that while
those mind-bending miracles make for great reading and for faith building it was
not that but His Wisdom that drew us towards Him in the first place. It is the depth
and truth of what He taught and the compassion and soul-healing that He stood
for that has brought countless millions of humanity to Him for Salvation. The
Apostle Paul was particularly sensitive to the characteristic of Wisdom being
associated with Christ. Here is but one of numerous statements Paul made
speaking of Yeshua in terms of Wisdom.
CJB 1 Corinthians 1:21-24 21 For God's wisdom ordained that the world,
using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God
decided to use the "nonsense" of what we proclaim as his means of saving
those who come to trust in it. 22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and
Greeks try to find wisdom, 23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on
a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is
nonsense; 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same
Messiah is God's power and God's wisdom!
Here Paul explains Yeshua's very substance as that of "God's Wisdom". No
matter which Bible version one might choose to study, the connection between
Christ and Wisdom, even Wisdom being organically embodied in Christ (as it was
said to be in Solomon) is front and center, and is unmistakable. It helps when we
learn that in ancient times, in nearly every society, Wisdom was seen as a living
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
thing (in some religions it was an entirely separate god or goddess). Wisdom was
a tangible entity that was perceived as having actual power of itself.
So I researched the possibility that perhaps Jews of Christ's day thought of the
term "Son of David" not how we have typically pictured it, but rather it was a term
used in two different and separate ways: the first was meant as an association
with the Messiah, but the second was meant as an association with David's son
he had with Bathsheba: Solomon. My search led to a Bible scholar, Loren
Fisher, who in 1968 pointed out that some ancient incantation bowls with
inscriptions written in Aramaic on them, had been discovered in the Holy Land.
These writings spoke of King Solomon as a great exorcist (that is, he could order
demons out of people). In 1974 Evald Lovestam pointed out that in the ancient
extra-biblical work called The Testament of Solomon, written perhaps as early as
the 1st century, King Solomon was characterized as having been a miracle
healer, even a magician of sorts. I'm not saying that in actuality King Solomon
was any of these things; but they are solid evidence that in ancient times, and by
all accounts in Jesus's time as well, that the acts of miracle healing and exorcism
had, among the Jewish people, become something associated more with the
qualities of Solomon than with a Messiah. When we add the miracle healings
attributed to Solomon to the commonly understood chief characteristic of
Solomon as the master of Wisdom on earth, Jesus certainly would have reflected
those same attributes to the minds of the Jews who witnessed it. Therefore this
might be the reason why these blind men shouted "Son of David" at Him. It was
not that they were thinking in terms of a Messiah who was a descendant of David
as much as they were thinking of this amazing man having the characteristics of
King Solomon, the actual Old Testament Son of David. This scenario fits the
story in Matthew far better than assigning to these blind men an inexplicable
belief that somehow they were thinking that Jesus was the Messiah even before
He had revealed Himself.
For those who might misunderstand what I'm saying, in no way do I mean that
Yeshua is not Messiah, and instead is the personification of Wisdom. I'm saying
that just as He is both the Lamb and the Lion, He is also both Savior and
Wisdom. He bears the characteristics of both David and Solomon (after all, He
was descended through David's son Solomon). But to this point in His earthly
ministry (the timeline portrayed in the Gospel accounts) it had not yet occurred to
the Jews that He might be the Messiah who bore David's characteristics. Rather
He was at this point in time more naturally seen as Wisdom and the healer and
the exorcist; someone who bore Solomon's characteristics (even though most of
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
these characteristics were steeped in folklore and Tradition).
Why did I spend so much time exploring this with you? Because this provides
much needed additional background for what we're reading. It explains how
various Jewish people thought of Jesus of Nazareth quite differently as they
struggled to comprehend where, exactly, He fit into their understanding about
those mysterious few men in Jewish history who had the power to perform
miracles and healings and exorcisms. If we can wrap our minds around this
concept then we will gain a more true understanding of the historical and actual
Yeshua, the people He interacted with, and what these Gospel accounts reveal
about the real people living at that time. If we can apprehend what the words,
terms, and actions that we find in the New Testament indicated to members of
1st century Jewish society, and not what they seem to mean as seen through the
lens of modern Western and Eastern societies of Christians, 2000 years later,
then we will gain a more solid foundation for our own personal faith. Let's move
on.
So, the 2 blind men who think of Jesus as possessing the characteristics of the
Son of David.... in their minds probably meaning Solomon-like abilities.... they
beseech Him to take notice of them. The next verse says that when He entered
"the house" these 2 blind men came to Him and pled with Him. Who's house is
"the house"? It indicates Yeshua's own personal home in Capernaum, or Peter's,
or it is that (as many suspect) Yeshua was residing with Peter and for a time it
could be said it was their mutual home. Notice Yeshua's response to their plea.
Paraphrased, He asked them if they thought that He had the power to do what
they were asking. What did Christ mean by saying this? Clearly these 2 men
wouldn't have run after Christ and begged Him to heal them if they didn't already
think He could do it. The issue is not just faith but in depth of faith. Do they have
enough faith to sincerely believe that Yeshua has the power to heal? Even
though in the Jewish culture blindness was thought to have been the result of sin,
Yeshua doesn't do with these 2 men what He did with the paralytic; that is, He
doesn't forgive their sins, that then results in physical healing. Rather He
establishes their faith that He unequivocally does have the extraordinary power to
heal their blindness, and then says that as a result of this faith (or trust) they are
healed. And behold! Instantly they could see.
And yet if their faith was NOT in Yeshua as the Messiah, then in what was their
faith? All Christ asked was if they have the faith to truly, sincerely believe that He
had the power to heal them; not if they thought He was the Savior. Obviously
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
they did possess that level of faith. Notice that once again, as with the dead girl
whom Yeshua revivified, this miracle was done in private, inside the house. The
Church Father Chrysostom in his homily on the Gospel of Matthew says this
about this passage:
For what purpose did it happen that, while they are crying out, He delays
and questions them further? Here again Jesus is teaching us utterly to
resist the glory that comes from the crowds. There was a house nearby. He
led them into the house to heal them in private. Then He charged them to
tell no one.
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but doesn't it make you a little uneasy or even
skeptical at some of these large Christian healing gatherings (especially the
televised ones) when in front of a rapt crowd a Pastor will line people up as
though they are anxiously waiting in line to board an amusement ride, and
dramatically lay a hand on them and miraculously heal them to the shouts and
adoration of those present? And an expectation of money for the healer is
involved in some way? Isn't this the opposite of Christ's example? Is it not
something that He mostly tried to avoid? Apparently such a temptation to do such
a thing as to exploit the victims and the crowds came about long before Yeshua's
day, existed all during it, and lives on into modern times. When Christ speaks
about praying or healing to gain personal adulation and reward, it isn't in positive
terms.
Therefore, as typical, in verse 30 Yeshua was said to have admonished the
healed blind men "severely" not to tell anyone. Other versions say "sternly
warned". These are all good interpretations of the Greek. The point is, Yeshua
didn't tell them as an aside, or nicely, to be quiet about this miracle. He was
emphatic; He ordered it and the intention was unmistakable. So how did these 2
men who could now see again react? They promptly went out from the house,
journeyed across the region (no doubt meaning the Galilee) and talked about
what happened to them to everyone they encountered. As Believers we could
probably chalk this up to unbridled joy and enthusiasm. Or as so many in the
Church teach, these two were out evangelizing. Hardly. They were being
disobedient. Even if they meant no harm from it, or if they were so happy they
just couldn't contain themselves, they immediately went out and did what they
were specifically and forcefully commanded NOT to do! Forget the why of it.
You know, we can read of Christians doing things (or not doing things they
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
should have done) that Yeshua explicitly taught about, all through the ages and
being proud of themselves in the doing. Big things like the Church pushing Jews
out. Or like the Inquisition. Or like the Crusades. Or like the Holocaust. Or like
declaring the Law of Moses as null and void. Nearly every one of these and
scores of other examples were done in the name of enthusiasm, and also in
Christ's name. I don't think for a second that these 2 blind men in any way
thought of Yeshua as the Messiah. Rather to them He was an extraordinary Holy
Man who even bore characteristics of Solomon; therefore obedience to Him
played no role. Otherwise we have two men who convert and instantly disobey
Yeshua. When later we read of those who truly know Him as Messiah, they will
fastidiously obey Him even unto death if necessary.
Christians of all eras seem to have the most annoying proclivity to at once
profess unshakable faith and at the same time demonstrate remarkable
unfaithfulness. When we come to teaching moments like these in our study, I just
can't help but to be reminded of the most terrifying passage in the entire Bible:
CJB Matthew 7:21-22 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?'
Does this not rather well fit those 2 former blind men who couldn't wait to disobey
Christ, even if it was because they were so happy at what He did for them? Our
emotions do not trump Jesus's commands.
Verse 32 says "as they were going". Apparently Christ and some of His disciples
had left Capernaum. Where ever He was or was going, large crowds were again
present. Christ's ministry had progressed such that His feats couldn't help but
attract hundreds, perhaps thousands. Clearly not only the curious came but also
those who had hopes of healing for themselves or others. Yeshua now meets yet
another demon possessed man who had been unable to speak because of it. In
the most abrupt, concise way Matthew simply says that the demon was expelled,
which allowed the man to talk. Each miracle adds to Jesus's reputation and the
crowds cannot get enough of it. We're told that the viewpoint of the people is that
there is no precedent among the people of Israel for what Christ is doing. That is,
this doesn't mean in all recorded history of the Israelite people that no one has
done such things; but rather in recent memory such things have not happened.
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
The Pharisees (which meant the leadership of the religious party) have a different
opinion. In fact, when we read this passage we see that first Matthew has the
crowd respond to the exorcising of the demon possessed man by being very
impressed, and then immediately we have the Pharisee leadership (the
synagogue leadership) responding to the crowds. The Pharisees are not talking
to Yeshua but to the people who witnessed the dumb man now speaking, and
they are trying to discourage them from thinking what Christ is doing is a good
thing. Rather they claim that since Christ expelled a demon that it was only
because of His co-operation with the ruler of the demons (Satan). This seems, on
its face, to be an absurdity. However when the legitimate and respected
leadership of a group or a government claims something, no matter how
preposterous, the common folk will often just assume that their leaders must be
right for no other reason that they are the leaders.
We don't read of a response from Jesus to this obvious slander; probably
because He didn't hear it. One can only wonder if Matthew just let this stand
without rebuttal because on its face the Pharisee leaders' accusation is
ridiculous. Even so, Matthew will use this rash claim as a foil in later parts of his
Gospel. Many Bible scholars are convinced that a passage in Mark is telling this
same story and so it adds some information for us.
CJB Mark 3:22-26 22 The Torah-teachers who came down from Yerushalayim
said, "He has Ba'al-Zibbul in him," and "It is by the ruler of the demons that
he expels the demons." 23 But he called them and spoke to them in
parables: "How can Satan expel Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against
itself, that kingdom can't survive; 25 and if a household is divided against
itself, that household can't survive. 26 So if Satan has rebelled against
himself and is divided, he can't survive either; and that's the end of him.
First, I cannot agree that this is the same story at all; but rather another that has
some similarities. For one reason the context is entirely different. This goes hand
in glove with the insistence among a number of Bible teachers that Luke's
Sermon on the Plain is one and the same as Matthew's Sermon on the Mount
because the sermons incorporate some common elements and sayings.
However the setting and the sermons themselves are more unalike than alike.
The agenda behind this claim of Matthew and Mark speaking about the same
event about the blind men is because of the scholarly consensus that Mark was
the first Gospel writer (without any hard evidence at all) and Matthew the last;
and they assume that Matthew takes elements from both Mark's and Luke's
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
Gospels to fashion his own. So in their estimation Matthew merely took Mark's
story and abbreviated it and to some degree changed it to suit himself.
Second, the context for Mark's account of what the Pharisees said to Christ
about Him driving out demons is entirely different than Matthew's. In Mark the
story takes place on a Sabbath and the Pharisee's bone of contention is that
Yeshua should not heal people or exorcise demons on Shabbat. Therefore for
Christ to do so makes Him wicked, and so the spiritual authority to dispossess
demons can only be Satan and not God.
In any case, without further comment, Matthew moves on from the Pharisees'
ridiculous accusation towards Yeshua and explains that He spent some time
visiting many towns and villages. Since the end of His Sermon on the Mount
we've seen that the focus of Christ's ministry has been on healing and exorcising
demons from people. Verse 35 returns us to His teaching ministry. Or, the way
Jews would have seen it, Yeshua began operating again more in the role of a
Wisdom teacher, like Solomon, something that was also attributed to
the Tzadikkim. Yeshua's main topic was proclaiming the Good News. What
Good News? The Good News of salvation? No; not yet. It was the Good News of
the arrival on earth of "the Kingdom" (short hand for the Kingdom of Heaven or
the Kingdom of God). In Christian terms we might say that Jesus went on a
missionary tour of the Holy Land; but unlike Paul's missionary tours that were
evangelical in nature, Christ's mission tour was to alert the Jewish people that a
new era had begun: the Kingdom of Heaven has appeared. So we need to think
of His tour in the context of Him accomplishing 3 things. He taught in the
synagogues, preached about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, and healed
every manner of infirmity for the common masses of Jews. Yet Yeshua is not
only on a Good News tour; He is on a fact-finding mission. He wants to know:
what is the spiritual condition of the people of Israel? The results are
disappointing and what He learned is reported in verse 36.
CJB Matthew 9:36 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them
because they were harried and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
It is not difficult even in our modern world where very few of us have been around
sheep, to understand the metaphor of a sheep without a shepherd in an abstract
sense. However when this illustration is how Matthew says Yeshua viewed the
situation of the Jewish people scattered about the Holy Land, it is best to
understand it from its historical sense. We find several references in the Old
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
Testament to sheep without a shepherd. I want to share one in particular with you
because I suspect this is most similar to how Jesus felt about His people, and it
can apply to modern times as well. In other words I think we need to veer off to
application for a few minutes.
Open your Bibles to 2nd Chronicles chapter 18.
READ 2ND CHRONICLES 18:1 - 17
This story is about two Hebrew kings that lived at a time long after King
Solomon's death when Israel had, through civil war, become divided into two
nations or kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel to the north and the Kingdom of
Judah to the south. The Kingdom of Israel was ruled by Ahav and the Kingdom of
Judah was ruled by Jehoshaphat; they had become allies. Israel had wandered
off more and more into paganism, while Judah had stayed somewhat closer to
the God of Israel in worship and in practice, probably because they still had the
Temple and Priesthood in their territory. Ahav decided (for whatever reason) that
he wanted to attack Ramoth Gilead and of course wanted his ally Jehoshaphat to
join him in doing so. As was custom for a king, Ahav called his prophets to the
palace to give their predictions and recommendations for doing such a thing.
These prophets were pagans or at least they worshipped other gods.
Jehoshaphat knew this and asked Ahav if there weren't any Israelite prophets left
in his kingdom that they could consult. Ahav said yes there is one; but he doesn't
like him very much because he never tells him what he wants to hear.
All of Ahav's pagan prophets, on the other hand, were quick to prophesy a good
outcome for whatever the king wanted to have happen. But this one prophet, a
God worshipper and true prophet named Mikhayahu, had the annoying habit of
telling the king what God told him to say instead of going along with the politically
correct crowd. So Ahav never wanted to hear from him; but Jehoshaphat did. The
prophet was summoned and appeared before both of the kings. Interestingly,
probably out of self preservation, this time he just told Ahav what he wanted to
hear; that the coalition would easily defeat Ramoth Gilead. But Jehoshaphat
smelled a rat and told Mikhayahu to tell the truth whereupon he did. He changed
his tune and said the campaign would be a disaster. The result would be that
Israel would be so defeated that the remaining soldiers would just wander around
the hill country like a bunch of sheep without a shepherd. Further, God says, let
these soldiers go home in peace because they have no leader to lead them. This
elicited the response of a furious and insulted Ahav: "See, I told you so. He never
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
says good things for me!"
While this is actually pretty humorous, the point is that in God's economy sheep
without a shepherd was a metaphor for His people having no legitimate or proper
leadership in God's eyes. In Christ's day it had been hundreds of years since
there had been a Jewish King over Judah, so the Priests were supposed to fill
that leadership role as the spiritual leadership (although not the civil government
leadership). But the High Priest and his family were completely illegitimate and
not of the biblical line of High Priests. Rather the High Priesthood was run by
politically connected aristocrats; the office bought and sold to the high bidder.
The Temple had become mostly a place of commerce and profit, simply using the
guise of religion to fleece the people of their tithes and offerings as the source of
the High Priest's wealth. The Synagogue was also of questionable value, but for
different reasons. The Pharisees were the Synagogue leadership; yet they had
no biblically ordained position; the entire institution was manmade and doctrinal.
The Synagogue operated mostly on Tradition; or as we find Jesus call it,
Traditions of the Elders. It's not that there weren't well intentioned leaders and
good teachers from time to time that taught the Scriptures at the Synagogue.
However as we look at the Mishnah (which admittedly was not created until a
couple of hundred years after Christ) we see that Scripture had been, for a long
time, interpreted through the lens of Tradition and custom and so what was being
taught was sculpted and shaped to suit various Pharisee beliefs. The result was
that slowly, surely, nearly imperceptibly, the Hebrew religion had become so
weak and powerless without the inspiration of the unfiltered biblical truth that
Christ viewed His people, the Jews, like Ahav's sheep without a shepherd... a
leaderless flock who would be better off to just stay at home and be at peace.
In so many ways modern Christians will take what I just said, and knowingly
shake our heads in sad agreement at what had become of God's people in the
Bible. We feel bad over how lost they had become and how terrible their leaders
were. But what of us, today? If we are honest do not most Christians simply want
to hear from their Pastors something that affirms what they want to hear that
agrees with whatever it is that they believe? And if not, they leave and search for
another Church. The term Church-shopping was coined just for this reason.
Just as Christ demonstrates over and over, it begins with bad leadership that can
sink so low that God sees them as no leadership at all. Leadership is biblically
likened to being shepherds. The purpose of a shepherd is to care for and guard
his flock. He is to stave off the wolves, even with his own life, for the good of the
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Lesson 33 - Matthew 9 cont 2
sheep. Shepherds didn't get rich; money was not the point. The well being of the
sheep was the point. Therefore it is generally incompatible for a Christian
shepherd-leader to actively seek both riches from his position of leadership and
at the same time to devote himself to caring for the members of the congregation.
Such a leader is going to fashion for himself a group of elders that will simply
agree with him; like Ahav did with his group of prophets. One,
like Mikhayahu, that comes forward with Godly, biblically sourced advice
contrary to what that Church leader wants to hear probably won't last very long.
Am I pointing a finger only at leadership? For now, yes, but only because that
was the point of Christ's comment after touring towns and villages in the Holy
Land. It was also the point of the story when the Godly
prophet Mikhayahu spoke to Kings Ahav and Jehoshaphat. Christ regularly
expresses contempt for bad or corrupt religious leadership; He never concerns
Himself with civil government leadership. On the other hand He has compassion
for the common people that the leaders are supposed to be properly and
selflessly leading, but don't. Because without Godly leadership the sheep will
soon wander aimlessly (even if they don't realize it). So dear friends from here
forward I'd like you to think about this whenever you hear about sheep and
shepherds, and especially sheep without a shepherd. It is a very sad state of
affairs in the eyes of Our Lord. But it is also one that some unsuspecting leaders
are eventually going to have to answer for because God puts great responsibility
upon those whom He bestows the honor of being a leader of His people. Yet,
congregation.... Believers.... please; you too have a responsibility. Don't choose
where you want to attend to be fed and get fellowship according to hearing what
you want to hear. Choose the place and person that you're willing to be led by
according to that person's intent to guard the flock and to dispense God's
Scriptural truth even if it comes with some discomfort. No one ever said that the
sheep have it easy.
The final two verses of chapter 9 are profound and deserve sufficient time to deal
with them; so we'll begin the next lesson with that as our first topic.
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 34, Chapter 9 and 10
We'll conclude Matthew chapter 9 today and get into Matthew chapter 10.
What we've been reading in chapter 9 has all been occurring on the shores of the
Sea of Galilee; largely in Yeshua's new hometown of Capernaum, itself a
commercial fishing village. When He first moved out of Nazareth and into
Capernaum we don't know, because there's a fairly large hole in the Gospels
about His life from the time He was 12 or 13 until He was about 30. Up until verse
35 we have been hearing about specific instances of miracle healings, cleansing
from uncleanness, and exorcisms of demons from possessed persons. From
verse 35 until the end of the chapter Yeshua has decided to venture beyond His
village, nearly certainly traveling around the wider region of the Galilee, for the
purpose of teaching and speaking in synagogues where He proclaimed the Good
News. To be clear: as of that point there's nothing in existence that we could
even remotely call a Church. There are also no such things as Messianic
Synagogues, but we can read about them in Paul's Epistles because that came
at a later date. Let's re-read just a few verses that concludes Matthew 9.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 9:35 - end
Although I covered it last time, I want to reiterate just what this Good News was
that Jesus was teaching and instructing about. When a Christian hears the term
"Good News" one thought instantly comes to mind: salvation. The Church for
centuries has made the Good News one in the same as the message of salvation
in Christ. That is not wrong; but it is also not what this Good News of Matthew
chapter 9 is speaking about. Rather it is the good news of the arrival of the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Of course, in hindsight, we know that Yeshua, as
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
Messiah, will be the ruler of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, so certainly He is
part and parcel of God's Kingdom. But that idea in no way has yet been taught to
the Jewish people apparently not even to Christ's closest inner circle of
disciples. Why is that? Why is it that Yeshua has flatly avoided revealing His
divine self and His full mission, thus far seemingly satisfied with being viewed as
but an extraordinary Tzadik... a Holy Man?
While some amount of speculation is called for, I feel fairly confident in the
answer to that question. Being a teacher of God's Word for a long time, I have
personally witnessed the process a person goes through as they.... as you
hear God's Word in a more un-muffled, un-spun form, with context added. And
the thing that instantly becomes apparent is that we all come from different
religious backgrounds, therefore believing different things, many of them
unspoken. We have all been taught different things about the Bible that inevitably
have come from various Pastors, each who is usually beholden to one
denomination or another and therefore wed to particular traditions and doctrines.
And, I'm afraid, much of it is considerably enough off course such that some
amount of course correction is in order BEFORE biblical truth can break through
that hardened soil.
Just like in elementary school, the basic fundamentals of subjects must be taught
first if ever we're to understand the whole of the matter. We have to know how to
add and subtract before we can multiply or do long division. Each grade,
representing another step towards deeper understanding of these subjects, has
to occur in a logical order such that just like building a house, one always begins
with ground preparation, then a foundation, then the skeletal form of the 1st floor,
then the 2nd if one is planned, then a roof is put over it, the skeleton is covered
over on the outside, later on the inside, and on and on until we have a completed
house. Try to do those steps in a different order, or skip one, and the entire
structure becomes frail and faulty. Yeshua well knew that the Jewish people He
addressed were in no way properly prepared, educated in God's Word, to hear
and process the stunning reality that He was the Messiah, He was divine, He
would offer up Himself as a sacrifice on a cross for forgiveness of sins, and that
He would one day become the ruler on earth of God's Kingdom. Even though the
Jewish people, for the most part, believed they were living in the End Times it
was almost entirely because of the Roman occupation that they felt was so
oppressive and unbearable. The synagogue Torah Teachers were mostly
teaching Traditions, manmade doctrines, handed down to them that too often
misinterpreted or misused or obscured the actual biblical truth. Social justice was
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
at the forefront of their sermons because of the detested Roman occupation,
which constantly intruded in their lives.
In whatever era, whenever we try to re-shape the biblical truth around a problem
we're encountering, too often it is spun and molded to make it fit more to our
current way of thinking and to our personal hopes for certain outcomes than it is
to the discovery of, and submission to, God's will. Until Yeshua could spend the
time to re-teach some of the basic fundamentals of their Hebrew faith (as it
appeared in the Torah), and could re-establish what the Jewish people ought to
be putting their hope in, they would not be able to hear and accept the bottom
line: Yeshua of Nazareth was their Messiah and their King, and that delivering
them from the grip of Rome wasn't what He came to do. The proof of what I'm
telling you lies in the fact that relatively few of the Jewish people accepted Him
for who He was actually was. Instead they chose to cling to the Traditions of their
Elders and to what their synagogue leaders had taught them for scores of years,
and to keep fighting for social justice in their own way within, and at times
against, the Roman system. This kind of human-centered agenda enabled them
to stay within the comfort zones of what they aimed for, but at the same time it
trapped them in a spiritual fog, unable to clearly see the truth. Yeshua was still to
this point in our Matthew study gaining their attention in order to repair a faulty
foundation.
Verse 36 explains that as He went about His Good News Holy Land tour, He
became quite sad at what He witnessed. To Him the people were like lost sheep;
sheep that had no shepherd. People that had no leader. And by leader this is not
to say a civic government leader but rather a spiritual leader. Yeshua simply
didn't concern Himself with civic government except to say that whatever one
exists over us, The Father has allowed it or it wouldn't be there. Therefore, we
aren't to rebel against its many rules and regulations but to do all we can to exist
peacefully within it. Obviously this is the divine viewpoint because hundreds of
Pharisees and Scribes would have vehemently disagreed; they thought
themselves as good shepherds of the people. But it also makes the point that just
because a religious governing structure is established doesn't make it a good
one. And it also doesn't mean that how those leaders lead the flock, and what
they teach the flock, is truthful or helpful. What can look so good on the surface
can be potentially catastrophic under that thin veneer. Yeshua is meaning to
unequivocally point out a general failure of leadership.
Thus the last statement Christ makes to end chapter 9 is that the harvest is rich
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
(meaning abundant) but the workers to take in the harvest are few. Instead of
crumbling in despair, or allowing His followers to do so, He orders His disciples to
pray for more workers. Make no mistake; in Jesus's eyes what He was
witnessing among the lost sheep of Israel wasn't merely a problem; it was a
crisis. So here He is teaching that when God's worshippers are in crisis the
answer is to turn in faith towards God.
Biblically, the harvest is a regularly used metaphor that is more often than not
associated to the End Times. But notice something easily overlooked. Christ says
to pray to the Lord of the harvest. Who is the Lord of the harvest? Most of the
Church would instinctively say "Jesus". Not true. Clearly Yeshua is not instructing
His disciples to pray to Him, anymore than when in Matthew chapter 6 He taught
them what we today call The Lord's Prayer. In every case of prayer, in every
Gospel account, Christ says that all prayer is to be directed to The Father. It is
The Father who is Lord of the harvest.
But what, exactly, does the harvest represent? First and foremost it points to the
end of a cycle; in our case the end of an age. Harvesting is in one sense the final
step of the agricultural cycle; but in reality it is the next to the last.
CJB Revelation 14:14-16 14 Then / looked, and there before me was a white
cloud. Sitting on the cloud was someone like a Son of Man with a gold
crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Another angel came
out of the Temple and shouted to the one sitting on the cloud, "Start using
your sickle to reap, because the time to reap has come- the earth's harvest
is ripe!" 16 The one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and
the earth was harvested.
The final step is what happens after the harvest is brought in; the winnowing of
what has been harvested. From the 1st century perspective, in a typical harvest
the good and the bad (like weeds) were taken and afterwards had to be
separated. So we must be careful not to read a Western Christian view in
Yeshua's words that means "harvesting only Christians". ALL humans will be
harvested; only at the winnowing process will the wheat kernels (Believers) will
be separated away from the chaff (the non-Believers), each to vastly different
eternal destinies. Another metaphor Yeshua will use later for this process is
separating the sheep from the goats.
So when Christ was speaking to His disciples, was He speaking to them about a
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
future event that would come thousands of years later.... only they didn't realize
it? Would that have been how His disciples would have understood it? Not at all.
In the P'shat sense Yeshua was speaking about the here and now for Him and
His disciples; after all the Kingdom had already arrived. Remember: the era of
Yeshua was the first of two Latter Days scenarios the Bible speaks of; however
the Jewish people were only aware of the first. So His disciples would have
understood this as an End Times message from Him to them; the End Times
they felt was imminent. This was the End Times that Yeshua's disciples, and later
Apostles like Paul, were ready to give their lives for to preach. For them it was so
imminent that they thought they'd personally endure it....if they weren't already
enduring it. Indeed Christ wanted them to go and make more disciples and to
spread the Good News of the arrival of the Kingdom of God on earth (this exact
instruction begins Matthew chapter 10). But prior to Christ's resurrection, this
message was to be spread only to the Jewish people. Thus it was in
the P'shat context that His disciples understood Him. For them the rich harvest
their Master spoke of were Jews, and there needed to be more Jewish workers
(disciples of Christ) to proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom to the Jewish people.
In the Remez sense however, we see the hint of something deeper. From the
vantage point of history and the several books of the New Testament we now
understand that Yeshua was also speaking of a second Latter Days. He was also
speaking of the true and final end of the age, when He returns and sets up His
Father's Kingdom to its fullest, on earth, and even at the end of that 1000 year
reign when the final judgment occurs. It is when the full and final harvest occurs;
a harvest not just of the Jewish people but of all the earth's inhabitants; not only
the living but also of those that had ever lived.
CJB Revelation 20:11-13 11 Next I saw a great white throne and the One
sitting on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was
found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, both great and small, standing in
front of the throne. Books were opened; and another book was opened, the
Book of Life; and the dead were judged from what was written in the books,
according to what they had done. 13 The sea gave up the dead in it; and
Death and Sh'ol gave up the dead in them; and they were judged, each
according to what he had done.
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 10. For today, we'll only read the opening
verses.
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 10:1 - 10
We're going to take the time to go on a few detours in Chapter 10 because
there's a few things that need some special attention. This chapter opens with
Matthew explaining that as of that moment Yeshua had formed a core group of
12 disciples. And, He gave them special authority to do several things that
Yeshua, Himself, did that we call miracles. They could exorcise demons and they
could heal infirmities. From there Matthew goes on to specifically name the 12
Disciples. It might surprise you to know that of all the Gospel writers only
Matthew gives this group the title of The 12 Disciples. Why 12 and not some
other number? We don't have to guess; clearly it was meant to be symbolic of the
12 tribes of Israel that included the so-called 10 Lost Tribes. A few chapters later
in the Book of Matthew this is highlighted.
CJB Matthew 19:27-28 27 Kefa replied, "Look, we have left everything and
followed you. So what will we have?" 28 Yeshua said to them, "Yes. I tell you
that in the regenerated world, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious
throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones and judge
the twelve tribes of Isra'el.
It is important to notice that there were some privileges and special authority
bestowed only upon the 12; but not upon all followers of Christ. It is also
important to understand that Israel, and only Israel, was currently on Yeshua's
and the disciples' radar. The gentile world played no role as participants or
disciples for now (that would come later). Why 12 disciples for 12 tribes if 10 of
them were "lost"? Because in Yeshua's day these 10 tribes weren't quite as lost
as the Church has historically seen them and their existence wasn't at all
questioned. It was well known in Christ's day that identifiable remnants of some
of those 10 tribes lived in Samaria, Perea, and a few other areas near the Sea of
Galilee. It was also known that still others lived in far away lands (usually
described as "multitudes beyond the Euphrates") in much larger numbers.
So; the point of having exactly 12 Disciples had more to do with events of the
End Times than anything else because within Judaism and within the Bible, we
find that it is prophesied that the 10 Tribes will return to the Holy Land and be
reunited with their 2 brother tribes of Judah and Benjamin, thereby reconstituting
the 12 tribes of Israel. Thus those 12 disciples as well as most Jews in the Holy
Land, it seems, believed this glorious event was on the cusp of happening.
Knowing this is critical to properly understanding the New Testament. These
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disciples of Christ, and the first couple of generations of Jewish Believers, were
certain they were living in the Latter Days and so they felt that every biblical
prophecy concerning the End Times was something they were already
experiencing or were about to. There was no thought that what their Master was
teaching them was about a distant future or for another people.
Two famous passages in Ezekiel that speak of the incredible reconstitution of all
12 Tribes of Israel is something all Believers need to be familiar with; they come
from chapters 36 and 37.
READ EZEKIEL 36:22 - 27
Where this passage begins by saying "....tell the house of Israel" this is referring
to the 10 tribes. This is because after Israel split into two kingdoms some years
after Solomon's death, one kingdom was called Israel and the other Judah. But
biblically each kingdom was also called a "house". So the two houses of Israel
(one consisting of 10 tribes, the other of 2 tribes) make up the whole house of
Israel. Thus our passage is aimed at the legendary 10 Lost Tribes, which God
says through Ezekiel will return. We learn of their actual reunification with Judah
and Benjamin in Ezekiel 37.
READ EZEKIEL 37:15 -22
These passages explain why in Yeshua's eyes there needed to be 12 disciples;
no more and no less. It was seen by Him as most necessary for preparation for
the End Times, which is still ahead of us. How far ahead of us I'm not certain; but
recent events make me think sooner than later. The Bible gives us 3 main signals
for the entry of mankind into the second and final Latter Days: 1) the rebirth of
Israel as a nation; 2) the recapture of Jerusalem by the Jews and put under
Jewish control; 3) and the return of the 10 Lost Tribes. The first of the three
prophesied events happened in 1948. The second in 1967. The third is
underway. Thousands of people from far flung places who identify themselves
with one or the other of the 10 tribes have been immigrating to Israel since
around 2005. I have personally witnessed the arrival of two batches of them.
They have been vetted both by designated Rabbinical scholars and government
officials; they really are of the 10 Lost Tribes. In fact, this return started much
earlier because one of the largest groups to immigrate to Israel is the Ethiopian
Jews who are also known as the Black Jews of Ethiopia. However that name
obscures one very important fact; they are of the Tribe of Dan, not of Judah or
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Benjamin. They are 1 of the 10 Lost Tribes, and they have returned.
I want to change direction, now, to the authority or power that the 12 Disciples
received from Yeshua in order for them to do what we term as miracles, which
even includes raising the dead. The Bible is full of miracles, and they are called
such; but I'm not sure they are discussed all that much in modern times. Miracles
are defined in the dictionary as a surprising and welcome event that is not
explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work
of a divine agency. In other words, it is something that we believe, or science has
told us, cannot possibly happen but it does. Therefore something outside of the
natural realm and what science can explain occurs.
Because our rational senses tell us that our world including the Universe simply
aren't constructed in a way to allow for these events, then most secular folks and
many within modern Christianity have become doubtful that miracles actually
occurred in Bible times. Or begrudgingly they say that perhaps miracles once did
happen but they no longer do. Rather, because of the teaching of the sciences
and our skepticism, the so-called miracles both in life today, and in Scripture, are
strictly a natural phenomena that the ancients didn't understand so, out of
superstition, they could explain them only as miracles caused by one god or
another. The parting of the Red Sea, the turning of water to wine, even Yeshua's
resurrection, and of course this long list of healings that He did while on earth are
today questioned within wide swaths of the Church body. Even those who do
believe in actual miracles, then and now, have a tendency to call these events
"supernatural" meaning something well outside the bounds of what can normally
happen. Put another way, the supernatural is something that happens outside of
the ability of the make-up of the Universe to accommodate. But if we don't
believe there is something outside of the Universe to cause these strange
happenings, then they are simply natural events that are misinterpreted by those
who experienced them, and can be explained in scientific or medical terms.
I think this a good spot to pause and discuss the phenomena of miracles
because otherwise we are jumping right over what has been the main substance
of Christ's work on earth to this point in His life. To try to create a workable
context for thinking about it I need you to put down your Bibles, put on your
scholar's cap, and focus on what I'm going to tell you. I'll begin this somewhat
uncomfortable detour by making this claim: miracles need NOT be looked at as
supernatural per se, but rather in a sense as something quite natural within the
realm of what is possible for God and perhaps even within the way He created
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
the Universe to operate. A Universe that we know far less about than we have
been led to believe.
If you watch those interesting science shows on TV, or even attend classes in
physics, the impression is given that scientists now have a pretty good handle on
how the cosmos, and even life, was created and operates.... however that is
simply chutzpah. In point of fact, each passing day is casting doubt on, if not in
some cases destroying, old assumptions that have been the basis for classic
physics and astrophysics and particle physics for decades. Numerous
experiments conducted by the best science minds and consortiums on earth are
now ready to throw into the trash bin large parts of the current understanding of
how the material that makes up the Universe operates. On the one hand that is
exciting news; on the other hand these scientists don't know what to replace it
with. As of now it is only perplexion and mystery because of the rise of the field of
Quantum Mechanics and what it seems to be revealing.
Science, like religion, constantly strives to find firm, unequivocal answers to the
really big questions, as well as a host of smaller ones. Uncertainty is
uncomfortable. I'll try to make these findings the least science-y that I can and
then I think you'll understand where I'm going with it and how it pertains to our
faith.
Quantum physics operates on a theoretical level because they're bumping into
things that don't seem to behave as rationality and logic and scientific
observation have previously dictated. For instance; Quantum physics doesn't
deal with what an object actually is, but rather with the probabilities of what
something could be. They call this theoretical substance that could become any
number of things a probability wave. And the more they delve into this strange
something that science has almost feared might prove to be true because it
potentially upends and upsets so much that was formerly thought to have been
known and settled is that, as irrational as it seems, time does not seem to
actually exist as a real entity or even a dimension and time has always played an
important role in physics. Enormously expensive and elaborate experiments in
Quantum Mechanics are proving this startling development to be true. But even
more, these experiments also seem to be proving that space, as we think of it,
doesn't actually exist either. Therefore the basic idea of location (that is, our
every day understanding of all things being located in a particular place) and the
basic concept of distance (the simple idea of how far apart things are) are also in
doubt. Rather, these things that seem so real, tangible and logical to us may
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
actually be mostly or entirely constructs of the mind. Not in the sense of our
imagination; but rather in the sense that time and space are constructs of the
observer.
What is an observer? It's the person watching something happen. In the case of
science it's the person running an experiment, and taking careful notice of what
happens. So how weird is the concept that experiment after experiment is
revealing that objects may only exist in reality in a specific form at a specific
place based on the requirement that an observer must be there to detect it;
otherwise these objects do not come into existence at all but merely remain as a
probability wave! And no, this is not the old philosophical challenge that many of
us faced in our University Philosophy class that if I place a large tablecloth over a
table, big enough that I can't see the actual table anymore, can I prove with
certainty that the table is still there. My answer has always been: of course I can!
Because by means of a rather simple experiment I can walk over to the table
cloth, pick up a corner and sneak a peek. And every single time I do, I (as the
observer) see that the table is still there! But what Quantum physics is now
revealing is that nothing exists without someone being present to observe it; and
that's because particles of matter and waves of energy that form everything in the
Universe, humans included, don't seem to settle down into that particular state
until they are actually observed by a sentient, conscious being.
But even stranger and more mind bending than this is something called particle
entanglement. This theory is nothing new... in fact it dates back to Einstein in
1935. But with our recent technological advances, the theory has been put to the
test, and very nearly something called "fact" has emerged. The basis of the
theory is this: one particle can somehow "know" what another particle that is
essentially its twin, which is completely separated from it, is doing and it will react
accordingly. Even more, the distance they are apart is irrelevant; they could be
as close as a micron or as far apart as from one end of our Galaxy to the other,
and the result is the same.
Let me see if I can explain. Identical particles...twins if you would.... can become
entangled either in interaction or in proximity. The orbits of their electrons and
protons might even overlap. And through advanced detection equipment,
entangled particles like Photons (that's what light is made of) can be made to
become disentangled in a laboratory. What is being discovered is that the instant
we observe the spin characteristics of one of the disentangled particles, its twin
particle instantly spins in the opposite direction. Let me emphasize; I am only
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talking about watching (observing) these particles and not about doing something
to affect their movement. Scientists all over the world have performed this
experiment putting the particle twins at greater and greater distances from each
other and the outcome doesn't change. But what gets really weird is that when I
say the one particle instantly affects the other, I mean instantly. We have devices
now that can measure time to within a few parts of a billionth of a second. And
when they use these amazing instruments to try to determine how long it takes
from the instant we observe the spin of the one particle before the other particle
reacts and assumes an equal and opposite spin to its twin, the time is zero. And
the distance between the particles doesn't matter at all. How can this be? The
thing is this experiment has been done countless times by the physics
communities' best minds, in various parts of the world, under different
circumstances, using the most costly equipment and technology, achieving the
same result each time.
OK. I'm sure some heads are spinning as fast as those crazy particles. So let me
approach our issue of what we actually know about the substance and operation
of what is typically dubbed the natural world (meaning all the stuff the Universe is
made of), versus what it's turning out is true, by means of using a chart that Dr.
Robert Lanza, a brilliant scientist of the highest degree, known and respected by
some of the most renowned and honored scientists of our time, has contrived to
drive home an important point to let us know the truth about just how weak and
feeble our knowledge of God's creation actually is.
He entitles it: SCIENCE'S ANSWERS TO BASIC QUESTIONS. That is, as of
now in early in the 2000's A.D. , this is an accurate summation of what science
actually knows in their search to answer the most fundamental questions about
the natural world of the Universe and how it operates.
1) How did the Big Bang (creation) happen? Answer: unknown.
2) What, exactly, was the Big Bang, and what existed before it? Answer:
unknown
3) What is the nature of dark energy, the most dominant source of energy in the
whole of the Universe? Answer: unknown
4) What is the nature of dark matter, the 2nd most prevalent substance in the
whole of the Universe: Answer: unknown
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
5) How did life arise (from dead matter and formless energy)? Answer: unknown
6) How did consciousness (awareness of self) arise? Answer: unknown
7) What is the fate of the Universe? It is expanding right now but will it keep
expanding endlessly? Answer: Yes
8) Why are there exactly 4 types of observable forces in the Universe
(electromagnetic, gravity, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force)?
Answer: Unknown
9) Is life further experienced after one's body dies? Answer: unknown
Here's the point of this detour into modern 21st century science and Quantum
physics. Things in our Universe simply don't operate the way classic science and
physics once thought they did, and those making these new discoveries don't
know how to explain what they're finding. What is normal? What is natural?
Frankly some strange new findings about the very ground we stand on are
completely irrational to the scientific observer. Simply put, the scientific world can
no longer speak of what is normal or natural. And as this concerns our delving
into the subject of miracles, since there is no longer a firm standard for the
natural, then there is no meaning to the term super-natural.
As Ben Witherington III (an excellent New Testament scholar) once noted about
the miracles we read about in the Bible, "there is good reason to be
uncomfortable with the suggestion that when God acts or intervenes in God's
own Universe, that it amounts to an intrusion; something that violates nature or
nature's laws". He is saying that a miracle isn't something we ought view whereby
God has decided to break His own laws of nature (He has intruded into our
physical world); rather it seems that we don't really know what the laws of God␂created nature actually are even though the standard group of TV scientists
we regularly see on Discovery Channel and others will pretend that they still do.
After all, the same God that made earth, made Heaven. The same God that
created the spiritual also created the physical. I have no issue at all, nor should
any of us have, with calling something like Jesus healing the paralytic or
revivifying the dead little girl "miracles". But no longer do I see miracles in terms
of God intruding to doing the impossible by canceling out the laws of nature.
Rather it is God employing what IS possible based on the dynamics of operation
of all the realms He has created. It's just that it is so far over our heads to
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Lesson 34 - Matthew 9 & 10
contemplate and comprehend the realm we live in that we can only be in fear of
what He does, or to deny it as simply a mirage, or to be awestruck and joyful.
The limit to what is possible in God's created nature, then, is not currently known
(and perhaps not ever knowable) to us. And yet the Bible clearly shows that in
some cases this inexplicable power of that nature is accessible if God wills to
grant such authority to humans, even if we don't understand why or how it is
possible. Perhaps there is no better actual, real definition of faith. We observe;
we trust; and we don't demand a satisfying explanation that meets with our
preconceived perceptions.
We'll continue with Matthew chapter 10 next time.
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 35, Chapter 10
Miracles are at the foundation of biblical faith. It begins with Creation itself as a
miracle. After all, how does a Universe that never before existed have a definite
beginning? Yet beyond simply declaring something a "miracle", we tend not to
think much deeper about their essence and cause. Last week, as we opened
Matthew chapter 10, we immediately took a detour into the weird world of
Quantum Physics for the purpose of rethinking miracles, since miracles would be
part of the "tool bag" each of the 12 Disciples Christ sent out would be equipped
with. I'm sure it will be a relief for some of you to learn that we won't have too
much of a review of last week's material. I do want to reiterate, however, that the
purpose of our excursion into this field of science was not as a beginning course
in Quantum Mechanics nor was it to suggest the transfer of the realm of miracles
from the hand of God into the workings of an autonomous nature; at least not as
we have typically thought of nature. Rather it was to demonstrate that despite the
bold claims by modern scientists that we have a good handle on the behavior
and even origination of the make-up of the natural world that includes the
expanse of the Universe an orderly structure, inexplicable to the scientific
world, which has at its underlying foundation unformed energy waves and bizarre
sub-atomic particles the field of Quantum Physics is proving much of what
was considered settled science to have been a mirage. The bottom line is that
scores of experiments since the early 2000's through today are proving that
nature is far stranger and more alien than we ever had any idea about, or even
anything we might have imagined.
Therefore the idea that miracles are super-natural (that is, miracles do not obey
the laws of nature) has always been based on the assumption that we know what
the fabric and the boundaries of the natural world are. Therefore when we
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
observe something happen that doesn't fit within our understanding of that
natural fabric and its boundaries (resurrecting the dead for instance) then these
things are deemed as super-natural... beyond or outside the natural. The secular
world has no real answer for the super-natural much more than to either question
the veracity of the observer, to deny the happening, or to owe it to chance. The
religious world has a different solution: God. Yet, is it that when God commands
a miracle that it amounts to a divine intrusion, directed from Heaven, into the
physical realm that we earthbound creatures live in? Is God overriding or
momentarily altering all the laws of nature that He created? Or might it be that
God, for a particular purpose, commands that nature behave in ways that it has
always been able to behave, but we have not known that it could? That is, what
we call "miracles" were built into the substance of our Universe from the
beginning (at the moment that science calls the Big Bang), although only now are
we starting to recognize that perhaps only God on High understands the intricacy
and capabilities of it in ways that humans may never be able to. And even though
we are starting to see deeper into the inner workings of God's Creation, that
doesn't mean that we'll ever be able to harness it in the ways that He does.
The Apostle Paul made a comment to the Believers in Corinth that needs to be
resurrected from history's dustbin and made the motto for Believers everywhere,
in this the early part of the 3rd millennium A.D.... no matter what name we might
choose to label ourselves with.
CJB 1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is nonsense, as far as
God is concerned; inasmuch as the Tanakh says, "He traps the wise in
their own cleverness," Quantum Physics is proving the truth of Paul's observation.
Not that long ago miracles were accepted as established fact, even among non␂Believers. Then upon the Enlightenment Era in Europe (that began in the early
1700's) the academic elite and science dismissed the notion of miracles, even of
God and the spiritual realm, and to this day science looks down its nose upon
those of us who believe in the reality of God and of miracles. It was science that
has arrogantly told us they alone have the answers for how the Universe.... the
natural world came into being, operates, and will end. They look at us and
demand: who are we going to believe? Them, with all their brain power and
knowledge and advanced technology along with the consensus of opinion of
experts? Or shall we believe some ancient volume of myth and superstition
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
called the Bible? Now, as of 2020, the intellectually honest within the scientific
community are no longer certain how to describe some of the most basic
operations of the Universe that even 10 years ago they took for granted. If one
particle can "know" what another particle is doing across the expanse of the
Universe, and instantaneously affect its characteristics if an energy wave of
probability can only become something of tangible substance when a conscious,
sentient being observes it.... could not even science humble itself enough to call
the observable, but unexplainable, a miracle that has to have a higher source?
Miracles happened. Only a few are recorded for us in the Bible. Miracles continue
to happen and especially as Believers we should expect them to happen in our
lives as part of our journey with God (I've talked to many people who have
miracle stories, and I have experienced a couple myself). We mustn't let those
elite few who do not know God, and have no use for God, but value only their
own human intellect and the opinions of their peers, to ever convince us
otherwise.
So with this concept of miracles in mind, we read that Christ issues the authority
for His 12 Disciples to wield this beneficent but inexplicable power over God's
created nature for the good of the humanity they will encounter Jewish
humanity for the time being. Since we only read a few opening verses of Matthew
chapter 10, let's begin by reading it all.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 10 all
The listing of the names of the original 12 Disciples isn't particularly remarkable
as this kind of register of followers of a Master or Rabbi was customary. What we
are meant to notice, however, is the preeminence of Peter. Verse 2 says: "These
are the names of the 12 Disciples; first, Peter..." The Greek word typically
translated as "first" is protos. It means first in the sense of rank; it is a position of
honor. Notice how Judas is listed last, as the most dishonored of the 12. The
structure that Matthew presents the 12 is in six groups of 2. He says no more
about the reason for that structure. However in Mark we read:
CJBMark 6:7 Yeshua summoned the Twelve and started sending them out in
pairs, giving them authority over the unclean spirits.
So Matthew was presenting not only the names of the original 12, but also how
Yeshua paired them up as He sent them out in 2-men teams to present the Good
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
News to their fellow countrymen. When siblings such as Peter and Andrew were
part of the mix, they were paired up as a rather obvious decision. It is instructive,
though, how Jesus paired up Simon the Zealot with Judas. The Greek word used
that is usually translated in English as zealot is kananites. Therefore many Bible
versions will read "Simon the Canaanite". Not the best translation. The Greek
word kananites is not trying to translate the word Canaanites (that rather ancient
and, even then, a more or less extinct people group) but rather it is the Aramaic
word qanan that means enthusiast or zealot.
Saying that Shim'on (Simon) was a Zealot meant that he belonged to a militant
movement of Jews that advocated for resistance, even rebellion, against Rome.
Zealot was intended to distinguish a man who was zealous for the Torah; but in
fact for them the Torah was used mainly as a disingenuous prop to provide cover
for their often violent actions that were nationalistic in intent, and much less so
religious. I would compare them to the actions of the Klu Klux Klan that uses the
Bible as a prop to practice hate and violence against non-Whites and non␂Protestants. I find it a fascinating choice that Christ would choose Simon to be
part of His inner circle. Does that mean that this Simon gave up his former
relationship with that activist group and no longer pushed for political revolution?
We don't know for certain; but my speculation is that to some degree he must
have.
Yet even more head-scratching is the choice of Y'hudah, better known in
Christendom as Judas. The CJB says that he was Judas from Kriot. Other
versions simply leave it as Judas Iscariot and sort of leave it up to the reader to
decide what that means. Interpreting this to mean a person from a certain village
called Kriot is very doubtful. Far more likely Iscariot is an attempt to translate the
Hebrew word Siqariyim. The Siqariyim were a known splinter group of the
Zealots, and were the most violent; some were assassins. Typically they
assassinated other Jews and only rarely Romans. Their reason for targeting their
fellows? Those Jews who were murdered were seen as not being zealous
enough to support the resistance movement. It is believed that the group of about
1000 Jews who occupied Herod's desert fortress of Masada following the failed
Jewish Rebellion of 70 A.D. were Siqariyim. They committed mass suicide hours
before the Romans finally broke through their defenses after months of siege. So
as they say, Simon and Judas were birds of a feather and made an obvious
pairing. Maybe it was so they could not only get along with one another, but also
they had the reputation and contacts to be able to approach a rebellious segment
of Jewish society that the other 10 Disciples were afraid of or were less likely to
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
be given an audience.
Perhaps this is a living lesson for us all, but especially for Church leadership. It is
more effective ministry when we can send out people of like mind as a team; and
when we can employ people of the same culture as those we are trying to reach
it is all the better. This means that we may be sending out people that are quite
different from the leadership, and don't fit a universal profile. They might
enthusiastically embrace some, but not all, of the preferred doctrine and even
practice it in ways that aren't entirely familiar or comfortable to us. I can tell you
from experience that this approach makes leadership much more difficult. As
they say, it can be like herding cats. But, that's the job of leaders. We can make it
easier on ourselves by requiring conformity, but I don't see that as something
Christ would have us do because He certainly didn't. At the same time, it is
essential that the congregation accept those into the fold who don't look like
them, or perhaps don't think like them in all ways.
Just look at the original 12 Disciples; some fishermen, a government Tax
Collector, and a couple of militant political activists. They were all Jews, and so
who did Christ send them to? Various segments of Jewish society. In fact, in
verse 5 Yeshua directly admonished them NOT to go to the gentiles. They also
weren't to go to the Samaritans that were a mix of Jews, non-Jews, and half␂Jews. The problem was that the Samaritans were essentially considered as
gentiles in that by now they had erected their own Temple, complete with their
own separate Priesthood, and practiced a religion that even though it involved
some elements of the Torah it had melded with some clearly pagan concepts and
practices. Rather, Yeshua instructs, "Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel".
In the prior lesson we exposed what the term "House of Israel" meant. Briefly it
mean the 12 tribes of Israel, including the so-called 10 Lost Tribes. However the
main thing to take from this is that at this point Yeshua's focus was strictly on the
seed of Abraham; gentiles weren't on the radar of Yeshua's outreach ministry
right then.
The point at which this changed was after His resurrection. Therefore we can see
develop in all the Gospels a kind of before-and-after scenario. Pre-resurrection
ministry focus, although of rather short duration, was entirely upon descendants
of the 12 tribes. Post-resurrection, the ministry expanded to include gentiles.
Naturally at first it was Jews who were sent out to evangelize gentiles, because it
was Jews who were trained and instructed in the faith. The Jew Paul on the other
hand is representative of the 2nd generation of Believers who took the message
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
of salvation in Yeshua specifically to the gentile nations, and also made new
leaders some of whom where gentile but many of whom were Jews. I'm not
sure which generation of evangelists had the more difficult task. The 1st
generation of Believers were assigned to take the message only to Jews, who
had a long history in which manmade traditions had crept in and become deeply
rooted in their faith. The message the Disciples brought usually challenged what
those Jews had been taught and history tells us that relatively few would accept
it. The 2nd generation of Jewish disciples brought the message to gentiles who
had no history of worshipping the God of Israel, and so had no concrete
preconceived notions. I've often thought that in many ways it might be easier to
teach those who are a blank tablet than it is to teach those who must first unlearn
wrong beliefs before right ones can replace them. That is why ministry to the
youth in any culture is so vital. Getting taught right doctrine from the start of their
lives is so much easier on them and on Believing leadership than it is to try to
straighten things out later.
And what is it that the 12 Disciples are to teach and proclaim? The same
message Yeshua Himself brought: the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Don't take the
idea of "near" as meaning "not here yet". My house can be near to my neighbor's
house, but that doesn't mean that my neighbor's house doesn't exist. Later as we
encounter Christ's several recorded parables we'll find that many were attempting
to explain the difficult concept of the Kingdom of Heaven to the Jews. So get it
clear in your minds: this initial sending out of Disciples was NOT to declare that
Jesus was the Messiah or that He was God on earth. It was only a preliminary
stage of evangelism and it was to announce that the Kingdom of God was
near to the Jewish people. It was meant in the sense of proximity and maturity,
not in the sense of not existing just yet. But as with Christianity, no doubt the
Jewish people didn't all think about that message the same way. It is still
something that Christianity struggles to understand and so various
denominations have formed different doctrines to explain it. We'll not entertain
that at the moment, but we will in later lessons. However this brings us to the
issue of the process of evangelizing. We'll not get into a multi-step procedure but
rather simply talk about it from a more general vantage point.
Just as WHO does the evangelizing matters, so does WHAT the subject matter is
and HOW it is presented. For instance: these Torah Class lessons are not meant
for non-Believers (although by no means are non-Believers excluded). Rather
they are fashioned primarily for those who... in varying degrees... already accept
the authority of the Bible, the existence of God, and the forgiveness of sins
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
offered by Jesus of Nazareth. They are evangelistic in one sense because we
always advocate for Christ and for taking His message out to the world. On the
other hand these are not Seeker oriented whereby we explain the basics of our
faith over and over again each week hoping the Seeker will finally come to trust
Christ. Other Churches are more interested in sending out missionaries to
cultures who aren't familiar with the God of the Bible and with Christ. Some
simply want to do good deeds in the community and don't emphasize it as any
more than that. There are many more examples I could cite but that'll do for now.
The issue is that there are many motives and means that are perfectly valid in the
process of evangelism.
Then we have the matter of suitability as concerns age. A 60 year old who has
been a Believer for decades is usually more mature in his or her faith than a 15
year old. If that 60 year old finally came to realize some years earlier just how
important focused study on God's Word is, and how important it is to get up every
day and choose to be holy, then he knows and understands God, His
commandments, and how God operates at a much deeper level than that 15 year
old who simply hasn't lived long enough to experience God so fully or to acquire
that biblical knowledge. Not only that, but the young person is not yet mature in
body or mind. They have so much going on in their young lives, beginning with
trying to figure out who they are. And each kind of activity they engage in takes
up a portion of their time, energy and focus. The priorities of a 15 year old look
nothing like the priorities of a 60 year old. Therefore we must know our audience
and always allow for varying degrees of maturity, and accept the many stages of
our journey with Christ.
I concede to you that 60 year olds, even 50 year olds, can only understand what
matters to that 15 year old at best in an intellectual way but more typically it is
nearly impossible to connect with them on the level they need so that they can
hear.... their level. It is like the person who has lost a spouse is far more able
than one who has not, to be able to connect with and comfort a person that is
recently widowed. But to the Lord, that 15 year old who is as yet immature in their
faith is every bit as valuable to the Kingdom as the mature-in-faith 60 year old.
Consider this issue of the evangelism process in another way. If Yeshua's target
had only been intellectuals, He would have sent out intellectuals. If His target
were only the common folk, He would have sent out only common folk and not
also a Tax Collector who, by definition, was educated and held a privileged
position. If His target was only those who sought peace and stayed away from
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
the center of political unrest, in Jerusalem, He wouldn't have sent out the political
activists Judas and Simon. He also didn't tell the 12 Disciples the exact words to
use or the company to keep. So for each segment of Jewish population the
message would have to be uniquely tuned for their ears. Christ gave us the
model for evangelism and it is anything but rigid in its expression or only for a
certain group of people with certain qualifications to carry it out.
Those 12 Disciples were given the authority to do the same things their Master
did: heal sick people, raise dead people to life, cleanse people who are unclean
with Tzara'at, and to perform exorcisms. What does that mean to be given
authority? Authority is something that is granted by another. Yeshua says that it
is His Father who gives Him the authority to do what He does. It gives Him not
just the right but the power to do things within a certain sphere of influence. It is
not His own power; it is, as it were, power given that by definition can be taken
away by the highest authority. And now, Yeshua, as His Father's agent on earth,
bestows authority on the Disciples to operate within a certain well-defined sphere
of influence: the Holy Land.
Going out meant they would be traveling; not as extensively as Paul, but still they
would be gone from home and occupation from time to time. As they went out
and traveled they were commanded to not ask for money for the giving of the
message. They weren't even to take any of their own money with them. The last
few words of verse 10 say: " a worker should be given what he needs." We
need to understand this from a 1st century Middle Eastern context and not a 21st
century Western context. Hospitality, the taking in of guests that you don't know
and caring for them, was perhaps the number one virtue within Middle Eastern
culture. Remember: these 12 were traveling around the Holy Land where this
virtue was the norm. It would be different if they, like, Paul were traveling around
gentile populated parts of the Roman Empire where this virtue of hospitality
wasn't the same. So despite what they might be teaching and preaching, if the
Disciples asked a Jewish family for hospitality it would have been rude beyond
imagination for a household to refuse them. The reality is that these instructions
are only fully operable in a society that is structured like the Disciples were in at
that time. We get a look at what this looked like in that era in the next couple of
verses.
Verse 11 says that during their travels through the many small towns of Judea
and the Galilee the Disciples were to search for someone who looks trustworthy
to stay with. So, Yeshua is saying: use your senses and your brain. Be a little
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
cautious and diligent whom you approach for hospitality and don't just descend
upon the first house you see. Doesn't that seem like common sense more than
some divinely inspired instruction? Of course it does; and every traveler of that
day would have done the same. But sometimes a misguided faith can make us
leap before we look. That is, we think that if what we're doing is for the Lord then
we can throw caution... and common sense.... to the wind and He'll somehow
make things work out OK for us. These 12 Disciples were really fired up and
Yeshua didn't want them doing something foolish as they looked for someone to
put them up and care for them for a day or perhaps more.
Verse 12 says that when they did choose a household to stay in they were to
say "Shalom aleikhem", meaning "peace be with you". This was a standard
Jewish courtesy. Then the next verse says that if the household doesn't deserve
your shalom, take it back and leave. That sounds rather strange until we
understand that saying "peace be with you" was more than saying "hello". It was
a blessing bestowed. So the idea is that the Disciple, after choosing a household
to stay in and being offered hospitality, is to bless the household. Among the
Jewish people blessings were thought to have real, actual power in them (and in
fact, I think they do). Blessings were very nearly an unseen but living entity. So if
after a little while the Disciple sees that his choice turns out not to be a good
place to be hosted, for whatever reason, then he can retract His blessing...
remove his blessing of Shalom on that household.... and go. This may sound a
little weird to us, but that is because it is as much Tradition as Bible. And Jesus is
just making clear that all the standard rules of hospitality that are usual and
customary still apply for the traveling Disciples.
While the protocol of evangelizing laid out here is steeped in 1st century Jewish
tradition, some elements of it can be applied today. Sleeping indoors, safely, and
having enough to eat is a given for most people in the modern West. Most
modern missionaries going out will have these basic necessities accounted for
before they ever depart. But in the 1st century, sleeping on the ground under the
stars, and missing meals, was a regular part of travel for the common man. Even
then, taking some amount of money, perhaps an extra pair of sandals, was usual
as they always needed to buy things along the way or be prepared for
unforeseen contingencies. Yeshua told them not to do that; instead to essentially
go out with nothing but the shirt on their back. This was to be a true faith ministry.
But true faith ministry doesn't mean, as it seems to today, having all your needs
and comforts met. It will also involve the very real likelihood of discomfort or even
danger.
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
At the same time, having no money and not asking for money in order to
subsidize their journey would have been admired, and it would have alleviated
suspicions as to their motives. I think such a notion still may apply in many
cultures. I can tell you that a friend who spends more than half the year in
England (and has for much of his life) assures me that money and Christianity do
not go together there. Christians with money are immediately under suspicion as
are Christians who are too forward about asking for donations to go about their
work. I don't necessarily think that such a cynical attitude is warranted, but at the
same time it must be a balance. This is not the 1st century. Because of the way
the world is today, ministry can't be done without a source of funding. The
problem is that too often the bulk of the funding is perceived as going for the
minister and not the ministry. So ministers have to be aware of this and behave
accordingly. No doubt even in Christ's day there were charlatans that fleeced the
flock and people were wary. So for the Disciples to be cared for, they had to
require very little for themselves.
The instruction we read in verse 14 seems out of character for the forgiving,
compassionate, longsuffering and patient Yeshua. He says that if a town or
village doesn't welcome the Disciple, the Disciple should "shake the dust off from
your feet". That is, the Disciple is to leave and not look back. It is kind of the
opposite of try, try again. It is an expression that also involves an element of
rejection and disgust by the one shaking the dust off their feet. What kind of town
might not welcome the Disciple? Of course: it is the one that doesn't want to
hear, or doesn't accept, the Good News the Disciples bring about the arrival of
the Kingdom of Heaven. And so the village gets into a confrontation with the
Disciple and doesn't want them there. Put a little more plainly: the townspeople
like what they believe, they're comfortable with what they believe, and they don't
want to discuss it or have their lives messed with. Is this not what the main
problem is with those who reject Christ? They inherently know that if they accept
His truth then they are going to have to turn away from things they've believed or
liked up to now, and that their lives will indeed be different. But I can also attest to
you that it is the same way within Christianity. Those who have accepted wrong
teaching and live securely within their own personal spiritual bubble don't want it
popped. They don't want anything about their understanding of God or the Bible
challenged because it might require some soul searching and change.
The 12 Disciples were going to Jewish towns and talking to Jewish people; no
one else. These people of course had a centuries-long Hebrew faith background.
They didn't question if the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was their God, or if
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
He was real. So what was the problem that Yeshua says the Disciples would
occasionally encounter? While we can't know what each individual the Disciples
encountered truly believed or thought about their faith, it certainly wasn't the
same for everyone. And whatever it was, exactly, that the Disciples told these
folks about what the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven meant, for many Jews it
wasn't welcomed. And, says, Jesus, when that welcome mat is pulled up, leave
and spend your time and efforts elsewhere.
A word to the wise. If I've received one, I've received a hundred emails and
letters from on-fire Believers and followers of Torah Class that tell me they have
tried and tried to tell their Pastor or Elders or some of the members of the
congregation they attend that they perhaps need to delve deeper into the Bible or
to re-examine some of the doctrines they preach and practice. And when they
are rejected, even shunned, they tell me they're going to hang in there and win
the battle of wills because truth is on their side. They're going to stay and keep
fighting to have what they've learned given a proper hearing before their Church
leadership even if they don't have a friend left by the time they are done. I've not
heard of good and hoped for results from this, although now that I've said it I'm
quite sure I'll get an email from someone who was successful! The point is this;
while it isn't necessary to have to agree on every nuance of every doctrine of the
Church or Synagogue you attend in order for you to stay and enjoy your
relationships, beware that you don't stay in a situation where you are wasting
your time, being a pebble in the shoe to those around you, and causing conflict. I
grant you that going upstream against the current is in some way part of every
Believer's experience. But going to a communal worship service, and listening to
your Rabbi or Pastor, should be a joy and not a negative experience. It wasn't
going to be good for the town or the Disciples if they were expressly not wanted,
so Christ told them to leave if that was the case. And equally so, it isn't good for
you or the congregation you are part of if there is a serious gulf in what you each
strongly believe.
Verse 15 has Yeshua laying out the consequences for that town or village
rejecting not only the message but the messenger who brings it. He says it will be
even more destructive for them on the Day of Judgment than for what happened
to Sodom and Gomorrah. When will that consequence He is speaking of arrive?
On the Day of Judgment. While I think some amount of hyperbole is involved on
Christ's part (because the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah was about as
thoroughly destructive as it gets), the point is (especially from the vantage point
of the 1st century) that the destructive consequence of refusing to hear and
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Lesson 35 - Matthew 10
accept the Good News of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven wouldn't be that
same day, but it would come very soon and at the same time when God judged
the entire world.
The Jewish people, Jesus's Disciples, and even the 2nd generation of Apostles
like Paul, all believed that the End of Days and the Day of Judgment were to
occur at any moment. And generally speaking the Jewish people also believed
that it would be a judgment on the gentile world and not them. So whatever
Yeshua precisely meant about the consequences for denying His message, the
consequence would occur very soon AND, more importantly, the Holy Land and
the Jewish people would not be held harmless from it.
We'll continue in Matthew next week.
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 36, Chapter 10 Continued
As we continue today in our study of Matthew chapter 10 there's a couple of
important context items to keep in mind. First, Matthew lived and wrote well after
the events he is speaking about. He was not the Matthew (also called Levi) who
was the Tax Collector and one of the original 12 Disciples. So everything we read
was written in hindsight for Matthew; he was not an eyewitness to any of it, so far
as we know. Second, the Disciples Christ was sending out were to go only to the
Jews who lived in the Holy Land. While it is not specifically told to us exactly
which towns and villages they would journey to, none of them would have been
very far from home.
One of the things Yeshua is doing is setting up some rules and boundaries for
the missionary work the 12 would perform; much of it based on the culture of the
day. Perhaps the most significant aspect of it is that they were rely on the
hospitality of the town or village they entered for everything they needed; from
shelter, to food, to protection. Hospitality in that era for Middle Easterners was
akin to a code of social etiquette and ethics. It was not part of the legal system
per se, but it was a highly virtuous and valued part of social custom that was
frowned upon if ignored. Hospitality is something that travelers would ask of a
household; usually of someone they didn't know. Generally speaking to deny
hospitality without an exceptional reason brought great shame upon that
household. Once granted, the traveler's every need was to be met and his safety
assured even if it meant the hosts putting their lives on the line. Obviously the
way the culture of the New Testament operated then bears no resemblance to
how Western society, or most other world cultures, operate today. So in order to
apply the principles of how missionaries are to be cared for, with hospitality at the
center of it, we have little choice but to adapt Christ's instructions to the realities
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
of the 21st century.
We ended at verse 15 after Yeshua had instructed the Disciples to take with
them little more than the clothes on their backs, and to go out in pairs. He tells
them that when they come into a town, if that town rejects them (meaning the
residents reject their message) then they are not to stay; they are to move on.
And more, when the Day of Judgment comes, that town (meaning the people in it
who rejected the Good News the Disciples brought of the arrival of the Kingdom
of Heaven) will suffer a fate even worse than did the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah. Let's re-read a portion of Matthew 10.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 10:15 - end
In verse 16 Jesus continues by warning the Disciples the conditions they will face
on their missionary journeys. Back in chapter 7 He warned those listening to Him
to be wary of the wolves in sheep's clothing. That is, this was those who
pretended to be one thing, but were actually another; so deception was involved.
Now in chapter 10 the warning is a little different. It is that the sheep (the
Disciples) will be among undisguised wolves. The Disciples will be knowingly
wandering into wolf territory. I'll remind you yet again: these are not gentiles who
are being characterized as the wolves because the Disciples are not to leave the
region of the Holy Land. So who are these wolves? They are the Jewish religious
leadership; more specifically the synagogue leadership. So with this stark
warning issued, Yeshua gives them some sage advice: be wise as serpents and
harmless as doves. What does He mean by this? In His time it was a proverb that
serpents were considered to be very cunning. So if a person was like a serpent, it
meant they were pretty shrewd. This was actually considered as a positive
attribute... rather admired among many.... not a negative. It wasn't symbolic of
being wicked. Yet they were also to be as harmless as doves. The Greek word
the CJB translates to harmless is akeraios. Literally it means unmixed or pure. It
can also mean single-minded and thus we'll find some translations say "simple".
The way to think about the meaning is as a child-like approach to things. Children
don't approach matters with a complexity of thought; they do it simply. So since
the Disciples are going to find themselves facing resistance when they are
communicating with Jewish religious leadership who may not be interested in
fairness or in honestly wanting to hear another point of view, they must not be
naive. They mustn't check their brains or common sense at the door, so to speak.
They are to be acutely aware of who they are dealing with, the circumstances
they encounter, and should behave accordingly. Be shrewd in assessing the
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
situation and in handling people; but temper that by staying focused on the single
goal of spreading the Good News.
So what might happen to them on their mission journeys? They are going to find
that some of the synagogues they go to visit are going to react harshly by having
them flogged and even handing them over to the court on account of the Good
News they bring. The court is speaking of the Sanhedrin; the Jewish religious
court (but nearly always the local courts and councils, not the one in Jerusalem).
Let me remind you; the Disciples are not at all proclaiming that Yeshua of
Nazareth is Messiah... at least not in this the first of their missionary
assignments. They are, however, claiming that the Kingdom of God has arrived
and the implication in the Jewish theology of that day was that this only happens
when the Messiah reveals himself and establishes that kingdom. Even so, the
Gospel writer Matthew is not just writing from the viewpoint of when these things
were happening. Since he was looking back in time he already knew that some of
the things that Christ prophesied were going to happen at a future time, and not
immediately after telling the Disciples about those happenings. The bottom line is
that all disciples of Christ are to expect some amount of suffering for their faith; it
doesn't matter at what point in history it might be or who the disciples are or
where they are. Persecution goes with the territory of following Jesus. One
cannot avoid it. But in the case of the original 12, what are they going to being
punished for having done? Matthew must have thought it so obvious he doesn't
bother to tell us. My speculation is that very likely in following the lead of their
Master, Yeshua, the 12 Disciples didn't have nice things to say about the
synagogue leaders or the traditions they taught. Christ was very open about His
disdain with that leadership and with their manmade doctrines and traditions that
so distorted the truth of God's Word. Remember that Yeshua characterized the
Jews He encountered on His own Holy Land tour as lost sheep. And those who
were supposed to be their shepherd leaders as wolves.
Let's be clear that the Disciples were not visiting Churches nor were they
establishing them. These congregations of people were synagogues of which
there were many in the Holy Land. Most were not elaborate or even dedicated
buildings; the vast majority were merely gatherings of Jews in public places or
perhaps somewhere under a tree. It could be just a few Jews meeting together
(typically not fewer than 10). The word synagogue is much like the word church
in that technically it has little to do with buildings; rather it has everything to do
with an assembly of people. The Talmud reports that prior to the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. as many of 400 synagogues existed only in the city of
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
Jerusalem! Excavations there prove that if indeed there were that many of them
then it cannot possibly mean that at one time there existed 400 separate
synagogue buildings in Jerusalem. The thing to understand is that, in whatever
form, there were many synagogues in the Holy Land such that the Disciples were
not traveling very far between villages and synagogues. In fact there were so
many that Yeshua didn't have an expectation that they would somehow visit them
all.
Verse 18 explains that in addition to the religious persecution they were likely to
face, there would also be politically based persecution. Thus some of the
Disciples, says Christ, will stand before governors and kings on account of their
faith in Yeshua. It is agreed by nearly all Bible scholars that this prediction is
rather general in its meaning in that it isn't necessarily directed only to the 12
Disciples to whom He is speaking, and only to evangelizing the Holy Land. This
is kind of an all-inclusive, open-ended prophecy about what Messiah's disciples
in all ages and in all nations could expect. As we look back historically we'll find
Christ followers in various areas of the globe being both religiously and politically
persecuted for their faith. We have not really been subject to it in America, or in
Europe, for a very long time....until recently. Circumstances are changing for us.
Yet in God's providence Yeshua's followers are not to despair of such a thing or
fear it. The last half of verse 18 explains that such persecutions will offer an
opportunity to speak truth to power. We get a fine example of that in Paul as He
is arrested and brought before the Roman governors Felix and then Festus
whereby they want to understand what it is about Christ and this messianic faith
that drives Paul.
Yeshua characterizes being brought before governors and kings (in other words,
various religious and political authorities) as divine moments of God's providence
in order to penetrate the secular halls of justice and government with the Gospel
truth. Not only governors and kings but also gentiles will hear the disciples'
testimony, we're told. It is the Greek word ethnos that is being translated as
gentiles (in some Bible versions pagans is used); it isn't necessarily wrong, but it
is missing the larger point that Matthew is making. Ethnos means large
identifiable groups of people in a rather general way. The CJB
translates ethnos using the familiar Hebrew word goyim and that is really a bit
better because it means both gentiles and nations. The translation that fits best
with modern English in getting across what Jesus is saying is "nations" especially
since in the Bible "nations" are always people groups of gentiles. So the idea is
that from this moment on into an indefinite future, an irony will occur; government
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
officials will persecute followers of Yeshua by arresting them and forcing them to
defend their faith. However their faithful testimonies will provide the vehicle that
spreads the Good News to all nations on earth. Some of the reason this is
needed is to save myriads from eternal death; the other reason is to condemn the
remainder to eternal darkness. What we must not lose track of is that it all begins
with Israel, the Jewish people, and 12 Jewish Disciples.
I would imagine that these 12 Disciples were pretty alarmed at what they were
hearing, so now Jesus offers what amounts to comfort. He says that even though
this may happen, they are not to worry. Especially as it concerns an ordinary
citizen being brought before the powerful leaders of government, such a prospect
could make the best of us intimidated and tongue tied. So Yeshua says not to fret
about what it is that they (or we) will say; it will be given to us. We in the West
are used to the idea that if we are brought before a judge in court we'll have
someone trained in speaking for us present to do just that. In ancient times no
such provision existed except perhaps for the wealthy. How will the right words
be given to the Disciples? Verse 20 says that it will be through the Spirit of your
Father. What does this mean, exactly? What might it have meant to Christ's
disciples?
To begin; the Jews of that day would have taken the term "Spirit of your Father"
to mean Holy Spirit Ruach HaKodesh in their Hebrew language. Yet how
would this "giving" of the right words happen? How exactly would they acquire it?
All during His ministry on earth, only Yeshua was seen as the living container of
God's Holy Spirit. This would not change until after the Resurrection, upon
Pentecost. So once again Yeshua seems to be speaking in a general, if not
sweeping, way that incorporates various eras of Redemption history. That is, not
everything He is saying will necessarily apply to His 12 Disciples, but rather to
other disciples at other times. So Yeshua is likely borrowing His thoughts about
this matter, although in a kind of ambiguous way, about the End Times that the
Prophet Joel prophesied:
CJB Joel 3:1 "After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity. Your sons
and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young
men will see visions;
And yet Messiah Yeshua certainly seemed to be promising "the Spirit of your
Father" to fall upon His 12 Disciples in some unexplained way. Might we assume
that since in verse 1 of chapter 10 that Yeshua gives authority to this 12 to heal
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
people, exorcize demons, and even raise the dead that this necessarily includes
some manner of them possessing the Holy Spirit because these are all things
that Jesus did and now He extends those abilities to the 12? I would be remiss if I
also didn't point out the source of the Holy Spirit and who He is to be identified
with. According to Jesus it is with the Father.
I want to pause here for a moment for a detour in order to discuss something that
may be bothering you as it has bothered so many over the ages. The reality is
that, in general, we cannot say that the 12 Disciples Christ is speaking to were
ever brought before governors and kings to defend themselves other than
perhaps for John and Peter, although that is mostly an implication. We aren't
aware of the Holy Spirit giving them words to say in their defense. In the next
several verses the trials and persecutions that Jesus says followers of His will
experience get more and more serious. He will also say a few other things that
don't seem to have come to pass in His lifetime, which a plain reading of His
words seem to indicate they will. Modern Bible academics put this a little
differently. If some of Yeshua's prophecies didn't come to pass during His lifetime
(as He seems to be promising) is He not the very definition of a false prophet
or maybe as a failed prophet? As much as this accusation jolts us, we cannot just
dismiss it without a thoughtful rebuttal. But what could that thoughtful rebuttal be?
I want to discuss this because a doubter may confront you with just such a
question, and it can be unsettling.
Such an academic viewpoint that Jesus was in some ways a failed prophet isn't
that hard to reach in nominal Christianity because the Bible is approached in
what I term as a Greek mindset. That is, in the Greek mode of thinking things
must occur serially (one thing after another) and for each question of Bible
interpretation (or problem) there must be one clear overriding solution such that
all other possibilities are wrong. Jews on the other hand have always approached
the Bible differently, understanding that there are levels of meaning involved in
the Scriptures. The reason is that the Bible is a God-inspired work; not mere
human-inspired literature.
Thus Jewish sages and scholars created a system that defines 4 observable
levels of meaning in Scripture. They named those levels P'shat, Remez, Drash,
and Sod. Let me say upfront that this doesn't mean that God intended that His
Word was a code and that there would be precisely 4 levels of meaning to
decipher it. The Jewish system is but a learned, manmade structure that was
created both as a recognition of the amazing mystery of God's Word, and as a
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
means for God worshippers to try to plumb its depths. It is by no means an
infallible system nor is it usually promoted as such. But it is a valuable tool that
allows us to think of the Bible sort of 3 dimensionally (if not 4 by adding in the
dimension of time) instead of only 2. Although another system of interpretive
Bible study might come along some day that is better, it is my opinion that this is
the best one currently available to us. I've taught on this before and so you can
look it up in a number of the Bible books we have posted on TorahClass.com.
Briefly the hierarchy is that P'shat is the plain, literal, most simple and
straightforward sense, Remez is a hint or strong implication of something deeper
and more profound, Drash gets into application of a passage of Scripture that
upon a simple reading didn't at first seem apparent, and sod means "secret" so it
involves great mystery and therefore at best we have only a shadowy glimpse of
something. Speaking in these levels and studying the Scriptures based on these
named various levels was not yet known in Christ's day. However even then the
Jews didn't box themselves in with rigid either/or, yes/no answers to hard
questions as concerned God. They especially understood that God Himself is a
mysterious entity that humans have but the most limited way to comprehend and
so room was left for flexibility in interpretation.
Here's where I'm going with this: especially as concerns God's laws and
commands and prophecies, and Christ's utterances and instructions, we cannot
approach them based on the way we would approach mere literature. For one
reason, as history has unfolded the truth of the ancient biblical prophecies and
wisdom of its teachings have been proved immutable even if many people simply
deny it out of hand due to darkened minds and hardened hearts. Thus as we
read in Matthew 10 about Christ's instructions to His Disciples, and about what
they'll encounter, these utterances are divine and have a certain mystery to
them. Yeshua will speak prophetically and those prophecies will come to pass in
one way in one era, and another way in another era. And, in some cases that
involve the End Times, they will occur in ways that are difficult for us to imagine
at this point in Redemption history. So our approach needs to be not to doubt,
but to uncover and discover. We shall do our best. So with that mindset, let's get
back to verse 20.
Yeshua promises that the "Spirit of your Father" (the Holy Spirit) will be there for
the Disciples, but doesn't explain how. In hindsight we can see that in whatever
way it was for the original 12, it would be different for His followers after
Pentecost. From that point forward, the Holy Spirit would inhabit Believers and
always be there for them... for us.... in every circumstance.
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
Verse 21 clearly changes course and we have Christ speaking about the End
Times. But while we think about the End Times as something future to us, the
Disciples believed they were already experiencing the End Times. So they would
have taken Christ's words about strife and division within families as something to
expect immediately. We look at those words and many of us in modern times
have experienced such family splits over Christ, especially if one is a Jew. In
modern times in the West none of us want family strife and division but it is as
probably likely to happen as not for most folks. It isn't quite the crisis as it was in
biblical times because in the West, families are organized into small units instead
of as it was in the 1st century. Back then Middle Eastern families were what we
today call extended families. That is, multiple generations not only lived together,
but typically the senior family member had real authority over the younger ones.
It was also a male head-of-household dominated society so should the father of a
family become a Believer in Yeshua, it was generally automatic that those in his
household also became Believers; or at least they outwardly practiced whatever
it was the senior head of the house demanded would be practiced. So Jewish
families splitting up over the issue of becoming a follower of Yeshua was not very
likely in the years when Yeshua was still alive, and for some time following His
death and resurrection.
But once this faith was extended into the gentile population, family strife and
division would indeed become a serious issue such that Paul had to address it
head on. And once gentiles gained firm control of the Church early in the 2nd
century, and Christianity was reformatted into a gentiles-only religion, then a Jew
who became a Believer almost certainly faced a family crisis as they would have
been viewed as a traitor to Judaism. Thus the fulfillment of Yeshua's prophecy
about family strife on account of Him would begin nearly imperceptibly, but over
time it would become a harsh reality. Today it is very nearly a rule of thumb for
Jews, and it regularly happens within gentile families. But as we progress
towards the culmination of the End Times, a person becoming a Believer will not
only be certain to cause family division, it will become dangerous. Folks, what
Christ says is coming is not hyperbole. It has happened already in isolated cases,
especially in places where a different religion is the norm and no challenge to it is
allowed.... such as Hinduism or Shintoism or especially Islam. Listen carefully to
what He says about the destiny of families as the End of Days gets nearer.
CJBMatthew 10:21 21 "A brother will betray his brother to death, and a father
his child; children will turn against their parents and have them put to
death.
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
What Yeshua is prophesying is far more than something we could call family
strife and division; it is homicide. This entire verse is about a family member
having another family member put to death because that family member has
chosen to trust Christ. Can't happen in America? Can't happen in Europe? Look
around you. Little of what we see happening in 2020.. the violent demonstrations,
the seizing of city centers by anarchists with the co-operation of mayors and
governors, the outright demonization of Christianity by the mainstream media, the
demand that all citizens conform to whatever political correctness rules the day or
be shamed and blacklisted... could not have been imagined even a decade ago.
So what Yeshua said would happen to His followers is in process and as His
Believers we need to pull our collective heads out of the sand, and to prepare
ourselves mentally, tangibly, and most importantly spiritually for it. And, as
Yeshua is emphasizing, we need to let those who are not followers know the
truth so that they might become followers. That is the primary mission of Seed of
Abraham Ministries, in all of our (currently 5) various ministry operations, and I
pray that it is at the top of your priority list as well.
Verse 22 offers an obvious generalization that "everyone" will hate Yeshua's
disciples. But what we can take from this is that just as in the beginning of His
ministry it was a relatively small minority of people who made a decision to trust
Yeshua, so it will be as history charges towards its end. Everyone (meaning the
majority) will hate Believers. But., and now for a combination instruction and
encouraging promise... everyone (Believers) who holds on until the end will be
preserved from harm. What end? Clearly the end of the End Times. How will
Believers be preserved from harm? It will be different for different subsets of
people.
The Book of Revelation chapter 12 speaks of a time of great persecution when
the woman (Israel) will flee into the desert for 1260 days where the Israelites will
be divinely protected and cared for. On the other hand, we also read of the evil
actions of the Anti-Christ who will persecute all God worshippers, and countless
Believers will be martyred. We all know of stories of missionaries who were
tortured and murdered for their faith. So what can it mean that they who hold on
until the end will be preserved from harm? It can only primarily mean spiritual
harm and not physical harm. Verse 28 addresses this. But what we must
understand is that, for the time being, there is no truly safe haven for Believers.
And our attempt to create one will be proved futile. That doesn't mean that we
don't establish oases of spiritual refuge here on earth where we can meet in
peace, or lead our children and grandchildren in Christ's love, and provide an
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
alternative to the hollow secular society we live in. But whatever we create can
be attacked by government or religious authorities, and according to Christ it will
be. So our job is do all that we can while the doing of it is possible because
someday it won't be. From there forward we are to cling tightly to our faith.
Now; step back and consider this for a moment. I'm quite sure that some of you
are thinking: wow, what a downer you are today! That's pretty bleak stuff. Can't
you talk about some fun and positive things that will happen in the future? I
probably could; but that's not at all what we are reading about in Christ's
admonitions to His 12 Disciples. How do you suppose they took this? They
weren't hopping up and down with pleasure and joy and that's because that is not
how Jesus intended it. I can only imagine the solemn tone of His voice. They
weren't thinking that the things Yeshua described were going to happen to
somebody else, but not to them. Or that it would occur in some indefinite time in
the future that they probably wouldn't have to concern themselves with. They
believed their Master and would set out expecting this to be a dangerous and
difficult journey.
But most Christians I talk to DO think the perils they read about in the End Times
are for others, but not for them. They can't picture themselves facing much if any
of this. It's only that it is customary in the Evangelical branches of the Church to
talk about Believers living today in the End Times; but in their heart of hearts they
don't really expect to experience the things Jesus warns us about to any great
extent. To put a finer point on it, what do you believe? Do you believe we are
living in, or on the cusp of, the End Times? If so, does the reality of your choices
and how you live reflect that belief? And does how you give and support your
ministry lend truth to your claim? How about your spiritual priorities? Because if
what you say to yourself that you believe isn't backed up with your actions, then I
challenge that you actually believe what you say or perhaps think you believe.
I can tell you this from personal experience. Those of us who have lived in
Florida for a few years don't doubt the warnings of hurricanes and what it means
for us. So we prepare appropriately. But I also have a vivid memory of when we
first moved here and really had no idea of what a hurricane does and the major
disruptions that it causes. I was not at all prepared and really didn't think much
about it.... until I experienced one. No power. Nowhere to buy food. Nowhere to
get gas. It was pretty eye opening. After that, I became a true believer. I bought a
generator, made sure I had a couple of weeks of food and water stored away,
filled my gas cans and my car if 2 or 3 days out it looked likely the hurricane
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
would hit, planned an evacuation route, and more. In other words, I modified my
usual behavior because of my sincere belief (my faith, if you would) that a
hurricane was coming and knowing without doubt what that would do when it
does hit. It is the same idea for Believers and the End Times. Our response may
not involve storing up food and water right now; but, folks, if you truly believe you
will experience some of the things Jesus is warning about, you will change your
normal behavior. If you haven't, then you don't actually believe it will affect you.
Jacob (usually called James), Yeshua's biological brother, put it this way:
CJB James 2:14-17 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to
have faith but has no actions to prove it? Is such "faith" able to save
him? 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, 16 and
someone says to him, "Shalom! Keep warm and eat hearty!" without giving
him what he needs, what good does it do? 17 Thus, faith by itself,
unaccompanied by actions, is dead.
Yeshua spent much of His ministry on earth telling people what was coming and
how to prepare for it on multiple levels: spiritually and physically. Few did, and
few ever will. I pray that you will not be one of them.
Verse 23 is one of the more complicated verses in Matthew's Gospel. The first
half is quite straightforward; should the Disciples encounter persecution they are
under no obligation to stay there and suffer it. Rather, there are plenty of towns
and synagogues in Judea and the Galilee to go to and continue their work. It's
the last half of the verse where the problem lies. It says that they will not finish
visiting all the cities around Israel before the Son of Man comes. This one is a
real head scratcher and so there are a number of opinions among Bible scholars
as to what this means. We won't cover them all, but we will take a look at some of
the more prominent conclusions.
The first thought is actually one that has application that goes beyond this verse.
It is whether we are to take the term Son of Man as it is meant in Daniel 7; or are
we to take it in the more common usage as merely meaning "human being"? In
other words, for whatever reason, did Christ say "Son of Man" but He just as
easily could have said "I" or "me"? He just liked saying Son of Man.
The second thought is that Christ never really used that term. It was Matthew that
was trying to make that connection. The Book of Daniel was immensely popular
among Jews in the 1st century, for the same reason that in the 21st century the
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
Book of Revelation is so popular among Christians. The Jews felt that Daniel
spoke about the Kingdom of God and the End Times, and that they were living in
that time (due to being occupied by Rome). Today Christians see a world in
shambles and so feel that Revelation answers some questions about the End
Times that many feel we are in.
A third thought is that Son of Man is indeed all about a special person that makes
an appearance in the End Times, but Jesus wasn't him. In fact, when He speaks
of the Son on Man in verse 23, it is Jesus's expectation of the arrival of a
mysterious Son of Man. I could go on, but this will suffice.
The reason for these rather odd, and usually rigid, viewpoints is what we talked
about earlier; it is the result of the typical Christian approach to the Bible in a
Greek thinking mode. But if we approach it in the Hebrew manner of looking at
that statement in its various levels and depths, then we don't have to make a
choice that only one of these (and other) viewpoints is right and the others
wrong.
In the hindsight we've been afforded, it is not hard to see that Jesus sees Himself
as the "one like a son of man" from Daniel, and that Daniel is one of Christ's main
sources for End Times prophecies.
CJB Matthew 24:15-16 15 "So when you see the abomination that causes
devastation spoken about through the prophet Dani'el standing in the Holy
Place" (let the reader understand the allusion), 16 "that will be the time for
those in Y'hudah to escape to the hills.
Just a few verses down from that we read:
CJBMatthew 24:30 30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky,
all the tribes of the Land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man
coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power and glory.
This is a direct reference to Daniel chapter 7. So it is pretty far fetched to claim
that 1) the Son of Man is not a reference to the "one like a son of man" in Daniel;
or 2) that all Jesus ever means by it is "I" or "me"; or 3) that while there will be an
End Times Son of Man, it's Christ. Yet this doesn't solve everything.
What does He mean when He says the Son of Man will come before the
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Lesson 36 - Matthew 10 cont
Disciples finish evangelizing all the towns of Israel? I see a couple of possibilities
and both may be true. First: the job of evangelizing Israel never ends. There were
hundreds and hundreds of cities, towns, villages and synagogues in the Holy
Land in Christ's day and at least a million Jews. There was no way those 12
Disciples were ever going to preach in every one of them, to every last individual.
So we don't take a map, create grids, evangelize the squares of the grid, and
them mark them off as "mission accomplished". One proof of this is the striking
fact that in none of the Gospels regarding the sending out of the 12 does it ever
speak of them coming back. In other words, until the Son of Man (the divine
Messiah) returns, the work must continue. Second: while Christ was speaking
directly about evangelizing Israel, soon those going out from Israel would venture
into the gentile nations. That job is, obviously, far larger than taking the Good
News only to the Holy Land. And, as with the first suggestion, this evangelizing
mission is to continue regardless of how thoroughly we may think it has already
been done. We can rest from these efforts often referred to in Christianity as
the Great Commission....only when the Son of Man (Yeshua) returns, and ushers
His followers into the Millennial Kingdom of God.
We'll begin next week at verse 24.
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 37, Chapter 10 Continued 2
The topic of what Christ signified when He called Himself "the Son of Man" is
how we ended our last lesson. In the Torah Class study of the Book of Daniel,
lessons 20 and 21, I spent extensive time explaining two important biblical terms:
The Son of God and The Son of Man. You can go to those lessons to get a more
in depth understanding; but for now just know that despite how it sounds to us,
The Son of God is actually about Yeshua's humanity, and The Son of Man points
us to His deity. So in the Gospels when we read about Jesus speaking of Himself
as the Son of Man, He is saying that He is divine (although clearly nearly no one,
including His original 12 Disciples, seemed initially to comprehend His intended
meaning).
Without doubt Christ is using the term Son of Man in the sense it was meant in
Daniel chapter 7. Let's take a minute to revisit that passage.
CJBDaniel 7:8-14 8
"While I was considering the horns, another horn sprang
up among them, a little one, before which three of the first horns were
plucked up by the roots. In this horn were eyes like human eyes and a
mouth speaking arrogantly. 9
"As I watched, thrones were set in place; and
the Ancient One took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, the hair on
his head was like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, with wheels of
burning fire. 10 A stream of fire flowed from his presence; thousands and
thousands ministered to him, millions and millions stood before him. Then
the court was convened, and the books were opened. 11 "I kept watching.
Then, because of the arrogant words which the horn was speaking, I
watched as the animal was killed; its body was destroyed; and it was given
over to be burned up completely. 12 As for the other animals, their rulership
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
was taken away; but their lives were prolonged for a time and a season. 13 "I
kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming with the clouds of
heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the Ancient One and
was led into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership, glory and a
kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His
rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and his kingdom is
one that will never be destroyed.
Clearly this Son of Man is divine because first, He was invited into Heaven and
was led into the very presence of the Ancient One (God). Second, God gave Him
a kingdom that would never be destroyed and also gave Him personal rulership
over it, accompanied with glory. I've asked myself on many occasions why this
connection seems so clear to many of us in modern times, but seemed to fly over
the heads of the Jewish people in Christ's day? Why, when Daniel was such a
popular book then; and why, when many (or most) Jews felt they were living in
the End Times; and why, when other Prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah
also spoke about the End Times and the many miraculous things that a divine
Messiah would do on earth, were even the Jewish religious authorities oblivious
to Yeshua's allusion to the Son of Man and were witness to the growing number
of His miracles that they saw with their own eyes?
From a biblical perspective, Isaiah provides the surest answer.
CJB Isaiah 6:5-13 6 One of the s'rafim flew to me with a glowing coal in his
hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 He touched my mouth
with it and said, "Here! This has touched your lips. Your iniquity is gone,
your sin is atoned for." 8 Then I heard the voice of Adonai saying, "Whom
should I send? Who will go for us?" I answered, "I'm here, send me!" 9 He
said, "Go and tell this people: 'Yes, you hear, but you don't understand.
You certainly see, but you don't get the point!' 10 "Make the heart of this
people [sluggish with] fat, stop up their ears, and shut their eyes.
Otherwise, seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, then
understanding with their hearts, they might repent and be healed!" 11 I
asked, "Adonai, how long?" and he answered, "Until cities become
uninhabited ruins, houses without human presence, the land utterly
wasted; 12 until ADONAI drives the people far away, and the land is one vast
desolation. 13 If even a tenth [of the people] remain, it will again be
devoured. "But like a pistachio tree or an oak, whose trunk remains alive
after its leaves fall off, the holy seed will be its trunk."
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
The context of this passage has to do with the conquering of Israel by the
Assyrians on account of the people of Israel having gone far astray and thus
becoming blind and deaf to God's Word, and disregarding His many warnings to
them. But it also applied to the circumstances of the exile of Judah that would
happen 150 years after that, and even to the eventual dispersing of the Jews late
in the 1st century A.D. by the Romans. It also has application to the End Times
that is ahead of us. The point is that it is God who stopped up the ears and shut
the eyes of the Jewish people such that they couldn't accept what Jesus did and
said, and this as a punishment for their unfaithfulness and rebellion.
And even from a less spiritual and more practical matter, Believers today have all
manner of resources available to us (along with the benefit of hindsight) to grasp
just who this strange Holy Man from Nazareth actually was. We have scores of
commentaries written by highly trained Bible scholars. We have libraries open to
everyone, usually free of charge. Bibles are in plentiful supply, from very
inexpensive to free, and published in dozens of languages. We have the Internet
with access to more easily attained information about the Bible and the biblical
times than was imaginable even 20 years ago. Not to mention amazing computer
based Bible programs that can instantly search the Scriptures for words and
phrases, present us with dozens of Bible versions at our fingertips, and have built␂in language translators and morphologies. Jews in the 1st century didn't possess
any of this. They didn't have Bibles. The wealthy may have possessed one
complete book of the Bible but that was as much a luxury item that represented
social status, as it was an actual source of study. But in general the common
Jewish people only knew what little they learned at their local synagogue, some
of which may have had a Torah scroll. As we've already discussed, what they
learned was taught through the filter of Tradition. It is no wonder that the Jewish
people Yeshua encountered simply could not comprehend what, and who, stood
in their midst at this time.
Bottom line: Yeshua was certainly revealing that He was indeed Daniel's
mysterious, divine Son of Man because He constantly made that connection. The
Jewish people couldn't seem to see it and as I've shown you, a goodly part of the
Bible academic world can't either because they too have their ears stopped up
and their eyes closed due to their lack of trust.
Let's re-read some more of Matthew chapter 10.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 10:24 - end
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
As with a few verses earlier, some of what is said in verses 24 and 25 is
straightforward, and some of it is a bit difficult to untangle. When Yeshua speaks
of the 12 Disciples' relationship to Himself, He simply makes an easily
understood proverb: a disciple is not above His rabbi, and a slave is not above
His Master. His 12 Disciples certainly would not have been surprised with this
comment or disagreed in any way. Other New Testament translations say that a
disciple is not above his teacher, and the KJV says that a disciple is not about his
master. Let's take a quick look at the Greek so that we get a little sharper sense
of this proverb.
In the first half of this verse, the word is didaskalos. While the term is generic for
teacher, in the New Testament it is invariably used to mean a teacher of the
things of God. So for English speakers in the 21st century, the way to understand
this is: a disciple is not above the one he follows who teaches God's Word. The
second half of verse 24 says that a slave is not greater than his Master. Or as
some versions have it, a servant is not above his lord. The word translated as
slave or servant is doulos and it means a purchased slave, or a bond servant, or
merely an attendant like a maid. So it speaks of a person, no matter their exact
circumstance, that serves someone in authority over them. The Greek word for
Master is kurios, and it means the one to whom a person or a thing belongs. It
involves a sense of ownership. So for English speakers in the 21st century, we
should understand this as meaning that a person who serves is not higher than
the one he serves because that person owns him.
In our day and age, the idea of an owned slave immediately conjures up a vision
of a shameful time in Western history when people from Africa were captured
and sold to people of European descent to be used as slave labor. That is, we
cannot help but think of race and bigotry. Yet, that is not what the Bible is talking
about here. There is no negative sense to the notion of being a servant or a slave
of some kind. Christ speaks of Himself as being a servant (or slave) to His Father
in Heaven. Believers are instructed to view ourselves as servants or slaves to
Jesus and to His Father. The idea is that we serve one who, from a spiritual
standpoint, is master above of us because in a very real sense He owns us.
Obviously this is a positive and not a negative, so we need to take what Christ as
just said to the 12 in the same light.
Having prefaced what He is about say in verse 25 with the simple proverb of
verse 24, He continues with: it is enough that a disciple becomes like his master.
Again consulting the Greek there are two terms we need to highlight. First is what
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
it means to "be like" his master. The word translated to English as "like" or "as" in
Greek is hos. It does NOT mean to be "the same as". It does NOT mean to "be
equal to". It means to be similar; to be of the same kind; or to imitate someone.
Thus the 12 Disciples are being told that even though Christ has granted them
powers that are similar to what He bears, and they should use those powers in a
similar way that He did, they are not He. Yeshua, as their Master, will always be
the standard and ideal to strive for, but in the end it is not fully attainable because
no mere human will ever be who He uniquely is. Rather, says Christ, it is
enough.... it is sufficient.... that the Disciples bear similar traits that well
represents the unmatchable traits of their Master. In other words, despite
everything I've been telling you and warning you about: "relax"; you don't have to
try to be Me.
I can remember my own father telling me, not too long before he passed away, of
the day that he learned to relax in the Lord and how much easier life became as
a result. My father was a wonderful, Godly man, who took his faith in Christ very
seriously. He was always striving to be kind, merciful and forgiving. Yet we can
also strive too hard, trying to be too good in our own strength and will, seeking a
kind of perfection or righteousness that keeps us full of anxiety and without a
feeling of a sustaining inner peace. This is NOT what our Lord Yeshua wants of
us. His message to His 12, and to us, is to relax in Him. His yoke is light; it's not
an impossible burden to bear. We're not going to be judged harshly because we
weren't able to be just like Him in every nuance, action and thought. And yet to
relax in Him doesn't give us license to become lazy or disobedient or to take our
faith casually, or to quit trying and just eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we
may die.
So the final words of verse 25 add a warning. If we're going to strive to imitate
our Master (as we should), then we'll be seen by the public as our Master is
seen. Thus, says Jesus, if they call the master of the house Beelzebul..... let's
pause here; what does this mean? Technically Be'elzebul is in
Hebrew Ba'alzevul. Besides Ba'al being the name of a false god in the ancient
pantheon of gods, little "b" ba'al simply means "lord" or "master", without any
religious context. Thus Ba'alzevul directly translates as "lord (or master) of the
house". Thus we literally have Yeshua saying: "if they call the master of house
the master of the house". Clearly this makes little sense. Rather it is that in
ancient Jewish culture the term "lord of the house", Ba'alzevul, came to be a
name or title for Satan. So, the best way to understand the meaning is: if they call
the master of the house Satan, then they will also identify the members of
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
Satan's household with him. And indeed, already back in chapter 9 verse 34 we
read concerning Yeshua exorcising demons out of possessed people, that the
Pharisees said to the impressed onlookers that only Satan can expel Satan's
demons. Thus more than implying that Yeshua's power and authority came from
Satan (Beelzebul) and not from God. So says Christ, when the 12 Disciples, now
armed with the abilities to do many of the same things that their Master did,
actually goes out and does them and pronounces the Good News, some will
accuse them of having their power come from Satan.
I want to expand on this. It is regularly taught by Bible commentators
that Beelzebul means "lord of the flies". In fact, within modern Christianity, this is
perhaps the most common teaching on this passage. This interpretation didn't
occur until the earlier part of the 19th century and was the result of a book written
by a Frenchman. Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy was an occultist who
was fascinated with demons and wrote a book that caught the imagination of the
European Christian community; it was called Dictionnaire Infernal (that is, The
Infernal Dictionary). In it he essentially charted out an entire realm of the demon
world complete with an elaborate system that operated on a hierarchy of many
levels. Some 40 years after he first published his work, it was re-published with
lots of illustrations in it, and some of the illustrations depicted Satan and his
demons as having the ability to fly. As a result of this, Satan and his demons
became known as "fliers", which a few years later was slightly shortened to
"flies". It was not meant in the sense of pesky and dirty houseflies but rather
merely in the sense of beings that can fly. But, as it often happens, as we get into
the 20th century the term flies indeed was assumed to mean houseflies and so
there you have it: Beelzebub has transformed to mean Lord of the Flies. Now this
meaning has been incorporated into the Western Bible, and the average
Christian is none the wiser.
I tell you this short anecdote not only to help you understand the actual meaning
of verse 25, but also to demonstrate how over the centuries that occultism and
paganism have crept into Christianity with few people recognizing it, but rather
assuming because a Theologian or a Pastor speaks it, it must be correct. But
now apply this same principle to the Jews of the 1st century. They too looked to
their "theologians" and "pastors" the priests and the scribes...... for
understanding. But paganism and the occult had also gradually crept into the
Hebrew faith with few having any clue about it. At times we read of a frustrated
Jesus just for this reason. Rather than being able to put up a banner and say:
"Your wait is over! Your Messiah is here and it is I", He had to confront the
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
Traditions that had been taught, and to dispute with those who taught them, and
to re-teach the old and timeless truth of the Torah and the Prophets before the
meaning of His advent could be properly understood. Let those with ears, hear.
In verse 26, now that Jesus has shaken-up His disciples with some words of
warning, He offers encouragement that the 12 need not be in fear of their critics
and persecutors. Why? Because as He goes on to say that what is covered will
be uncovered, and that what is secret will be revealed. Nothing and no one can
stop the message from being understood and spreading. The subject matter of
their evangelizing (to this point, it is announcing the Good News that the Kingdom
of Heaven has arrived on earth) will go out and many will be enlightened and
benefit from it, despite the Disciples' worry that they may be failing. In
the P'shat sense, this says that indeed many of the Jewish people will open their
minds and believe the Disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. In
the Remez sense what the Disciples will be doing are but the first baby steps into
a centuries long undertaking. Yeshua is speaking of the many mysteries of the
Redemption process that are only beginning to open up for people to grasp, in
the same way that a flower almost imperceptibly begins to slowly open its petals
to finally reveal the beautiful and wondrous pistil in its center, whereby
reproduction can occur.
An important point here is that the Disciples are not to judge with their eyes if
they are succeeding or not. They are not to have an expectation of instant
success. Their job is not to convert people; it is only to speak the truth. And to
speak that truth according to their current understanding, and not what will be
eventually revealed in the future. Thus when Christ says that what is said in the
dark needs to be spoken in the light; and what is whispered is to be openly
spoken on the housetops, this does not mean that darkness or whispering in the
way He is using it is in any way negative or wicked. We are meant to picture
Christ and His eager Disciples sitting together in the evening, around a camp fire,
His Disciples listening and absorbing as their Master teaches them. I imagine it
was like trying to drink from a fire hose. Whispering merely means that what He
is teaching them has been done in private, and so far it has only been for them.
But now that they have learned and are prepared, they are to take it out publicly
and disperse it to all the Jewish people. This is the P'shat sense of it.
The Remez sense is that this applies to all would-be disciples of Christ. Thus
the P'shat applies to before Yeshua's resurrection (when the message was
explicitly only for Israel), but the Remez applies to after the resurrection (when
the message would now also be sent out to the entire gentile world as well).
7/13

Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
Verse 28 is familiar to nearly all Believers. Do not fear is the message.
Specifically it is broaching the subject of death, and that it should not be feared.
The first thing to notice is how Yeshua speaks of the body and soul as separate
entities. So the death of the body does not also mean the death of the soul.
Before we discuss body and soul, let's again talk about fear because due to the
Covid-19 pandemic we are enduring, fear is running rampant, including among
Christians.
The English term "fear" is expressed by a number of Hebrew and Greek words in
the Bible. They all have slightly different meanings; sometimes the difference
between them is hard to separate. Another thing to understand is that when
translating from the original language to English we must be careful not to
misunderstand because the same word can invoke different images, and indicate
different things, in different eras. I'll give you a prime example. In Medieval times
and earlier, the terms love and hate were often used on a political level. To love
your king meant to be loyal to him; to hate your king meant to be disloyal. The
term fear was also used politically. To fear your king is the same as it means to
fear your God; it first and foremost pointed towards absolute loyalty. To this
meaning is usually added a sense of reverence, respect and an
acknowledgement that this person has true and legitimate power over you. Thus
to fear and to be afraid were, in bygone times, quite different situations. To fear
your king, then, is not the same as being afraid of your king. To be afraid of your
king (or of God) means to be in dread of him.
So with that said, what does it mean in verse 28 to not fear someone who can kill
your body, but do fear someone who can kill both your body and your soul? The
Greek word used in this case is phobeo. It is where we get the English term
"phobia". If we have a phobia of spiders, we certainly don't have loyalty, respect
or reverence for them; rather we are in dread of them. Thus depending on your
Bible translation, you might find the word "afraid" instead of "fear", and I think
"afraid" better captures the sense of it. Or, to use the direct connection between
the Greek phobeo and the English phobia, "Do not have a phobia for those who
can kill your body, but do have a phobia for those who can kill your body and
your soul". Don't be in dread of those who can kill your body, but do be in dread
of those who can kill your body and soul. There is no way that we can not notice
an element of possible martyrdom in Christ's words.
To the Disciples Yeshua is saying that they shouldn't worry about being killed for
their faith. It can happen; but if you wander around constantly afraid and in dread
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
you certainly can't do your job properly. I remember in a very moving and hard
hitting TV series call Band of Brothers about WWII, there were a number of
interviews with survivors of a particular Army unit from the 101st Airborne. One
man spoke about being scared. He said that everyone was scared all the time;
but that some people handled it better. That if one was too afraid, they couldn't
function as soldiers must. And that he was one that could handle the fear. This
man was well aware he could die; he saw death all around him and of course
hoped it wouldn't happen to him. Yet, he wasn't in dread of it each day he awoke.
He didn't have a phobia about it, so he could function, not fall to pieces or shrink
from the battlefield, and do his dangerous job. I think this is a fairly good analogy
of what Jesus is saying to the 12, and to all of us.
As Believers who are saved, Yeshua advises us that we no longer have to fear
death because the essence of who we are lives on in a very real way in our soul.
We don't have to live in dread; of a murderer, of a car accident or a plane
crash or of a pandemic virus. A virus such as the one that has enveloped our
globe is serious and indeed can, under the right circumstances, kill our body. But
never can it kill our soul. So as Believers we don't have to be germophobic (or
today, virophobic). Death comes to us all at some point; and there is no reason to
dread it even though none of us look forward to it.
So what should we have a phobia about? It should be about our soul being
destroyed, says Christ. Or, as it is put in this verse, the same one who can kill the
body also has the power to kill the soul. There is only one being that can kill the
soul: God. So while we should never have a phobia about bodily death, we
should definitely have a phobia about soul death, accompanied with a fear (a
reverence, respect, and loyalty) of the only One who can kill both: God.
The final words of this verse speak of the body and soul being destroyed in
Gehenna. Gehenna translates the Hebrew Gei-Hinnom. Gei-Hinnom is the
Valley of Hinnom that runs through Jerusalem. That valley was used as the
municipal dump site. Every imaginable kind of refuse was thrown into it. It would
have filled up pretty quickly except that they kept a fire burning in the trash to
reduce it to ashes. Since animal carcasses, even body parts, were thrown in
there (and at times entire corpses were as well) one can only imagine the never
ending stench. To reduce the foul odors sulfur was also thrown in. Thus, there
was no more shameful, horrible thing that a Jewish person could imagine than
having one's own dead body throw into that garbage dump and burnt up along
with every foul thing. Such a thing could only be viewed as a punishment of the
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
worst order. Thus Gei-Hinnom was thought of by the Jews in the same way
Christians think of *.
What we see here in Matthew 10 is actually a glimpse into one stream of Jewish
theology about death at the time (there were others). While there was no clear
map about what happened to a soul after death, clearly there was the thought
that the soul did live on outside of the deceased body. And yet the soul could be
destroyed. There were those Jews who equated the horrors of Gei-Hinnom with
what happens to departed souls after the general resurrection and the End of
Days when God judges them. The unrighteous would be thrown
into Gei-Hinnom. The theology of the Bosom of Abraham was also in play at this
time, and it was believed to be a chamber under the earth where the souls of the
righteous dead reside (people who lived before Christ went to the Cross, but
were imputed with righteousness according to their trust in God) at least some
of the righteous dead.... and I am certain that this is where Paul thought that
Christ descended after His resurrection. Listen first to Ephesians where Paul
talks about this event. .
CJB Ephesians 4:4-10 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as when you
were called you were called to one hope. 5 And there is one Lord, one trust,
one immersion, 6 and one God, the Father of all, who rules over all, works
through all and is in all. 7 Each one of us, however, has been given grace to
be measured by the Messiah's bounty. 8 This is why it says, "After he went
up into the heights, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to
mankind."
9 Now this phrase, "he went up," what can it mean if not that he
first went down into the lower parts, that is, the earth? 10 The one who went
down is himself the one who also went up, far above all of heaven, in order
to fill all things.
So is this a brand new thought by Paul? No. As he says in verse 8, "This is
why it says..." So some writing he knows about says something he is about to
quote. That "something" comes from Psalm 68.
CJB Psalm 68:18-20 18 God's chariots are myriads, repeated thousands;
Adonai is among them as in Sinai, in holiness. 19 After you went up into the
heights, you led captivity captive, you took gifts among mankind, yes, even
among the rebels, so that Yah, God, might live there. 20 Blessed be Adonai!
Every day he bears our burden, does God, our salvation. (Selah)
10/13
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
There are other mentions in this Psalm about saving and salvation, so it is little
wonder that Paul saw in Psalm 68 a prophecy about Messiah. And Paul, making
midrash on Psalm 68, says that since this messianic Psalm says "he went up",
then logically he (Yeshua) first must have gone down. And if he went down,
where did he go and why? He went down into the earth, and he made captivity
captive. This strange phrase operates, I think, like a double negative. That is, if a
word is a negative and then you make a negative about the negative, it becomes
a positive. If I say, "don't not shut the door", the two negatives "don't" and "not"
work together to cancel each other out and make the statement positive. In my
example, then, "don't not shut the door" effectively means "shut the door". So to
make captivity captive (two things we can take negatively) can only mean to
cancel captivity. It's like taking the Jailer of the captives and throwing him in
prison (making him captive) so that all the prisoners can go free and there's no
one left to keep others captive any more. So in the case of Jesus descending into
the earth post-resurrection, Paul thinks He ended the captivity of whom?
Certainly not of the demons. So it had to be of the dead. But what dead? All
dead? No. Only of the righteous dead of Abraham's Bosom that harbored only
Israelites. Those who resided there could be released from their captivity (that
was used to shut them up in spiritual safety for a time) and now they could go on
to Heaven due to Christ's atoning death. At that moment Abraham's Bosom was
emptied out and it will remain empty forever because Yeshua's death and
resurrection made captive waiting pointless. "Absent from the body, present with
the Lord".
OK. So now Yeshua has offered a few different forms of encouragement to the
Disciples who have been told unequivocally that their mission will be fraught with
dangers, opposition, and possible death. Verses 29 through 31 offer another
encouragement of a different kind. Along the same lines of "yes, you might get
killed but don't worry because your soul will live on", now we get something from
Yeshua that more as less says, "don't worry because God is watching and
nothing happens that is not in His will". This is a reminder more than it is some
new revelation as this pretty well expresses an existing doctrine of the Jews.
Whatever happens MUST be in God's will or He actually isn't in control no matter
how much we want to convince ourselves otherwise.
To demonstrate just how important these 12 are to God, Jesus draws an
analogy. He says that as inexpensive as sparrows are to purchase, and as many
millions or billions of them there are, not one sparrow dies (falls to the ground)
without God the Father allowing it. Most modern Believers don't realize that the
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
poor people among Israel regularly ate sparrows as food because they were so
plentiful and easy to catch, and therefore cheap to buy. Sparrows were perfectly
kosher. And the pricing structure to buy sparrows at market to use for food was,
according to Matthew, 2 sparrows for an assarion. An assarion was a Roman
coin that was worth about 1/16
th of a denarious (one denarious was the standard
pay for a day laborer). Luke gives a different value: 5 sparrows for 2
assarions slightly cheaper. Nonetheless, by any standard sparrows were
plentiful, carried a low value, and so the poorest of Jews could afford them for
meat. But as low in value as they are from the human perspective, every single
sparrow matters to the Father.
In contrast with sparrows, God keeps humans under even closer observation and
care. Verse 30 says that not only does God know each and every human, He
counts and knows the exact number of hairs on each human's head. Most
commentators think, as I do, that this is a Jewish expression or a kind of proverb.
It probably falls along the lines of counting the stars in the sky or the grains of
sand on the sea shore. It is not meant that God, or perhaps some of His angelic
servants, run around endlessly counting human hairs. Rather it is figurative of
just how closely God keeps watch over His human creatures, and how He knows
each of us so perfectly well and knows our circumstances in such detail. I have a
mental picture of a mother regularly taking her child over to a doorway and
marking his/her height because she delights in every detail of her child growing
and thriving.
The logical conclusion to this? Don't be in fear because if God cares for sparrows
so much, imagine how much He cares for you! Your value to God is off the charts
compared to what it is for a sparrow, each of which matters to Him. Once again
the Greek word Matthew chooses for "fear" is phobeo; a dread. So, don't be
phobic over the many bad things that could happen to you, but equally likely
won't happen. And yet, just under the surface is the meaning that perhaps the
Disciples don't know what might happen to them, or why something bad does
happen, but rest assured the Holy One who cares even for the tiniest birds
places immense value on every human life. A scary or tragic or unjust event is
not the signal that God has lost interest in you. It is only that as human beings,
our minds cannot possibly fathom God's plans and ways.
Perhaps one of the greatest problems in all of Christianity comes from this
common question from Believers and non-Believers alike: why do bad things
happen to good people IF there is a God and if He loves us? Invariably a Pastor
12/13
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Lesson 37 - Matthew 10 cont 2
or a Rabbi tries to help make a victim or a victim's friends and relatives make
sense of it in order to comfort them. I'd like to tackle this question very briefly but
will likely cause some unintended offense to someone hearing this who has
suffered greatly. My apologies upfront. To the non-Believer this question is meant
to challenge God's very existence. But for the Believer the very thought, let alone
asking out loud, of questioning God about why He allows what He allows, is an
indication of our obvious disagreement with it. This attitude can only come from a
personal lack of faith and trust in God. One doesn't have to live very long to learn
that not only do bad things happen to good people, but also good things happen
to bad people, which can be equally disconcerting. In the Targum of Job, we
read: "You cannot understand the things with which you have grown up; so
how can your mind comprehend the way of the Most High?"
The problem of evil (something Christ was dealing with as He talked with His
Disciples) was something the ancients of most cultures and religions faced. Of
course, the first thing one had to do was to define what was evil, but also to
define what a good person amounted to. Biblically, a good person is one thing
only: a righteous God worshipper. The thing that followers of Yeshua must
always keep in mind is that while the here and now matters greatly in our lives
and to God, Our Savior makes it clear that it is the eternal future that matters
even above it. His statement in Chapter 10 about fearing not him who can kill
only our body but rather he who can kill body AND soul makes this point.
Despite all appearances, no matter what the circumstance or outcome, as
worshippers of the God of Israel we must live our lives resolved that 1) every
human life matters to Him, and 2) everything that happens, good or bad, does not
escape His gaze nor is it outside of His will. We must finally learn to be as Job
and to stop fretting and questioning and doubting; we must admit to ourselves
that no amount of education, and no amount of religious degrees, and no amount
of our goodness, or earthly wisdom or public adulation will ever give us the ability
as mere humans to fathom the depths of God. We must have faith; which means
to observe, trust, and demand no satisfying explanation that meets with our
preconceived perceptions.
We'll continue in Matthew 10 next time.
13/13

Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 38, Chapter 10 and 11
Of the several passages in Matthew chapter 10 that we studied last week, verses
26 - 31 dealt with fear, death, and the problem of evil. In context it had primarily
to do with what Yeshua's 12 Disciples might face as they journeyed through the
Holy Land taking the Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived to the
Jewish population. In the P'shat sense, the plain literal sense, this concern was
directly for the 12 and was a warning by Christ that they likely would encounter
angry opposition, and some might not survive their mission. I have no doubt that
this is how they all would have taken it. In the Remez sense, the deeper
underlying sense, this was a message for all future disciples, wherever they may
be, about what we could expect to face in the task of the great commission we've
all signed up for when we first gave our hearts to Our Savior.... whether we
realized it or not.
As we'll read a little later, Christ relates to all who choose to follow Him that we
should expect to have tribulation just as He suffered. We should expect to be
persecuted and shunned, just as He was. I remember decades ago that a Pastor
I was listening to said: as Believers if we are not pariahs to this world, then
we're not working at it hard enough. That has always stuck with me. If we
listen carefully to what Yeshua tells us it is that if we are friends of this world
more than we are to Him, and if we seem to belong to this world more than we
belong to Him, then we can't also be His.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
This doesn't mean that in the name of Christ we are to try to find ways to offend
others or to make unnecessary trouble for ourselves. This doesn't mean that we
aren't to show respect to others who disagree with our stance on Christ. This also
doesn't mean that we are to try for poverty as a lifestyle, or that we must go off
into some commune in the wilderness that we might physically separate
ourselves from corrupted society. Quite the opposite, actually. We can't be a light
to the world if we disconnect and hide from it. But most importantly, we cannot
tell others of God's love and Yeshua's sacrifice for them if we aren't among the
world, interacting with the world, and dealing with the natural consequences that
come from it.
A secular film entitled Into The Wild tells the true story of a young man, Chris
McCandless, who immediately after graduating from Emory University left his
family, friends, and all societal connections behind in order to gain what he saw
as complete freedom; the only way he thought was the means to happiness. He
disavowed money, possessions, and most importantly relationships with people
other than for fleeting ones. During one conversation he had with an elderly man
who befriended him, Chris explained that the reason that the man was lonely was
because he wrongly felt that relationships with people was what mattered the
most in life. Rather, says the young man, it is experiencing the physical world in
all its bounty, diversity and beauty that brings contentment and happiness. Chris
finally achieved his goal of living in solitude, free from all societal and human
attachments, in the breathtaking wilderness of Alaska. He made home of a rusted␂out hull of a bus that lay mysteriously, and so oddly out of place, miles beyond
civilization, deep in the Alaskan bush. He died only a few months later, alone and
in that bus, after having no luck foraging for food and accidentally eating some
poisonous berries to satisfy his gnawing hunger. In the diary that he kept... the
diary and his body accidentally stumbled upon by moose hunters.... his final
penned words were that it turns out he was wrong.
In his last hours of life, at only 24 years of age, Chris McCandless wrote a short
sentence of personal discovery. It said simply: happiness only has meaning
when it is shared with others. This was, perhaps, his way of saying that he at
last understood that true happiness only blossoms when we love our neighbors
as ourselves. For followers of Christ hopefully the epiphany that the joy of our
salvation only has meaning when it is shared with others, comes early in our faith
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
walk. Let us vow to do that at whatever the cost, and to not have to stand before
God, after our inevitable death, and explain that we thought that living only within
and for ourselves, safely in these rusting-out buses that we call our bodies, was
where happiness resided. Because that means we never took Jesus's
instructions to us seriously.
As for the issue of evil, and the perplexing question of how a loving and
sovereign God could allow the world of His creation to become so sickly and full
of wrong, Yeshua simply reminds His Disciples (through an illustration) that every
human life matters to God, and that the Father values His human creations
above His animal creations even though He places great value on them as well.
In the end, the answer to this question of the ages is that God is a mystery and
His ways are above our ways. Jesus also instructs that our bodies are temporary
and can be destroyed in any number of ways. But our soul is separate, eternal,
and only God the Father can destroy the soul; therefore, we should not worry
about our lives.
So in response to this teaching Believers are to take on the attitude of Job who,
in his darkest hour, comes to understand that whatever happens on earth, good
or evil, happy or sad, God not only knows about it, it is only within His will that it
can even happen. This is what true, honest, real, operable faith in God comes
down to. We observe; we trust; and we don't demand answers that satisfy our
preconceived perceptions.
Let's move on to the next section of Matthew chapter 10.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 10:32 - end
I think if I was one of the original 12 Disciples I'd be both perplexed and startled
at what Yeshua has just said. He says that there are eternal consequences for
acknowledging Him, or not. I suppose I'd have to ask myself why this miracle
working Holy Man thinks my relationship with Him as one of His disciples would
determine some hazy vision of my eternal future. And yet, 2000 years in
hindsight, we, His followers, understand that Yeshua was saying that God the
Father isn't only His Father in the sense that we can all call God "Father"; but
rather there is an actual, tangible one-on-one familial connection between Jesus
and God. Jesus is not only God's son in the sense that all Israelite kings of the
past have been imputed as His sons; rather it is that Yeshua and God are literally
related in the same way that any son and his biological father are, and yet in
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
ways that no human son and father can be.
Yeshua also says that merely intellectually and secretly accepting Him is not
sufficient; this acceptance must be visible and it must be public. For those who
accept Him, then Yeshua says that when He stands in the Father's presence He
will acknowledge them. This statement of standing in Heaven before the Father
can only allude to Daniel chapter 7 and to Jesus referring to Himself as the Son
of Man. Let's briefly look to Daniel yet again.
CJB Daniel 7:9-14 9 "As I watched, thrones were set in place; and the Ancient
One took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, the hair on his head was
like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, with wheels of burning fire. 10 A
stream of fire flowed from his presence; thousands and thousands
ministered to him, millions and millions stood before him. Then the court
was convened, and the books were opened. 11 "I kept watching. Then,
because of the arrogant words which the horn was speaking, I watched as
the animal was killed; its body was destroyed; and it was given over to be
burned up completely. 12 As for the other animals, their rulership was taken
away; but their lives were prolonged for a time and a season. 13 "I kept
watching the night visions, when I saw, coming with the clouds of heaven,
someone like a son of man. He approached the Ancient One and was led
into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership, glory and a kingdom, so
that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His rulership is
an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and his kingdom is one that
will never be destroyed.
Undeniably, the 12 Disciples weren't entirely confident of what Yeshua meant;
but for us there's no reason to wonder if only we'll consult the Bible. Yeshua is
saying that He is Daniel's Son of Man who stands, in Heaven, before the Ancient
One (The Father) and is given a Kingdom to rule forever. Jesus says that when
He (the Son of Man) stands before The Father, He will claim those who claim
Him. He follows this up by essentially saying the same thing only in the negative.
The CJB has Jesus asserting that for those who disown Him, He will disown
them before the Father. I can't go with that translation. The Greek word
is ameomai and it means to deny or to reject. It means to reply "no" to something
that is offered. The word disown has a sense of first having owned or accepted
something, and later disavowing it, but that is not what ameomai means. Thus it
is that when the 12 Disciples present the person and purpose of Yeshua to the
Jewish people, there will be those who say "no" to it. And to those who say "no"
4/12
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
to Yeshua, the Son of Man, He will say "no" to that person in front of The Father.
So what are we to take from this? Let's take this in 2 stages. Stage 1 applies to
the time of Christ: what would the 12 Disciples think Jesus means by declaring
that they, and those Jews they encounter, must accept Him? Thus far into His
ministry Yeshua hasn't proclaimed that He's the Messiah or that He is divine or
that He is a deliverer, even though the implications of His words are heavy. So it
can only be that to them He is saying that as their unquestioned Master they can
have no other. He is demanding not only total allegiance to Himself, but even a
public confession of that allegiance. He says that the allegiance to Him
represents an allegiance to The Father.
By now the 12 must surely believe that Yeshua is much more than a Tzadik in
some undefined way or there is no way they could accept such astounding
claims and stipulations. And they must also believe that indeed He has a unique
relationship with God unlike any who came before Him. Can they also accept all
that Christ has implied and hinted at without Him further clarifying or saying
things more plainly? Yes; this is indeed what Jesus expects of the 12, but also of
all those Jews who will hear the message of Good News from the 12.
Stage 2, however, is that Yeshua is painting a much larger picture than the
Disciples can possibly comprehend at this time. This picture is for those who are
living in the future Latter Days the 2nd Latter Days not the Latter Days that
the Disciples are living in. It is the Latter Days that we may be living in during the
21st century (although that cannot be said with certainty), which culminates with
the 2nd appearance of the Son of Man. The 2nd Latter Days leads directly to the
End Times, meaning the Apocalypse. So what Yeshua is explaining about whom
He rejects and whom He accepts before The Father in Heaven can only be a
depiction of the Final Judgment, which has at its focal point (according to Daniel)
the Son of Man: Christ. Some years later the Apostle John in the Book of
Revelation will confirm this understanding.
CJB Revelation 1:10-13 10 1 came to be, in the Spirit, on the Day of the Lord;
and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, 11 saying, "Write down
what you see on a scroll, and send it to the seven Messianic communities␂Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and
Laodicea!" 12 1 turned around to see who was speaking to me; and when I
had turned, I saw seven gold menorahs; 13 and among the menorahs was
someone like a Son of Man, wearing a robe down to his feet and a gold
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
band around his chest.
Notice the timing of the appearance of the Son of Man in John's vision. It is
during events contiguous with "the Day of the Lord", which is but one of several
biblical terms that means Judgment Day. So the Son of Man is directly
associated with, and involved in, Judgment Day.
Now notice what John sees a little later in on in his Revelation.
CJB Revelation 14:14-16 14 Then I looked, and there before me was a white
cloud. Sitting on the cloud was someone like a Son of Man with a gold
crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Another angel came
out of the Temple and shouted to the one sitting on the cloud, "Start using
your sickle to reap, because the time to reap has come- the earth's harvest
is ripe!" 16 The one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and
the earth was harvested.
So in this scene the Son of Man, as depicted in Daniel, comes in a cloud on
Judgment Day, and has a sickle in His possession. He uses it to harvest the
earth of its countless inhabitants. Do you remember what Jesus said only 1
chapter earlier in Matthew 9?
CJB Matthew 9:37-38 37 Then he said to his talmidim, "The harvest is rich,
but the workers are few. 38 Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out
workers to gather in his harvest." So the Son of Man, harvesting the earth, coming on a cloud, and Judgment Day
are all wrapped up in a nice neat package for us to see. But the timing for the
Son of Man to do these things was not in the 1st century; it was also not during
the lifetimes of the 12 Disciples, or of Jesus Himself, or even of the 2nd
generation of Jewish Apostles like Paul. It would be at an unspecified future time;
a time that obviously is even future to us.
The 12 Disciples had only the scantest of education and information from which
to try to understand Yeshua's pronouncements. And yet, of what little they did
know they had a faith in Him that could only have come from God. So they
committed their lives to Christ and later traditions say that several went to their
deaths on account that commitment. We of the 21st century may not know
everything about the future anymore than they did; but we can know from the
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
biblical record who Yeshua is in fine detail and what it means for all who accept
Him and all who don't.
Let's move on to verse 34. Beginning with that verse, and on until the end of the
chapter, there is such an important theme that often gets confused or is missed
altogether and so it establishes wrong expectations among Believers. It is that
the present age.... meaning our present time... is not, and will not be, a time of
peace. There will be no utopian dream realized on earth no matter how hard
mankind, or the Church, tries to establish one. Peace comes later; but not now. It
occurs when the Millennial Kingdom arrives. The Millennial Kingdom is not a
different kingdom from the Kingdom of Heaven; rather it is the final stage of
development of the Kingdom of Heaven to its fullest and most complete that it will
ever be on this present earth.
For Jesus to say that He brings a sword to inaugurate this Kingdom of Heaven on
earth seems a bit strange. A sword is symbolic of division. But He goes even
further and states unequivocally that bringing peace to the land (Eretz Israel) is
not His current mission. I imagine this was sweet news to Simon the Zealot and
Judas the Siqariyim. They both must have gleefully thought that Yeshua was
implying that He was going to lead them in an armed uprising against the
Romans. But His next words might have put a damper on those hopes because
Christ says that the sword He brings is meant for a division within families. How
are we to understand this? Is Jesus declaring war on households?
In 1st century Jewish culture the head of the household, usually the father or
grandfather, decided about the form of religious belief the family would hold and
practice. The issue for the Jews was not, of course, about which god to worship.
Rather it was about which Master (which Rabbi, so to speak) and which
synagogue to follow as their religious authority. So while family division over
religion no doubt must have happened occasionally, it really wasn't much of a
problem in Jewish society. Thus Yeshua has once again startled His 12 with His
words. He claims that His presence inaugurates a new dynamic. A household will
no longer practice its faith based on the choice of the head. In fact, different
members of the household will choose differently on account of Christ. Even
more, Yeshua demands that each member MUST choose Him on their own... no
one can choose for them. It doesn't matter what parents or siblings might
decide. I don't think an average gentile Christian today can even imagine the
enormity of what Jesus is proposing. But just ask a Jew who has accepted Christ
what that meant for them, and many will tell you stories of the high cost that
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
accompanied it.
Yeshua's words are emotionally charged to be sure; they are also structured for
maximum effect. The words are in no way an attack on the family. The jaw
dropping bottom line is that each family member is not only responsible to God
for his or her own choice, but that allegiance to Yeshua may bring chaos to a
formerly cohesive family unit. From here forward, Yeshua declares, no Jewish
son can say: but I'm not responsible for whom I place my faith in; my father
decides. No Jewish daughter can say: I want to choose Yeshua but my mother
told me I can't; so she bears the responsibility, not me.
To emphasize His point, Messiah continues in verse 37 by saying that the
highest allegiance of every family member must be to Him and not to the head of
the household. In fact, if a person makes allegiance to the head of the household
or to their parents the top priority above Christ, then they are not worthy of Him.
Let me say this more plainly: such a decision to place anyone or anything above
Yeshua disqualifies that person as His disciple. Those of us that are 2 millennia
removed from when the 12 Disciples heard this severe instruction think of it in a
kind of abstract, spiritualized way that may or may not have some tangible effect
on our lives. But the 12 and their families, and those Jews and their families that
heard the Good News took it in a physical, tangible way. They would have to
practice it and live it out; and almost certainly much family strife could erupt.
Yeshua is clearly drawing upon Micah 7, which was associated with the End
Times and Judgment Day even among the common Jews of Christ's day, as it
should be.
CJB Micah 7:5-6 5 Don't trust in your neighbor; don't put confidence in a
close friend; shut the gates of your mouth even from [your wife], lying there
with you in bed. 6 For a son insults his father, a daughter rises against her
mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law- a person's enemies are
the members of his own household.
Little brings long-term heartbreak to any person than marital splits and family
strife. In the era when it was the norm that 3, even 4, generations of a family
would live in the same household, the pain of family conflict was all the more
severe. So Jesus's message is not a welcome prediction; it says that before the
messianic age of peace finally arrives, every one will pass through some type of
affliction and all the more so when one decides to follow Him. Even so, Christ
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
makes it clear that following Him is more important than marital or family
harmony.
The message of the next 2 verses, 38 and 39, is the requirement of self-denial
to the point of death.... in order to follow Christ. While perhaps some red lights
might go off in us because of Matthew putting the mention of the Cross into
Christ's mouth this early in His ministry, the reality is that crucifixion in His time
was a nearly daily event. Because Romans were exempt from crucifixion, it was
applied almost exclusively to Jews ....thousands of them.... in the Holy Land.
Crucifixions were very public; they were always done on hilltops and along the
most traveled roadways so that the most people would see them. It was intended
to act as a deterrent against disobeying the laws of Rome or inciting rebellion.
There is no getting around a hint at martyrdom. Yet I think this really has more to
do with an all-in type of commitment to Christ and therefore is much less about
our death than it is about prioritizing our lives around an unequivocal trust in Him.
That is, the use of the word "cross" in His statement is not about an expectation
of dying for the cause. Rather it is symbolic of a complete alteration of our lives to
reflect our new-found faith.
Verses 40 - 42 provide me an opportunity to explain my regular use of calling
Jesus an agent of God (which I know from emails bothers some of you). Notice
how Christ uses a few different examples of the concept of agency in His
instructions. He begins by saying that as the 12 Disciples go along their
missionary journeys, those who offer them hospitality are doing it as though they
were offering it to Him. But, He also reveals that He Himself was sent on behalf
of someone higher than Himself. The implication from His earlier words is of His
close personal association with The Father, so clearly He is stating that when He
is received, it is as though the person is receiving The Father.
Next Christ uses the example of one who receives a prophet as obtaining the
same reward a prophet receives. And anyone receiving a Tzadik (a Holy Man)
will receive the same reward the Holy Man gets. Finally, if one of Yeshua's
disciples cares for a "little one" (a child), then his reward will not be lost.
All of these illustrations are based on the concept of agency; a representative (an
agent) is to be treated as the one whom he represents. An agent is the
extension of the power and authority of the one who sent him. The agent is NOT
the same as the one that sent him; but he wields the legal authority (within some
preset boundaries) of the one who sent him. It is within that understanding that
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
we must view one of the most debated sayings attributed to Christ:
CJB John 14:9 Yeshua replied to him, "Have I been with you so long without
your knowing me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; so
how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
"Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father". This appears in no other Gospel
than John's. Sadly, with disregard for context, it is commonly said in Christianity
that the meaning of this is that Jesus is essentially (and mysteriously) a sort of
spiritual clone of The Father. Or He has become the replacement of The Father
for a new age. Therefore in a diagram of the Trinity The Father, The Son, and the
Holy Spirit are all illustrated as co-equals because they are essentially all the
same. I say in the strongest possible way; this is not biblical and therefore it is not
true. This mindset was created as a doctrine sometime in the late 2nd century or
later (because I can find no evidence of it existing before then) in order for the
gentile controlled Church to separate themselves as far as possible from the
Jews and from Yehoveh, God The Father, the God of the Jews. It was designed
to declare that Jesus Christ is the new god for the New Testament Christians.
Yet, Christ is not claiming in John 14:9 to BE The Father, but rather He is once
again pointing to the concept of agency. He is the Father's agent who has been
given divine authority to exert and extend God The Father's power to earth and
its creatures on His behalf.
With that understanding, then the final 3 verses of Matthew 10 now have their
intended context. We see how Christ has made agents of the 12 Disciples to
wield the same power.... but not to hold the same position or same status... that
He was given by The Father, as an agent of The Father. This expresses a well␂known and accepted principle within 1st century and later Judaism call shaliah.
A shaliah is an emissary, an agent, who is legally empowered to act on behalf of
the one he is representing. The Greek word apostolos (which become apostle in
English) embodies the same idea because the concept of agency was nearly
universal in the world's many 1st century cultures.... and still is. Earlier in chapter
10, verses 1 and 8 specifically have Yeshua granting the powers of healing,
exorcising demons, cleansing the unclean, and even resurrecting the dead to the
12. But I doubt that any Christian theologian would suggest that this makes the
12 Disciples 12 mini-me's. The 12 Disciples have not become 12 Yeshuas just
because they have been granted the power to do things He did; but they are His
12 agents. The ICC Commentary on this section of Matthew 10 offers
this: "...behind the ever-changing preachers of the Gospel, there stands the
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
Son of God himself; and behind him God the Father".
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 11. READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 11 all
The first 19 verses of chapter 11 revolve around John the Baptist. We find three
subsections that each begin with a question. The first begins in verse 2 and the
question is: "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for
someone else?" The second question begins in verse 7: "What did you go out
to the desert to see? Reeds swaying in the breeze?" And the third question
comes from verse 16: "Oh, what can I compare this generation with?"
The first verse has Yeshua going His separate way from the Disciples. He was
done teaching them for now; I can only imagine that their heads were swimming
trying to absorb not just what they heard but also to comprehend what it meant.
Although the CJB has it that Yeshua went on to "preach in towns nearby", what it
really literally says is that He went on to preach in their towns. Since the subject
is the 12 Disciples, this must mean that Christ not only remained in the Galilee,
but that He literally visited the hometowns where the 12 Disciples' families would
have resided.
Why did Yeshua suddenly disengage from the 12? I don't think it is mysterious. I
see the Early Church Father Chrysostom as getting it right. In his homily on the
Gospel of Matthew, he says:
After Jesus commissioned the apostles, he proceeded to separate Himself
from them, to give them room and opportunity to do what he had called
them to do. For while He was present with them and healing others, no one
would be inclined to approach them.
Any good leader understands that after he has trained up a person (a disciple), if
he wants that person to grow and mature he's got to kick him out of the nest, and
let him or her stand on their own. The reality is that whenever that leader is
present.... especially one as charismatic and widely known as Yeshua... along
with the individual he has trained, people will naturally bypass the initiate and
gravitate to the leader. That is not good for the development of that person, and
in the longer run it inhibits the spreading of a movement or an organization.
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Lesson 38 - Matthew 10 & 11
As the 12 Disciples were now deep into their own missionary work, having been
sent out in pairs, and as Yeshua was intentionally going it alone for the moment
as He visited towns in the Galilee region, John the Baptist suddenly re-enters the
scene. However John is not present, he is in prison (Matthew does not give us
the reason at this point). According to Josephus in his notable work Antiquities,
John the Baptist was being held at Herod Antipas's hilltop fortress at Machaerus.
This is not located in modern day Israel, but rather is in Jordanian territory,
around 15 miles on the east side of the Jordan River. According to Josephus it
was here that the Baptist was finally executed. Mark 6 and Matthew 14 both deal
with his execution, and they say that it was a vengeful act by Antipas's wife,
Herodias, because John (out of some unknown motivation) decided to publicly
condemn their marriage. He was beheaded. However Josephus says that
Antipas's real motivation was political; he feared John and his flock would incite
Jews against him. I go with that; it makes far more sense because kings were
always on the look out for people with a following who could foment a threat to
the throne.
John instinctively knew he was never going to leave that jail alive. As he
languished there, realizing that his days were numbered, pondering about who
he was and what his life's legacy might be, he became troubled. He sent 2 of his
own disciples to find Yeshua and to give Him a message. The message is one
that has vexed...even dismayed... many Believers, including Bible scholars, for
centuries. The message the 2 disciples are to present to Christ and then come
back to John with a response (hopefully before he is executed), is in the form of a
question: "Are you the one that is to come, or are we to look for
another?" Such a question could only come from the agony of doubt.
The fallout of that question is what we'll discuss the next time we meet.
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 39, Chapter 11
From the panoramic view perhaps one of the main take-aways from all 4 Gospel
accounts is that Yeshua was misunderstood by His own Jewish countrymen; and
surprisingly by those one might think would have understood Him best. Since it is
various individuals and groups of people that misunderstand who He is and what
He has come to do, He employs several different methods to inform them. Yet at
times His responses to questions asked of Him seem awfully cryptic not only to
those He is speaking, but even to His followers that would come later; followers
from all eras.... including our own.
Chapter 11 of the Gospel of Matthew opens with just such an issue and oddly
enough the person of interest who seems to be confused by who Jesus is: John
the Baptist. Let's begin by re-reading the opening section of Matthew 11. RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 11:1-19
The setting is this: Christ has finished instructing His 12 Disciples for the time
being, and sent them on their way to the Jewish people of the Galilee. He too is
now traveling primarily around the Galilee to various towns and villages teaching
and preaching, but doing it alone. Nonetheless, the crowds are ever present.
Some miles away, John the Baptist languishes in prison, very likely at
Machaerus, Herod Antipas's fortress city that lies about 15 miles to the east of
the mouth of the Jordan River. Knowing that his end would happen there, soon,
John uses two of his own disciples to take an urgent message to Yeshua. The
message is: "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone
else?" Even when we take into account the Jewish cultural aspect of this
question, a plain reading is that John has doubts about Yeshua's purpose and
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
mission, and about His place in redemption history. Yet Christianity so elevates
the Baptist's person and status, placing him on a lofty pedestal of near spiritual
perfection, that Christian Bible scholars more often than not have tried to find
some other meaning to John's inquiry of Christ that side-steps the obvious.
A most popular option among theologians is that Matthew is mistaken, or
perhaps his words have been corrupted in the oldest Greek manuscripts we have
of Matthew's Gospel. In other words, to easily solve the problem, it is dismissed;
John's inquiry about Yeshua's identity never actually happened. Their rationale
for this is because John is recorded as saying some things concerning Yeshua
that seem to mean he is quite settled as to who Yeshua is.
CJB Matthew 3:11 It's true that I am immersing you in water so that you
might turn from sin to God; but the one coming after me is more powerful
than /- I'm not worthy even to carry his sandals- and he will immerse you in
the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire.
That is followed up by:
CJB Matthew 3:17 and a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I
love; I am well pleased with him."
In the Gospel of John we read:
CJB John 1:29 The next day, Yochanan saw Yeshua coming toward him and
said, "Look! God's lamb! The one who is taking away the sin of the world!
All of these statements, assume so many Bible scholars, amount to John saying
"here is the Messiah". So, reasons most Bible commentators that I have
reviewed, there is no way John can say these things and then turn around later
and ask if Yeshua is the one to come, or if there is another. Bottom line: he never
said it.
Another popular option is that John is sending a coded message to Yeshua, and
even Yeshua's response to John is coded. The premise is that Rome was always
on the look out for the next "Messiah" of the Jews. Not because Rome in any way
saw this Messiah from a spiritual or religious perspective, but rather because
they well knew that the Jewish people believed that their Messiah would be a
great warrior leader that would lead them in a successful rebellion against Rome.
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
Many would-be Messiah's had come and gone by Yeshua's day; and more would
come after His death. Therefore the reasoning is that John and Yeshua were
using coded words to communicate so that only Jews would understand but the
Romans would be none the wiser.
Several of the Early Church Fathers decided that John's question to Yeshua was
but a veiled teaching lesson for the sake of his followers. That is, while John
never actually doubted, the construction of his question was intended to instruct
his followers in faithfulness. There are a handful of other options and solutions for
what the Church has typically seen as this "problem" question of John the
Baptist, but these should suffice to make my point.
I want to briefly address the two most popular solutions and begin by clarifying
that the rather common claim that John had made statements proclaiming Jesus
as the Messiah is no more true than saying that Jesus has publicly called Himself
the Messiah. Such statements are assumed and often read back into the Gospel
accounts, but they are not actually there. Christians, in hindsight and using our
unique brand of religious jargon, take the statements that God said from Heaven
that this is His Son in whom He is pleased, and that John calls Jesus the Lamb of
God, as equivalent titles to the title of Messiah. This is not necessarily true from a
1st century Jewish cultural viewpoint. In earlier lessons I have explained that all
the Kings of Israel were called God's Son or the Son of God. In no way was "Son
of God" considered an exclusive, or alternate, title for the Messiah. For John,
who after immersing Yeshua heard God's booming voice from Heaven making
the pronouncement that Yeshua was God's Son, this could just as easily have
meant to him that Yeshua was to be Israel's next earthly king.... which, by the
way, was the nearly universal hope and expectation of the Jewish people, which
kept Rome on edge.
As for the matter of Yeshua being God's Lamb that takes away the sin of the
world. The first thing we must look at is the fuller context of where the Baptist's
statement to that effect is made in John's Gospel.
CJB John 1:28-34 28 All this took place in Beit-Anyah, east of the Yarden,
where Yochanan was immersing. 29 The next day, Yochanan saw Yeshua
coming toward him and said, "Look! God's lamb! The one who is taking
away the sin of the world! 30 This is the man I was talking about when I said,
'After me is coming someone who has come to rank above me, because he
existed before me.' 31 1 myself did not know who he was, but the reason I
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
came immersing with water was so that he might be made known to
Isra'el." 32 Then Yochanan gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit coming
down from heaven like a dove, and remaining on him. 33 I myself did not
know who he was, but the one who sent me to immerse in water said to me,
'The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining, this is the
one who immerses in the Ruach HaKodesh.' 34 And I have seen and borne
witness that this is the Son of God." Notice a couple of points in this passage. First, it is twice maintained that John
the Baptist didn't know who Yeshua of Nazareth was. Second, after immersing
Yeshua and hearing God's pronouncement, John's conclusion is NOT that Jesus
is the Messiah (in the sense of being the divine Redeemer of Israel). Rather it is
that "This is the Son of God". Again; to Jews of that day that phrase "Son of God"
meant an anointed Israelite king. The Spirit descending upon Jesus that was
illustrated and compared to a dove coming to rest, WAS Yeshua's anointing.
Customarily, for centuries, a new king of Israel was literally anointed with olive oil
(usually by a Prophet or the High Priest). The purpose of this anointing with oil
was to symbolize the Ruach HaKodesh.... the Holy Spirit.... descending upon
that king (the same thing that happened to Christ). In fact the English term
"Messiah", which is often mistakenly said to mean Savior, is in fact a
transliteration of the Hebrew Word mashiach; and mashiach literally means
"anointed one". So biblical Israelite kings (and prophets) were regularly referred
to as anointed ones, "mashiach", messiah, because they were indeed specially
anointed with oil for service to God. A King of Israel was considered to have been
sent or set apart by God, and in a sense adopted by God, and thus always in the
Old Testament he was termed a Son of God.
No doubt John understood that Jesus was more than a typical Israelite King or
Prophet. And, He was more than a typical Tzadik. But we do NOT find John ever
uttering the word "Messiah" as the identification of Yeshua; and neither do we
find (to this point) Yeshua uttering that word about Himself. Let me be clear so
that there can be no mistake: I am not saying that this should bring doubt to our
minds about Jesus as Messiah. We have the benefit of 2000 years of hindsight,
and so we know firmly, without reservation, that Yeshua is God's divine Messiah
and Our Savior. However this was not at all understood among the people
Jesus's ministry encountered up to the point of John the Baptist's execution,
because Jesus had not clearly said so even though Bible academics often try
to put those words into John's and Yeshua's mouths.
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
As for the issue of John identifying Yeshua as "the Lamb that takes away sin".
Lambs had been used for centuries virtually daily, by the thousands, as sacrifices
burnt up on the Temple altar to take away the sins of the penitent Jews who
brought them. Therefore it is questionable to me that John was envisioning
Yeshua in the same light as the Passover Lamb of the Exodus because the
Passover Lamb had little to do with sin. Rather, the Passover Lamb had to do
with delivery from bondage from an oppressing nation, and God averting
judgment from His faithful worshippers. Christians sometimes try to mince words
and say things like "in the Old Testament sins were atoned for, but in the New
Testament sins are taken away". That is a contrivance that attempts to make
"sins atoned for" and "sins taken away" as having a fundamentally different
meaning. In fact, in the Yom Kippur Scapegoat ritual, a goat is sent off into the
wilderness to its death as symbolic of sins being taken away and returned to their
source. But that doesn't mean the end of sin itself, as it is sometimes taken
among some Christian denominations to mean.
Here's the point: John the Baptist sent his message to Christ about whether He
was the one to come, because he simply wasn't certain as to exactly what or who
Yeshua was. Just as today there are vast gulfs among denominations and
various solid Bible commentators in their understanding of the Book of Revelation
concerning how those ancient prophecies about an Apocalypse that is still future
to us are to going to play out, so it was for the Jews of Christ's day about the
nature and identification of a Deliverer that would be sent from God. They didn't
have the insights and hindsights that we have today to know precisely who Jesus
was, or how to identify the true Savior; or even exactly what he came to do. The
Jewish people had a number of prophecies (that were even ancient to them) to
try and glean information about a Messiah; but for them, interpreting those
prophecies could mean a number of different things even though in the end
history would show which one of those interpretations would turn out to be
correct. But it wasn't for the lack of trying.
John the Baptist (despite being rather weird) was an ordinary man. It's only that
God used him in an extraordinary way, and His cousin Yeshua held him in the
highest regard. But John had faults and quirks and frailties and seems to even
have gotten some things wrong. Apparently he was also kind of hot headed,
imprudent, and had a hard time controlling his tongue, because he was arrested
and put in prison for the crime of publicly denouncing Herod Antipas's marriage to
Herodias. Why would he do that? For what good purpose in service to God might
that have served? If John truly understood that Yeshua was the divine Messiah,
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
why would he continue to maintain a separate flock of disciples of his own that
openly questioned why Yeshua's disciples would believe different things about
fasting, prayer, mourning, etc., than they did? Things simply weren't sorted out
enough, just yet, such that John could have a settled understanding of Yeshua.
Therefore, we need to give the imprisoned John a break, and at the same time
trust the Scriptures that we claim that we do. The man was under incredible
stress, knowing he had days, at most, to live; and he simply did not know if
Yeshua was the "one to come" or (as great a miracle worker and teacher as He
was) was He a precursor to another.
In fact, what did John mean by asking Yeshua if He was "the one to come"? I can
only surmise that he means the one that he firmly believed he was supposed to
make a way for in the wilderness, and to his mind he had already accomplished
this task. And if that was to be the peak purpose of his life's labors, and his
service to God, wouldn't he want to know for certain if Yeshua was that one? Or if
maybe another prophet like himself might also be making a way in the wilderness
for yet another person to arrive? So when we re-make John back into a real
person, and stop injecting Christian doctrines and dubious assumptions into the
equation, we can properly understand what is taking place in this scene. And this
conclusion is further verified when we read Yeshua's response to John.
Starting in verse 4 Jesus tells John's 2 disciples to take back with them both what
they have seen with their own eyes, and what they are hearing; that is, what they
are witnessing along with the testimony of others. So, not surprisingly, they no
doubt saw Christ do at least some of the miraculous things they had until then
only heard about. But more, for proof of who He is, Yeshua characterizes His
deeds in a way that at least the more learned Jews might have understood (and I
assume He believes John would understand). He goes on to say that He has
healed the blind, made lame people to walk, cleansed the unclean from Tzara'at,
cured the deaf and even resurrected dead people back to life. This is not a
random choice of accomplishments. What Jesus does is to list a series of
prophetic fulfillments in Him (in verses 4 and 5) that are taken from several
messianic predictions in the Book of Isaiah.
CJB Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live, my corpses will rise; awake and sing,
you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the morning dew, and the
earth will bring the ghosts to life.
CJB Isaiah 29:18 On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book, and out
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.
CJB Isaiah 35:5-6 5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of
the deaf will be unstopped; 6
then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the
mute person's tongue will sing. For in the desert, springs will burst forth,
streams of water in the 'Aravah;
CJB Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of Adonai ELOHIM is upon me, because ADONAl
has anointed me to announce good news to the poor. He has sent me to
heal the brokenhearted; to proclaim freedom to the captives, to let out into
light those bound in the dark;
Included is the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1 because of the mention of Good News to
the poor. But I don't want you to miss the matter of freedom to the captives. This
isn't about the Baptist being in jail because clearly Yeshua has no intent of
finding a way to get John released. Rather this is about the messianic prophecy
of Psalm 68:18 that Paul would rightly understand and speak about in Ephesians
4:8. It referred to Yeshua, after His death and resurrection, descending into
Abraham's Bosom to let the righteous dead free that they might go to Heaven.
Verse 6 (which continues the response to John's inquiry) concludes with: And
how blessed is anyone who is not offended by Me. Although this is a general
statement, Jesus was still reacting to John's question. We find the same words in
Luke 7:23, so these haven't come from Matthew's own mind. Yeshua has
pronounced a beatitude... a blessing....to end His 6 brief clauses about who He
is. Ben Witherington III has noticed that when you convert into Aramaic those 6
clauses plus the blessing that ends them, you get something quite poetic. It is
becoming more and more clear among Bible historians that Aramaic was widely
spoken among the Jewish people in Jesus's time, and Jesus was fluent in it as
well.
English translations of verse 6 vary widely from meaning how blessed is anyone
who is not offended by Me, to how blessed is anyone who is not
offended because of Me; even how blessed is anyone who doesn't stumble
over Me. Frankly, I'm not certain how best to take the meaning although I don't
understand why John might be blessed by not being offended by Christ; Christ
has certainly not said anything offensive to him that is recorded. If Mr.
Witherington is right and the words of Christ were originally said in the form of
Aramaic poetic saying, that may be the key behind properly understanding the
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
meaning behind Yeshua's words. Therefore I want to put forward one intriguing
possibility.
One of the issues that may have caused John the Baptist to doubt or be offended
(so to speak) that Yeshua was the Messiah is because John believed that
Judgment Day was supposed to have arrived along with the Messiah; and as of
his jailing it certainly hadn't. For Jewish society of his day, it wasn't miracle
healings that were the expected sign of the Messiah, but rather the Messiah
would be God's hand of judgment on the Romans who were oppressing the
Jews, and secondarily upon those Jews who were viewed as wicked. So one has
to reasonably imagine that John is making the calculation that if Yeshua were the
Messiah, then where is the divine judgment? And if there is no judgment, then
probably Yeshua is NOT "the one who is coming" (which would have been a
great disappointment to John). John expressed His view on the relationship
between the Messiah and Judgment Day in Matthew back in chapter 3.
CJB Matthew 3:1 It was during those days that Yochanan the Immerser
arrived in the desert of Y'hudah and began proclaiming the
message, 2
"Turn from your sins to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is
near!" 3 This is the man Yesha'yahu was talking about when he said, "The
voice of someone crying out: 'In the desert prepare the way of ADONAI!
Make straight paths for him!'" 4 Yochanan wore clothes of camel's hair with
a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild
honey. 5 People went out to him from Yerushalayim, from all Y'hudah, and
from the whole region around the Yarden. 6 Confessing their sins, they were
immersed by him in the Yarden River. 7 But when Yochanan saw many of
the P'rushim and Tz'dukim coming to be immersed by him, he said to them,
"You snakes! Who warned you to escape the coming punishment? 8
If you
have really turned from your sins to God, produce fruit that will prove
it! 9 And don't suppose you can comfort yourselves by saying, 'Avraham is
our father'! For I tell you that God can raise up for Avraham sons from
these stones! 10 Already the axe is at the root of the trees, ready to strike;
every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be chopped down and
thrown in the fire! 11 It's true that I am immersing you in water so that you
might turn from sin to God; but the one coming after me is more powerful
than /-I'm not worthy even to carry his sandals- and he will immerse you in
the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire. 12 He has with him his winnowing fork; and
he will clear out his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn but
burning up the straw with unquenchable fire!"
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
So John is loudly and unequivocally proclaiming that when the Kingdom of
Heaven arrives, so does God's judgment. And that the one John is paving the
way in the wilderness for .... the one whose sandals John is unfit to even carry....
will be the same one who winnows the Lord's harvest and burns up the straw (the
chaff, the unrighteous) with a terrible fire. All of these were common Judgment
Day terms and beliefs in the 1st century so obviously John is speaking about
Judgment Day and the divinely sent one who will usher in the Apocalypse. So the
problem is that Jesus is here but God's judgment isn't. The Kingdom of Heaven
has arrived, but the apocalyptic End hasn't happened. Yeshua's response
essentially says to John: right aisle, wrong pew. Yeshua lists Isaiah's messianic
prophecies that He has publicly fulfilled, and so essentially tells John to draw his
own conclusions. Yeshua isn't bringing the judgment with Him that Isaiah and
other Prophets foretold and the Jewish people expected. Instead, for now, He is
bringing with Him the other things Isaiah spoke of: the good things. The Good
News of the Kingdom of Heaven accompanied with things that must come before
Judgment Day: healing and miracles.
How were John and the Jewish people to untangle this? Understand: the idea of
a 1
st and 2
nd Latter Days didn't exist in the minds of Jewish religious authorities.
The idea of 2 separate appearances of a Messiah wasn't widely known or
accepted. In the 1
st century the main proof of a man being the God-sent Messiah
was that the End of Days and judgment upon Rome would come with him. It is
these very same issues that vex Christianity to this day, and has elicited all kinds
of beliefs and Church doctrines concerning the sequence and timing of Christ's
advent, whether or not the End Times has already happened, whether or not the
Kingdom of Heaven is here now, is there going to be a Rapture of Believers
and I could list a dozen more issues that are unresolved (to put it nicely).
So taking all of this into consideration, in John's eyes who is Yeshua? And
perhaps who is He even in the eyes of Yeshua's own disciples? The expected
Judgment has not happened. The world has not ended. Yeshua hasn't named
Himself as the Messiah nor even as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. He has
also not said He is the Prophet Elijah. But.... He has said that He is the Son of
Man. It's no wonder that John is a bit confused. And I'm not at all sure that the
answers Yeshua sent back to John's inquiry sorted things out for him.
Jesus is continuing to teach His people and His followers what Scripture says
about Him and what prophecies He will visibly fulfill, versus what Jewish
traditions say about a Messiah (especially that he would lead the Jews into a
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
successful revolt against Rome and into a new Golden Age of Israel). He is doing
the amazing things that prophetic Scripture says He would do, as opposed to
introducing Himself by title and counting that as sufficient proof.
I want to pause momentarily in hopes of making an impact. What the Jews
believed in Christ's day, they trusted as truth. They thought., they were certain...
that they were correct and that their belief in their correctness about a Messiah
was well founded because the vast majority of Jewish society agreed. But as
Yeshua was regularly demonstrating to them.... especially in His Sermon on the
Mount.... they didn't really know Holy Scripture. The average Jew got his and her
religious training in the local synagogue, operated mostly by the Pharisees, who
had their own interpretations, agenda and set of doctrines. Whenever Scripture
was taught, it was taught through this lens and intended to fortify and validate the
doctrines that they already held; certainly not to hold those beliefs up to the light
of the Bible to examine them. It is the same today within the institutional Church.
CNN took a poll at least a decade ago and most regular Church goers they polled
listed a series of Christian platitudes that they claimed were biblical in their
source, when in fact most were not. I can tell you from first hand experience that
several years ago at a preparation course for door to door evangelism, very few
who came could define the term "sin" beyond "anything God doesn't want you to
do". I knew people who thought that Christ was the first Christian. I knew others
who said that there was no point to studying the Bible because if God felt they
needed to know something, their Pastor would tell them. The Church today is
very much like the Synagogue was 2000 years ago. The Bible is present but
mostly in name only. Rather, it is the interpretation of the Bible that is taught and
few of the congregation know what is actually in The Word itself. Therefore the
understanding of what a Messiah is, what He does and why He does it, who God
is, the moral principles we are commanded to live by, what is ahead of us and
more are taught not according to Scripture, but according to Christian traditions.
Such a folly cost the Jewish people of Yeshua's day dearly because they couldn't
square what they were taught to believe versus what Jesus showed them was
actually there in the Torah and the Prophets.
Seed of Abraham Torah Class isn't Jesus. But, it is our purpose to help as many
Believers, Jew or gentile, as much as possible to have their eyes opened to
God's Word. When we learn His Word, then our questions (like John's question
to Yeshua) get answered. But more, when we heed His Word we learn how to
obey God, which He says over and over is the basis for our relationship with Him.
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
We also inoculate ourselves against confusion, fear, untruths and heresy that can
costly us dearly even when we are so very certain we have our spiritual houses
in order.
The message Yeshua was sending back to John must have been in the form it
was brought to Him: verbally. It may well have been that the 2 disciples John sent
asked Jesus John's question publicly and so Christ answered publicly. Verse 7
continues with Yeshua having some things to say about John the Baptist to the
crowds. Likely this took place after John's disciples left. Interestingly we see that
the subject changes from "who is Jesus" to "who is John". Thus after using the
response to John as a public teaching about Himself as the Messiah, now
Yeshua wants to say some things about John. Or, it could also be that, as some
Bible scholars claim, verse 7 begins a different and separate episode and since it
concerned John the Baptist Matthew simply inserted it here. You be the judge.
Either way, the following verses contain the same meaning.
Yeshua asks the crowds who they went out to see (when they went out to see
John the Baptist). This question is meant to get the people to think. It also
assumes that some or much of the particular crowd He was talking to had indeed
gone to see and hear the Baptist, and had been immersed by Him. Otherwise the
"what did you go out in the desert to see, reeds swaying in the wind" seems
disconnected. It makes me think that Jesus had traveled south a ways so as to
encounter people (a crowd) from Judea, where the desert was located (in
contrast the Galilee is hilly, fertile, and has the large fresh water Sea of Galilee
for fishing). Reeds were usually located in shallow bodies of water or along river
banks; but such sights were commonplace. So the meaning is kind of a gentle
sarcasm that says "obviously you didn't travel out into the desert wilderness to
see something you could see every day". Or, Jesus continues, did you go out to
the desert to see some well dressed person? More gentle sarcasm. A well
dressed person was usually a king or a prominent wealthy aristocrat. But not only
would people not usually travel just to get a glimpse of them, but such a person
of status and wealth certainly wouldn't be standing around out in the barren
desert wilderness, so the people wouldn't have foolishly gone seeking someone
like that, which might just happen to be out in the desert. In our day, we would
say it is a no-brainer.
So, asks Yeshua, why did they go out? Finally.... no more sarcasm but rather the
answer to the question. They went out to the desert to see a prophet. A man
they believed to be a true prophet of God because of his sudden appearance at a
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
time of national oppression and moral degradation within the Jewish religious
system and among many segments of Jewish society. But also because of
John's message that brought hope that the end of the long wait for a Deliverer
had arrived. Jesus says John is more than a prophet (more meaning a run-of-the␂mill prophet) and then proceeds to quote from Malachi 3:1.
CJB Malachi 3:1 "Look! I am sending my messenger to clear the way before
me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Yes,
the messenger of the covenant, in whom you take such delight- look! Here
he comes," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot.
In Matthew 11 verse 10, Christ plainly says about John the Baptist that he is the
one about which Malachi speaks. Therefore John is that messenger. But there is
more we need to take from this simple quote. Remember: there weren't chapters
and verses in Yeshua's day. So the way to direct a person to a passage in
Scripture was to quote a snippet from it. The hearer was then to proceed to find
(or recall) the whole of the passage... not merely the snippet that was quoted. So
when we read a bit further into this passage from the Book of Malachi we get to
this:
CJB Malachi 3:23-24 23 Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before
the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI. 24 He will turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their
fathers; otherwise I will come and strike the land with complete
destruction." [Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the
coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI.]
Thus the messenger is Elijah the prophet. Elijah never died and was taken up to
Heaven still alive. In a couple more verses Yeshua will directly address that. In
the meantime, Yeshua continues to extol the high place in God's eyes of John
the Baptist by saying that among those born of women (a fancy way of saying of
all human beings ever born), there has not arisen anyone greater than him. But
then Yeshua colors that statement with a qualifier a "however". He says that
the least in the Kingdom of Heaven will be greater than John. This is another of
those statements that cause headaches for Bible scholars and heartburn for
Bible teachers. Clearly Christ is making some kind of a word play to make a
point. But what it is it? Bible academics have rightly pointed to the part of the
statement that says "the one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven" as the key
phrase to unlocking Yeshua's meaning. So, what is Christ getting at about "the
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Lesson 39 - Matthew 11
least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he (John)"? All sorts of answers
with their strange twists and turns have been put forward including that Christ
was actually referring to Himself (if you can believe it!). But for me the obvious
answer has been overlooked.
CJBMatthew 5:17-20 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven!
Yeshua is repeating a term He used in this famous passage from His Sermon on
the Mount that had to do with an individual's eligibility for membership in the
Kingdom of Heaven, as well as a member's status within a hierarchy of members
of the Kingdom.
Next week we'll begin with just how this might pertain to John the Baptist.
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 40, Chapter 11 Continued
Perhaps one of the more important, yet difficult to capture, statements made by
Christ is found in Matthew 11:11 - 15. Another comes at the end of the chapter
that we'll get to later. We're going to get pretty detailed and nuanced today
because the subject matter calls for it. I'm also going to make some frank
comments on a few well entrenched and accepted Church doctrines that need to
be tested against their claims. Let's begin by reading those 5 challenging verses.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 11:11 -15
Instantly our eyes and ears ought to be on alert with what Yeshua says in His
characterization of John the Baptist that no human being ever born is greater
than John. However... the least in the Kingdom of Heaven will be greater than he
is. We ended last week with our connection between this statement and the one
Yeshua made during His Sermon on the Mount. I'll quote for you only a couple of
verses to jog your memories.
CJB Matthew 5:18-19 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth
pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah- not
until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys
the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the
least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches
will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Clearly Yeshua's use of the phrase "the least in the Kingdom of Heaven" means
the same thing here in Matthew 11:11 as it did in Matthew 5:19 otherwise it can't
be deciphered in either statement. Before we address that let's discuss for a
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
moment why Yeshua says that among people who are born (which is all people),
no one is greater than John. It is my opinion that while Jesus says this in a rather
sweeping, all inclusive way meaning the entire human race, in fact this is
intended within the context of what He said immediately prior to verse 11. It was
that John is not only a prophet, he is more than a prophet. So we need to take
this as meaning not only that there is no human being greater than John, but also
there is no prophet greater than John.
The Early Church Father Jerome says this in his Commentary on Matthew.
John is greater than the other prophets for this reason: the other prophets
predicted to John that someone was to come, but John pointed out with his
finger that he had indeed come; saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sins of the world". And he reached not only the rank of a
prophet but even to that of Baptist, by baptizing his Lord.
I agree with Jerome. Not only is John a great prophet in his own right, but he
carried with him the spirit of Elijah, considered to be the epitome...the chief... of
Old Testament Prophets. Many of those Old Testament prophets spoke of a
future time when a Deliverer would come for the sake of Israel, and also of
another man that would announce the arrival of that Deliverer. The herald of the
coming of the Messiah turned out to be John the Immerser (immerser is a much
more apt title within the Jewish context than "Baptist"). So John's divine purpose
was not as the prophesier of what was to come later, but rather he was to
announce the present fulfillment of what those earlier prophets foresaw and
foretold (just as an angel announced the birth of that same Messiah, as the Old
Testament prophets foresaw and foretold).
Even so, Christ says John is going to be considered less than the least in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Does this statement baffle you? How can the unmatchable
John the Baptist (at least according to Jesus), the honored messenger of Christ's
arrival, at the same time be considered as less than the least in the Kingdom
over which Jesus shall rule forever? To unravel this mystery we have to go back
to the instruction I gave you some weeks ago on Matthew chapter 5 verses 17 - 20. It is that Yeshua says that His followers, without exception, are to continue
following the Law and the Prophets (which, as with Paul, is a term that points to
the entire Hebrew Bible of that day.... what Christians call the Old Testament).
Further, there is a consequence for Believers.... without exception who obey
and teach the Law of Moses and the Prophets, versus those who don't. Those
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
who do teach and obey will be awarded the status of greatest in the Kingdom of
Heaven. Those who do NOT teach and obey will be given the status of the least.
But what must be kept in mind is that whether one is the least or the greatest, all
those who follow Christ will be members of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our earthly social or economic status or even our
accomplishments accomplishments that may, ultimately, benefit the Kingdom
of Heaven.... may have some bearing on our status in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But clearly our acceptance, obedience to, and teaching of the Law of Moses and
the Prophets during our lifetimes are the largest determining factors NOT on
whether we are admitted as members of God's Kingdom, but rather what our
societal status will be within God's Kingdom. Yet even knowing that it seems
almost as though Yeshua has a bone to pick with John, and says that John is
perhaps not going to be a member of God's Kingdom. At least it
certainly seems to read that way.
The Early Church Father Theodore of Mopsuestia had something important to
say on this matter. What makes him an expert source is that not only in the late
300's A.D. did he say what I'm about to present to you, he sprang from the
Antioch branch of early Christianity. That is, he received his religious training and
ordination in the Church there in Antioch. Antioch was Paul's hub of operation 3
centuries earlier, and he established several believing congregations there. So a
certain set of traditions and doctrines developed in Antioch that grew out of what
Paul had taught them and naturally that influenced, if not represented, their core
beliefs. Theodore records the following words of how John can be the greatest of
men, but still be considered less than the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. These
words are from a fragment of a small collection of works attributed to him:
If John is being judged against other people according to being born from a
woman, he will be found to be the greatest of them all. He alone was filled
with the Holy Spirit inside his mother's womb, so that he "leaped"; and his
mother prophesied because she partook this as well. But if John is judged
in relation to those who are to partake of the Spirit in the Kingdom of
Heaven, Jesus says, he will be found to be the least. Thus Jesus says that
John by no means partakes of such great grace as those who will be
reborn into immortality after Jesus' resurrection from the dead and that
John will experience physical death. At that time, however, the Spirit's
abundance toward people will be so great that no one who has partaken of
even the least part of it can afterward fall into death.
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
In other words, Theodore says that when it comes to the deeds and
accomplishments of humans.... even at the Lord's direction.... John is the
greatest. But... those deeds have not in some way earned him a place of honor in
God's Kingdom because that is not the standard. So after heaping praise on
John, Yeshua uses John's greatness to contrast with the overwhelmingly superior
greatness of the Kingdom of Heaven and its members. J.C. O'Neil says it
best: "Jesus is not contrasting all begotten of women with John at their
head, and some other group of men the least of which is greater than John;
he is contrasting the present state of the greatest men with the future state
of even the least in the Kingdom of Heaven". I would add that the future state
of men that O'Neil speaks about takes a leap forward upon the resurrection of
Yeshua, and then yet another leap at Pentecost upon the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit within the small community of humanity that bows to Yeshua as their
Savior, Lord, and King. So: Yeshua has not turned from praising John to
criticizing him.
It is interesting that although it only appears in some Bible versions, the word
"amen" is what actually begins verse 11. The CJB (unfortunately) chooses not to
use "amen" but changes it to "yes" and thus the verse itself loses much of its
impact. Amen is a term of special reverence and soberness that more means
"truly" than it does "yes", especially when it begins a thought. When "amen"
begins a sentence in the Bible it is used in a similar way to the term "behold".
That is, it is a prefix to a statement that tells us to pay special attention to what
follows it, usually because a revelation is coming. And what is coming is that
because John has fulfilled his role as special messenger of the entrance of the
world into a new age.... the messianic age... when the Kingdom of Heaven has
arrived into the world (albeit in its infant stage).... then in a certain sense
John is a person of the past. This is not to mean he is now irrelevant anymore
than was Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, and so many others because their work was
completed and it occurred in the past. Rather it is that each had his own
irreplaceable mission and role in God's plan of Redemption History that brings us
up to the time of John and Christ.
But here is what separates the sheep from the goats (so to speak) among
Jesus's followers today. If you get nothing else from today's lesson, please
absorb this. While in a sense John is indeed a representative of the past, it
mostly means being a representative of the time prior to the resurrection of
Christ. A time when the initial purpose of Yeshua was to bring salvation to the
world by means of Him atoning for our sins through the spilling of His innocent
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
blood. What this does not mean is that John belongs to the era of the Law and
thus John and the Law are organically connected such that together they are
both destined for the grave in order to be replaced by a new dynamic called
grace. If that were the case then Yeshua's Sermon on the Mount was pointless;
or worse, it was intentionally misleading. And especially misleading would have
been Yeshua's proclamation in Matthew 5:17-20 that He did NOT arrive on this
earth to abolish the Law and the Prophets, and in fact a Believer in Him will be
measured in the Kingdom of Heaven (a kingdom that arrived with John)
according to his or her personal devotion and obedience to the Law and teaching
that truth to others.
I'll put that same thought in the negative, now, to perhaps make the point easier
to see. Those who claim that the Law is dead and in the grave (along with John)
and so the Law has no role in the life of a Christian, have ignored and dishonored
the direct and unmistakable teaching of Christ on this subject and instead have
adopted a pleasing manmade Church doctrine to replace it. Further, while such a
wrong belief and intentional lack of devotion to the Law of Moses may indeed not
necessary result in that person's exclusion from God's Kingdom, it
unequivocally does put them at the lowermost rung of the societal ladder of the
Kingdom. These are not my words, but Yeshua's in Matthew 5. This matter that I
have just set before you is second in its seriousness and eternal impact ONLY to
the matter of accepting Yeshua as Savior in the first place. Now for a warning. I
have said to all who have ever heard me that Christ is the only way to peace with
God and life eternal; therefore you cannot stand before God and plead that no
one ever told you. It is the same about our obligation to obey the Law of Moses.
This means that on Judgment Day you no longer have an excuse to stand before
God and say that you were intentionally disobedient to the Law because the
Church misled you and so you didn't know. But you know now, and so you can
change now.
In verses 12 and 13 Yeshua is making at least a couple of different points. The
first thing He is doing is emphasizing that John's and the Kingdom of Heaven's
arrivals ran in parallel. Thus it is not at all difficult to determine when the Kingdom
of Heaven began its reign on earth; it coincided precisely with the life and times
of John the Baptist. So we can come pretty close to marking a date on the
calendar. The second thing is that since John's and the Kingdom of Heaven's
arrivals, so-called "violent ones" are trying to thwart its presence and purpose.
The number of interpretations of what this means are so many that it is not
possible to present them all. Some go so far as to say that the "violent ones" are
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
a nickname for Jesus and His followers. Others say that this can only be talking
about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Still others believe that the "violent
ones" represent a group of Jewish fanatics like the Zealots. I will tell you what I
think, but I confess that I'm not wed to it. Yet considering both the local and the
larger context, for me it best explains the intended meaning of the term.
Whoever the "violent ones" are, they are in opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven
and so they are trying to thwart it in its earliest stage. Therefore whoever or
whatever this might be, its source is evil. Because the Kingdom of Heaven and
John the Baptist were connected, appearing at the same moment in history, then
it can be said that the Kingdom of Heaven has been attacked since John
because it has existed since John. The Kingdom of Heaven can be defined as
essentially the ideal of God's Kingdom in Heaven, but now also existing on
earth hence the name the Kingdom of Heaven. This spiritual Kingdom of God
could not be touched by evil since prior to John it ONLY resided in Heaven and
was carefully guarded by legions of angels. But now that a form of it has been
birthed on earth, in its infancy it is being attacked by the forces of evil (to nip it in
the bud, so to speak). This is in clear parallel to the Messiah being born. When
Yeshua was the Word living in a purely spiritual form in a purely spiritual Heaven,
He was safe and no evil could attack Him. But once He was born by means of a
woman into the physical world on earth, the attack could begin because the earth
is influenced under Satan's regime. Soon after His birth the wicked Herod tried to
attack Yeshua and so Joseph and Miriam took the Christ child and rushed to
Egypt. The immediate danger passed when Herod died; however the attacks on
Yeshua went on to His death and of course it was these attacks of evil that
directly led to His execution.
I think we could justifiably say that it was the "violent ones" that pounced upon
Yeshua starting at His birth, just as He could say that it was the violent ones that
pounced upon the Kingdom of Heaven at its birth. So the "violent ones" is a
somewhat expansive term. It seems to me that we needn't try to distinguish
between the physical, fleshly violent ones (wicked humans) versus the spiritual
violent ones (demons); they are essentially one in the same. And we also don't
need to make the work of the violent ones based upon the time and the era that it
happens. The Kingdom of Heaven was attacked immediately upon its arrival on
earth in John's day, and it will continually be attacked by spiritual and physical
violent ones until Yeshua returns in the future to subdue our planet, rid it of evil,
and rule over it. Therefore the term "violent ones" means all physical people and
all spiritual entities that are evil and those that participate in trying to thwart God's
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
plans, which are wrapped up in the Kingdom of Heaven. The violent ones attack
in all eras and all times since John the Baptist. The violent ones are trying, by
force, to take the Kingdom away from God. I concede that it is possible that there
is a different and better meaning of violent ones; but with the information we
currently have I'm confident that this best captures it the way Yeshua intended it.
Verse 13 follows up with Christ declaring something that is so very simple and
plain in its words and meaning, yet the vast bulk of Christian leadership has
never been able to accept it. Thus they claim that this verse is too complex to be
taken at face value, so it can only mean something else. Plainly it has Jesus
saying that the prophets (of old) and the Law of Moses prophesied until John (the
CJB uses the term the Torah instead of The Law, which is close enough in
meaning and is probably actually more accurate in the sense it was thought of by
1st century Jews). Before I tell you what it means and what it does not
mean.... let's begin by setting the subject and the context. What's the context of
this verse? The arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. That is, Yeshua is saying that
all the Prophets and the Torah prophesied about the coming of the Kingdom of
Heaven on earth. So while the context is the Kingdom of Heaven, the subject is
prophecy. Upon the arrival of John, all prophesying about the future coming of
the Kingdom has come to a close. Why? Because the Kingdom has arrived and
so those prophesies are now fulfilled. But since the Kingdom is invisible,
somebody has to announce its presence or who would know? That person is
John, says Christ.
Unfortunately because Christianity has historically declared the Law of Moses to
be an abolished dispensation of the past so that obedience to God in any
tangible sense is also a thing of the past, and by contending that the divine rules
and regulations given on Mt. Sinai are also but legalistic and inferior things of the
past, therefore in the new messianic age we can just kind of be nice to one
another and make it up as we go according to how we feel in our hearts.
Therefore it is nearly universal claimed within Christianity that in verse 13 we
have Yeshua stating that the era of the Law is gone and the era of grace has
replaced it. Never mind that those words are simply not present. Disregard that if
such a claim were true then we have a rather schizophrenic Yeshua saying (as
plainly as it gets) in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 that He did not come
to abolish the Law, then turning around a few weeks later and saying that He did.
Nothing in this verse makes a claim that the Law is abolished. Rather Yeshua's
claim involves.... what? Prophesy. Only prophesy. And it is that prophecies about
the Kingdom of Heaven are found both in the Law (the Torah) and in the
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
Prophets which is absolutely accurate and true. Then logically, since the thing
that was prophesied for hundreds of years has come to fruition (The Kingdom of
Heaven has arrived) then that's the end of any prophesying about it. When did
that event occur? As Yeshua says; it happened upon the coming of John the
Immerser as God's messenger. Case closed.
Verse 14 throws out another challenging comment by Yeshua, which has
resulted in several different interpretations. He says: "Indeed, if you are willing to
accept it, he (John) is Elijah, whose coming was predicted". Please notice: as we
have been dealing with for the past several minutes, prophecy and prophets
continues to be the subject of Yeshua's statements. One of the most prevalent
interpretations of this verse among Bible scholars is to not bother to interpret it at
all, but rather to declare this verse as something Matthew made up out of his own
mind and added in order to guide (or in some Bible scholars' view, to mislead)
Christians into Matthew's way of thinking. Therefore, it is simpler to just skip it, in
the same way we are to just skip over Matthew 5:17 - 20 as being words that are
not credible. Why is this? I hope that you are all beginning to understand that,
sadly, mainstream Christianity's clergy along with many theologians over the
centuries have established certain doctrines to fit an agenda, and whatever is
found in the Bible that doesn't validate that agenda is said to be either a mistake,
or it is misunderstood and doesn't mean what it says. Why is this particular verse
a problem for theologians? Because once again we have Yeshua referring to Old
Testament prophets and prophecies, that are supposed to have become
irrelevant once He and John appeared. In this case, that prophet is Malachi and
what he has to say is too Jewish for a gentile Church.
CJB Malachi 3:22-24 22 "Remember the Torah of Moshe my servant, which I
enjoined on him at Horev, laws and rulings for all Isra'el. 23 Look, I will send
to you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day
of ADONAI. 24 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the
hearts of the children to their fathers; otherwise I will come and strike the
land with complete destruction." [Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the
prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI.]
The involvement of Elijah in the End of Days was an accepted matter in Christ's
day and remains an important element of Jewish tradition and belief to this day.
In a well written article by Jews for Jesus, the matter of Elijah is explained from
the Jewish perspective.
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
This is the 3rd "forerunner" prophecy. Isaiah 40:3 -4 spoke of a voice crying
out to prepare the way of the Lord in the desert; Malachi 3:1 prophesied of
a messenger preparing God's way and now in Malachi 3:22 -24 (in some
Bibles it is Malachi 4:5 - 6) God sends the prophet Elijah before the "great
and awesome Day of the Lord" comes. Elijah's mission is to bring about
reconciliation as the passage indicates: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the
prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will
turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their
fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter
destruction." Based on this passage and also on the fact that Elijah did not
die but was taken up to heaven directly, Jewish tradition spoke often of the
future return of Elijah. As an example, in the Mishnah (Edduyot 8:7), Elijah
will come to settle all disputes and reconcile all discrepancies in the holy
books. In that passage of the Mishnah, discussion ensues as to what Elijah
will accomplish. At the end of the passage, "The Sages say, [Elijah will
come]... to make peace in the world, as it is said..." and then this is followed
by quoting the Malachi passage. He is also involved with the resurrection
of the dead in the Mishnah, Sotah 9:15: "The resurrection of the dead shall
come through Elijah of blessed memory." The resurrection was expected to
happen at the end of history, so Elijah here is definitely associated with the
end of time. And of course at Passover an entire place setting is put out for
Elijah as well as a special cup of wine, and the door is opened for him to
enter. For the hope at Passover is that if Elijah comes, the Messiah himself
cannot be far behind.
In the time of Jesus, messianic expectation was never far from the surface,
and speculation was that both John the Baptist and Jesus were the
reappearances of ancient biblical figures. For example, see this passage in
Matthew:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said,
"Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one
of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon
Peter replied, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew
16:13-16) This is quite an interesting assortment of guesses! Some thought
John the Baptist had come back to life, having previously been beheaded
(Matthew 14:10). Others thought he was Elijah the prophet, while others
speculated that he was Jeremiah come back - perhaps because both
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
preached judgment and had hard words concerning people's trust in the
Temple. And "one of the prophets" in general ends the list of guesses.
So in this article from Jews for Jesus we see the important place Elijah continues
to hold in the traditions of Judaism even from Yeshua's time. Christ assigns
Elijah's mission (at least part of it) to John the Baptist. In Matthew's Gospel it is
almost as though John the Immerser is Elijah's agent in the same way that
Yeshua the Son, is God the Father's agent. We must not imagine that John is a
reincarnation of Elijah or a change in form of Elijah to that of John. This possibility
was actually a proposal of some of the Early Church Fathers, including most
notably Tertullian. Matthew would never have accepted such a point of view.
The most important take away from this statement for those Jews that were
listening to Christ (and should be for us) is that the appearance of Elijah (and
therefore John) signals the beginning of The End. So Yeshua is unequivocally
validating the general belief of Jewish religious leadership and Jewish society
that they were living in the Latter Days. What they could not have known is that
there would be two Latter Days, and in both of them the Messiah would appear
as would Elijah. In this first of the two Latter Days, John represents the
appearance of Elijah in the sense of him carrying the spirit of Elijah, and that
means it in the sense of carrying out Elijah's prophesied mission. However as the
Jews for Jesus article shows us, because Judaism doesn't allow for two Latter
Days (only 1), then Elijah can only come once in whatever form he comes....
and for them this has not yet happened.
As those of you who have studied my commentary on the Book of Revelation
know, it is my conviction that one of the famous Two Witnesses that appear
during the reign of the Anti-Christ will be Elijah in the flesh. Since all men are
destined by God to die once, and Elijah did not die but ascended to Heaven alive,
then he still has a destiny with death. Since John the Baptist carried the spirit of
Elijah as Elijah's earthly agent (so to speak), then John's death was not
representative of the death of Elijah any more than Christ's death on the cross
was representative of the death of God The Father. But in Revelation chapter 11
when we read of the 2 Witnesses who mysteriously appear and display awesome
powers, they both die. Since I believe one of them to be Elijah, then this death
would fulfill his destiny of dying once.
Let's read a little more of Matthew 11.
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
RE-READ MATTHEW 11:16 - 19
Yeshua asks a rhetorical question: "What can I compare this generation with?"
He then immediately offers the comparison. This generation, He says, are like
little children sitting in marketplaces and calling out to one another that they
made happy music, but no one would dance to it. And they made sad music, but
no one would cry. The first order of business is to discern just who Jesus is
talking about. "This generation" doesn't mean "everyone" per se but it does seem
to mean "all living Jews" that were contemporary with Christ. Probably the best
way to understand it is as in the same sense God characterized the so-called
Exodus generation; those who wandered in the Wilderness upon fleeing Egypt.
CJB Deuteronomy 1:35 35 'Not a single one of these people, this whole evil
generation, will see the good land I swore to give to your ancestors...
CJB Deuteronomy 32:3-5 3 "For I will proclaim the name of ADONAI. Come,
declare the greatness of our God! 4 The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his
ways are just. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is righteous and
straight. 5 "He is not corrupt; the defect is in his children, a crooked and
perverted generation.
So here the "generation" is a general term meaning the entire lot of people who
left Egypt as a group as opposed to those who came before them and after them.
The Exodus group consisted of a broad age range. This of course doesn't mean
every last individual within the group shares this condition; rather it refers to an
overall, or the most conspicuous, that best represents the condition of the people
as a national community. In this case the condition is wickedness and perversion.
In context, this 1
st century generation Jesus is talking about can be specifically
identified as those who oppose John the Baptist and Christ. And those who
oppose them (those of the children in the marketplaces illustration) insist that
others join them and march to their tune, rather than joining John and Yeshua.
The illustration is that if the children ("this generation") sing a happy tune,
everyone is to dance to it or they are considered out of step. If these same
children change-up and now decide to sing a sad tune, then everyone is to
change direction along with them and dance to that tune or they are again
considered out of step. It is terrifyingly easy to give you a modern day analogy of
this. Are we... every last one of us.... not living in a generation that is behaving in
such a way in the year 2020 that they were in Jesus's generation? We are
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
among a generation that is uniquely characterized as insisting that everyone is to
believe as their faction believes, and to act as they act, and to choose as they
choose or you (an outsider) will be attacked with the intent of silencing you and if
possible destroying you. It may be a violent physical attack upon your person or
your family; or perhaps you'll have your car or business vandalized. Maybe you'll
be denied any voice to express your viewpoint. Cities are taken over and normal
commerce and living conditions are suspended by the most fanatical who
demand that governments and the population at large support them.... or else
face their wrath. In this age of the tsunami-like influence of social media, one
must agree and conform with the social trends and mindsets that come and go in
chaotic fashion or risk having your reputation destroyed, your life reduced to a
shambles, and your peace taken from you. And to prove that this illustration of
the generation of today is representative of the one that Jesus was criticizing, just
listen to His next words.
In verse 18 He says of John the Baptist that he came fasting (meaning it in the
religious sense) and not drinking (meaning not drinking wine as a display of
holiness like a Nazarite would), and so the politically correct of that generation
who oppose him shout to one another that this can only indicate that John must
be demon possessed (probably more meaning that he was crazy). But, when the
Son of Man (Jesus) came eating (meaning not fasting) and drinking wine, then
the same politically correct of that generation who opposed John said that
Yeshua was a glutton and a drunkard for doing the opposite. Christ gave an
illustration of how it doesn't matter what you do or what you say; if you represent
the opposed, nothing you do or say will be judged as right or good. You will be
criticized and slandered and have your character attacked and be marginalized if
you refuse to join the crowd.
Then this sort of straw-man attack Yeshua is offering turns to the company He
keeps. Yeshua is said to associate with tax collectors (Jews who are intelligent,
educated, and make a good living at their occupation, but are hated for it) and
sinners (meaning Jews who are uneducated and poor, so they are considered
incapable of correctly obeying the current slate of religious doctrines so they, too,
are hated for it). Once again both ends of the spectrum of social company Jesus
keeps are attacked: the educated and the ignorant. The well-to-do and the poor.
He can do nothing right. So unless His social company falls in line with what is
expected and accepted by the politically correct crowd, he is foolish and wrong
and despised. Yeshua's response is: "Well, the proof of wisdom is in the actions
it produces". That is, in speaking to this corrupt generation Christ says that you
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Lesson 40 - Matthew 11 cont
pat yourselves on back, telling one another how very wise and clever you are; but
your actions betray your lack of wisdom. What actions? Although it is a general
statement, no doubt the focus of it is the lack of reception of Elijah's agent, John
the Baptist, and of God's agent, Yeshua of Nazareth.
And what do we, the witnesses of the 21st century observe regarding the
adherents to the faith of Jesus Christ? Believers in Him are more and more seen
as foolish followers of ancient myth and primitive customs. We can do nothing
right. We are characterized as ignorant and naive, holding back progressive
society because society is moving forward and as a part of that forward motion
(as a rule) it must necessarily include opposition to Jesus as Messiah or you may
find yourself on the outside looking in. Should we be surprised by this unwelcome
turn of events? Christ didn't seem to be. As Solomon once famously said:
CJB Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, what has been done is
what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
We continue in Matthew chapter 11 next week.
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 41, Chapter 11 Continued 2
Before we continue in Matthew chapter 11, let's back-up a wee bit and reset the
context. The first 19 verses of this chapter were about John the Baptist in relation
to his connection with Christ. First, he was the foretold herald, the messenger,
who prepared the way in the wilderness for the Lord. So, he fulfilled the role of
Elijah. Second, he was not greater than Yeshua. In fact, Yeshua was John's lord
as much as He is for the rest of us. Therefore, John was lesser in rank than
Jesus and was to obey and trust in Him. And finally we find that John's and
Christ's ministries ran along parallel tracks even though those tracks were
connected at some points while separated at others. We've already encountered
the reality that John wasn't entirely certain of who Yeshua was, and that what
John taught his disciples didn't always agree with what Yeshua taught His.
With verse 20 we enter a new phase. The 12 Disciples have been taught and
sent out to towns and villages throughout the Galilee region. Yeshua Himself has
traveled mainly around the Galilee (and currently is doing it alone) teaching and
doing miracles typical of a Jewish Holy Man; a Tzadik. He has explained that He
is Daniel's Son of Man and thus (to those with open ears and minds) this firmly
establishes Him as of divine connection if not origin. So now the issue becomes
the response to Him of those who have heard Him and witnessed the many
miraculous healings He has done. What we'll see is that this response includes
both that of individuals, as well as that of communities. That is, it is one thing for
an individual person to trust Him, but that's not the end of it. There is also an
expectation by Jesus that entire cities, regions, even nations are to respond
corporately, as a community, to who He is. Therefore a person can come to trust
Him (and ultimately be saved) but can at the same time wind up as collateral
damage if that person is attached to a community that corporately stands against
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
Him. This greatly mirrors what we find in the Torah. We saw in the matter of
Abraham entering into negotiations with God over the fate of the people of
Sodom (mainly to the benefit of his nephew, Lot), that individuals might be
rescued on account of their faith but may lose their lives if they choose to remain
among communities that are condemned for their wickedness.
So let's get our bearings by reading Matthew 11 starting at verse 19.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 11:19 - end
The reason I wanted to begin our reading at verse 19 is because of something
we've discussed a couple of times in earlier lessons. It is that Yeshua is depicted
in the Gospel accounts (and especially in John's and Matthew's) as the
embodiment of Wisdom. This is no small matter if we are to properly understand
the nature and character of Our Savior.
The scriptural relationship between God and Wisdom is central to the writings of
the Bible. In Jewish literature of the day, Wisdom was seen as feminine and even
given the name Sophia. Thus in the Jewish concept divine Wisdom was more
than an ideal; it had actual form. Yeshua was expressing that He is that form.
In verse 27 when Christ states that only the Father knows the Son, and only the
Son knows the Father (a very intimate, closely tied relationship), we find this
same kind of relationship in Jewish thought that only Wisdom knows God. While
we find a great deal of attention to the matter of wisdom outside of the Bible,
there is also much attention paid to it within the Holy Scriptures; only sometimes
it seems vague to us. Therefore, I'd like to recite a passage in Job that is quite
pertinent to what Jesus has said. Open your Bibles to the Book of Job.
READ JOB 28:12-28
Therefore Job declares that Wisdom is from God, and its substance is of God.
This is not intended in an abstract or allegorical sense. Notice in verse 27 how
Wisdom is characterized as a living entity, having a form. A truly fascinating
expose' about Wisdom can be found in Ecclesiasticus, also known as The
Wisdom of Sirach. This is one of the books of the Apocrypha that has been
included in the Bible (usually as a separate section, just as the Old Testament
and New Testament are seen as separate sections), but then removed, re␂included, removed again, and finally permanently banished from Protestant
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
Bibles in the early 1800's. It remains in the Catholic Bible, many Orthodox Bibles,
and several of the lesser known branches of Christianity also retain it. Never was
it seen as on the same high level of inspiration as the Old and New
Testaments.... not even in the 1
st century among Jews. However, the Apocryphal
books were seen as truthful, insightful, and worthy of being read and
incorporated into a God-worshipper's life. So we shouldn't simply dismiss these
works and I recommend that all of you acquire a Book of the Apocrypha and read
it. Before I recite to you a short passage from the Wisdom of Sirach I need to
explain a little more about this particular work and the Apocrypha in general.
Perhaps the primary reason that the several books of the Apocrypha were
removed as a section of the Protestant Bible is because they were always
considered as Jewish in flavor and tone; too Jewish in fact. So, yes, anti␂Semitism played a significant role for their exclusion. These books were written
well before Christ was born. The Wisdom of Sirach, for instance, was written
about 180 B.C., in the Hebrew language. Soon it was translated into Greek and it
spread throughout the Jewish Diaspora. It was an exceedingly valued book within
the Jewish culture even before Jesus came along, and it continued to be all
during His lifetime. The point is that we are going to see some phrases and
sayings of Yeshua that are similar to what we find in the Apocrypha, and in other
cases they are nearly word for word. This shouldn't in any way alarm us, but it
should peak our curiosity. These books (and especially the Wisdom of Sirach)
were greatly valued and believed and taught; so of course Jesus knew them well.
He wouldn't have had much disagreement with most of what these works had to
say. As He was communicating with fellow Jews who also were familiar with
these works He would occasionally employ familiar terms and phrases that came
from them as a natural flow of conversation. The difficulty for us arises when we
attempt to understand these terms and phrases taken from a work such as the
Wisdom of Sirach (as used to describe wisdom and its source, for example)
outside of the common Jewish cultural context of the 1
st century.... which is
exactly what mainstream Christianity often attempts. The result can be some
rather unsound doctrines.
I'm going to read to you from The Wisdom of Sirach chapter 1, starting with verse
1.
All wisdom comes from the Lord and remains with Him forever. The sand of
the seas, and the drops of rain, and the days of eternity... who can count
them? The height of the heavens, and the breadth of the earth, and the
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
deep, and wisdom... who can track them out? Wisdom was created before
them all, and sound intelligence from eternity. To whom has the source of
wisdom been revealed? And who knows her devices? There is but one who
is wise, a very terrible one, seated upon His throne. The Lord created her;
He saw her and counted her, and He poured her out upon all He made.
Upon all mankind, as He chose to bestow her. But He supplied her liberally
to those who loved Him.
This represents the rather general view of Wisdom common throughout Jewish
culture. So in Matthew 11, we have Jesus identifying Himself as that
embodiment.... that form... of divinely created Wisdom. This means that Yeshua
has the knowledge to reveal hidden revelations that mankind cannot, of
ourselves, simply "know" no matter how intently we seek it on our own. What
Yeshua says agrees very closely to what Ben Sirach says. But in Yeshua's words
we also see another connection to yet another person from the past in Hebrew
history: Moses.
From the beginning of our study of the Gospel of Matthew I have pointed out that
always in the background of what Matthew writes about Yeshua is Him being the
literal embodiment of Wisdom; but also that He is the "prophet like me" that
Moses said would come. These sorts of things sound a bit alien to 21st century
gentile Christians; in fact I think gentile Christianity has from its earliest day
struggled in dealing with this clear reality because of its inherent Jewishness.
Therefore we are meant to see that Moses and Yeshua are tightly linked and so
we should look to the Torah to help us understand what Yeshua means by many
of the things He says. For instance, when Yeshua speaks about the Father and
Son knowing each other in Matthew 11:27 it has a direct connection to Moses
and God in Exodus 33:12-13. I'm going to present this in the KJV because it is
the more literal translation from the Greek than the CJB.
KJV Exodus 33:12-13 12 And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest
unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou
wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast
also found grace in my sight. 13 Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found
grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may
find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
In the last couple of verses of Matthew 11 Yeshua speaks of His own meekness
(or gentleness) and of His "yoke". Meekness is one of the primary attributes the
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
Torah ascribes to Moses, and the term "yoke" was a word regularly used among
Jews to describe one's required connection to the Law of Moses. So while it's not
readily apparent to the modern gentile Believer, ancient Jews would have picked
up on the Yeshua-Moses connection. Whether they accepted it or not is another
matter (obviously, most didn't). Yeshua also speaks of giving "rest" to the people
who "yoke" themselves to Him. This again cements His link with Moses. In
Exodus 33:14 God speaks to Moses and says:
CJB Exodus 33:14 14 "... Set your mind at rest- my presence will go with you,
after all."
Moving on. In Matthew 11:20, Yeshua speaks about the negative responses to
His person and His message that He sees coming from several cities. Since any
and every city or town is actually but a conglomerate of the people who live there,
then it would be unimaginable that every last person in a decent sized city or
town would reject Jesus and His message. So when here we find Christ
condemning these cities to destruction, it is on a corporate and not an individual
level. The city (as a whole) will pay a steep price in the form of physical
destruction that will potentially harm even the few (or the one) that has decided to
trust in Him.
Notice the reason for Christ's denunciation of the cities. It is that He had done
many miracles there; He had healed many people but this still did not bring that
community to trust in Him. We discussed in earlier lessons that one of the great
points made within Matthew's Gospel is that the working of miracles does NOT
lead to people trusting in Christ, as it might seem that it ought to. Clearly Jesus
thought that it should have; and it made Him not just a little bit upset that it didn't.
He didn't do miracles with the ulterior motive of individuals and cities trusting in
Him; He did them because He had great compassion on the afflictions of the
people. On the other hand, He expected that these many jaw-dropping miracles
would have affected the people in a way that went beyond easing their physical
suffering. He expected they would have turned from their sins (that is they would
have repented) in response to being healed and the witnesses to these
miracles would have been equally impressed but it didn't turn out that way.
So in verse 21 Yeshua specifically calls out the cities of Korizin and Bethsaida. If
you've been to Israel with me, you've probably been to those places. Both of
these are located in the Upper Galilee, near to the Sea of Galilee. Korizin is a
couple of miles north from Capernaum (Jesus's resident city for some time, now),
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
and Bethsaida is towards the northern end of the Sea of Galilee, however it's
exact location is in dispute. There is a substantial academic debate over whether
the ruins of Bethsaida are to be identified with the archeological dig at El-Tel, or
the one at El-Araj. Both are on the northeastern side of The Lake. Either way,
these 2 cities are the targets of Yeshua's ire. He says that the thoroughly gentile
and thus pagan cities of Tzor and Tzidon (located in modern day Lebanon) would
have been more accepting of Him than were the thoroughly Jewish cities of
Korizin and Bethsaida.
Tzor and Tzidon at one time had been completely destroyed, but by Christ's day
had been rebuilt and were thriving port cities on the Mediterranean. In Ezekiel
chapter 28 both Tzor and Tzidon are singled out for judgment and no doubt this
is why Christ chose them to use as an illustration. It appears that by the 1st
century the words "like Tzor and Tzidon" had more or less joined the regularly
used "like Sodom and Gomorrah" as a way of speaking about warnings of
judgment. Yeshua says that if He had done His miracle healings in those 2
gentile cities, they would have put on sackcloth and ashes. The wearing of
sackcloth and the throwing of ashes over one's head was symbolic of both
mourning and repentance (usually the mourning was the result of the
repentance). So the implication is that Tzor and Tzidon would have turned from
their sinful paganism and accepted Yeshua. It is difficult to accept this as a truly
prophetic statement. That is, this doesn't seem to be that Yeshua is claiming to
know from some kind of divine foreknowledge that had He visited those 2 cities
and performed miracles that they would indeed have repented. Rather this more
seems like the use of a standard phrase within Jewish culture of that era in order
to make a passionate point.
So; Yeshua as the accuser has set Korizin and Bethsaida before the Great Judge
as unrepentant sinners and now comes the verdict. On Judgment Day those 2
Jewish cities (meaning the community of people living there along with the
buildings) will suffer more catastrophe and suffering than did Tzor and Tzidon did
when they were destroyed, as promised by God.
Let's pause and think about this for a moment. The Jewish residents of the 2
cities of Korazin and Bethsaida (Jewish cities) no doubt thought of themselves as
good and righteous worshippers of God, whereas Tzor and Tzidon never thought
of themselves as worshippers of God. And yet because Korazin and Bethsaida
didn't repent from their sins and accept Yeshua, they are going to be judged
more harshly than those 2 pagan cities will. Why? Because the residents of the 2
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
Jewish cities had been steeped in the Hebrew religion. They had every
advantage. Their entire heritage was based on knowing Yehoveh, the God of
Israel. They had the Law of Moses, the Torah and the Prophets. It's not that they
thought they had become wicked and sinners. But in Jesus's eyes by rejecting
Him they were wicked and they were also rejecting their true religion and their
God.... The Father. Let me say that a bit differently. As a result of their sin and
blindness to it, it led to the Jewish people of Korazin and Bethsaida rejecting their
Messiah.
There is today a dangerous doctrine called the Dual Covenant that's been around
awhile, and lately it has been championed by several Pastors who clearly love
Israel and the Jewish people. They love them so much that they can't
(emotionally) stand the idea that Jews would be destined for the Lake of Fire if
they didn't accept Jesus as their Messiah. So the Dual Covenant doctrine states
that Jews believing in The Father is sufficient for salvation for them. Look; I love
Israel and the Jewish people as well. But I love them so much that I'm not about
to tell them something that is false, even if it is offensive to them, especially
because it affects relationship with their God and their eternity. This section of
Matthew makes it clear that trust in Yeshua is what saves a person...Jew or
gentile... from judgment. Believing in God isn't enough. Being of Jewish heritage
isn't enough. Yeshua shows us that if we truly trust God in the way God counts it
as our trust, then we'll trust His Son. All else is lip service and it destines us to a
dark future.
You see, the major turn-off for Jews is not that they don't want to trust in a
Messiah; it's that they don't want to trust in the gentile Christian version of a
Messiah that marginalizes His own Jewishness, and discards God's love for His
people and nation, Israel. The Crusades and the Inquisition happened many
centuries ago, but the victims of the Church's unconscionable actions were
primarily Jews, and it is well remembered within modern Jewish society. For
young people, today, it may seem like the 75 years ago that the Holocaust
happened is but dusty ancient history; yet it is not such a long time ago and a few
people who were victims of it are still alive today to remind us. The point is that I
don't blame the Jews one bit for not wanting to hear about a Western,
Romanized Christianity. Nor of an Eastern Orthodox Christianity that has a
history of being just as hateful towards the Jews, and that also sees Jews as
thrown aside and forgotten by God. So the answer from Christianity shouldn't be
to present Jews with the false hope of dual covenants for Salvation; one for
Jews, the other for gentiles. One that requires trust in Messiah Yeshua, the other
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
that doesn't. That approach only makes the Church feel better and perhaps
applies a little balm to our collective guilt. Or maybe it makes us think we can get
the Gospel message monkey off our back so we don't have to evangelize Jews
and suffer their rejection. The only answer is for the Church to truly love the
Jewish people with the truth, with mercy and respect, and for the millions of
members of the Church to don sackcloth and ashes and acknowledge our wrong
doing and make meaningful change. But this can't and won't happen until a lot of
unsound Church doctrine is addressed head on, and hopefully relegated to a
shameful past. This is not going to happen from the top down by trying to retrain
the executive level of various denominations. It is only going to happen from the
bottom up by teaching one willing but ordinary Believer at a time, just as Christ
did.
As we discussed in earlier lessons, Yeshua didn't arrive with banners screaming
"Your wait is over! Your Messiah is here and I am He!" Rather, since the Jewish
people's acceptance of Him would necessarily require repentance by a people
who already believed in the God of the Bible and thought they were in good stead
with Him.... Christ had to address some of the wrong doctrines (misguided
traditions) that had sent them careening off course, before they were able to hear
and understand the truth of who He was (and is). I maintain that the present
Church is (in general) little different and has been in a similar boat as those Jews
for at least 1700 years. Allow me to offend you a little more. The Jesus as is
usually portrayed by the mainstream Church is not the historical, biblical Jesus,
but rather is some kind of contrived caricature that satisfies the need to have Him
fit with predetermined doctrines and various gentile cultural views. Can that save
anyone, no matter now genuinely sincere or nice they are? No matter how much
they raise their hands and call on this non-historical Jesus's name? I would
imagine that it is not a one-size-fits-all answer, and I have no ability to separate
the sheep from the goats (so to speak). But I want to remind you of what I deem
as the most terrifying words in Bible because I think they were spoken just for this
scenario.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
Notice that the issue is not about whether a person knows or worships the God of
Israel; that is taken as a given. Rather the issue is knowing and worshipping
Yeshua as God's Son. Not a made-up Jesus, but the real Jesus; the New
Testament Jesus. And it also involves our obeying Him in the context of what He
instructed; not in some modern spin that allows us to avoid what He clearly said
and He expects of us.
How could hundreds, even thousands of Jewish people in Judea and Galilee
personally witness His amazing miracles and hear His incomparable words
directly from His own mouth, and say "No thanks"? Because if you already
believe you are righteous, and think you already know the truth, you're not open
to being corrected. Nor are you open to having what you believe challenged, and
being forced to defend it with actual Scriptural truth. I'm not nearly as concerned
for pagans who know they're not saved. I'm far more concerned for those who
are certain they ARE saved, but in reality they don't know their Savior or have
any idea of their obligations and duties to Him and to His Father because they
rely on traditions and caricatures and not biblical truth. This is precisely what has
happened to the good people of Korazin and Bethsaida.
Verse 23 continues to startle. Yeshua condemns His own home city of
Capernaum similarly. Many, many of His miracles were done in Capernaum....
some of His most spectacular and meaningful. And yet, even those residents
refused to repent from their sins and trust in Him.
I think it is fair to ask at this point exactly what the Jews were to trust in Christ as.
That is, it is correctly said that these Jews were to trust in Him; but exactly what
was it they were supposed to trust? Even John the Baptist was struggling with
this issue ("are you the one that is to come, or should we look for someone
else?"). To date, the message that the 12 Disciples were sent out with was only
that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived. It was NOT that Jesus was the long
awaited Messiah because He had not directly said so and the subject hadn't
been broached. So between His miracles and His teaching, Yeshua's point was
not yet that the people should trust in Him as their Messiah, but rather that they
should trust in Him enough to learn through His authoritative instruction that they
are sinners they are NOT righteous before God as they think they are.... and
they need to repent. There's a larger point to be made here. Folks: we don't
accept Yeshua and THEN repent. First we repent and then we accept Yeshua. If
we don't feel any deep urging to confess and confront the fact that we are
sinners, and that we sincerely repent from our sinning, then why would we need
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
a Savior?
In verse 23 by Yeshua asking the rhetorical question about if Capernaum would
be exalted to Heaven, it means: would the city and inhabitants of Capernaum be
held up to God and presented as innocent on Judgment Day? Yeshua says no
way to that. But, they are certainly going to be brought down to She'ol. Actually,
the Greek says they'll be brought down to Hades. You can look up the
terms She'ol and Hades on the Torah Class website to get some in-depth
understanding, but for our purpose today know that to Jews and even to the
Greeks of that day, Hades was not the equivalent of Christian *. But neither
was it the CJB translation of She'ol. She'ol, for the Jews, was simply the grave.
And since Yeshua is speaking to Jews, He meant She'ol, the grave the place
where the dead are buried. So to be clear: even though we indeed find in the
Greek manuscripts the word Hades, it's because this was the way they
translated She'ol (remember: Matthew was originally written in Hebrew). And, it
is not the best translation. For the Greeks, Hades was the Netherworld. It was the
pagan realm of the dead, with some people living quite comfortably, and others
not so much. There were cities, and servants, and food even parties and
orgies pretty much everything available to the living only better. The Jews
had no such concept.
The bottom line is that Yeshua says that Capernaum is not only not going to be
exalted, they are in for a catastrophic fall. Yeshua resurrects the old usage of
Sodom as an object lesson for the wicked by saying that what happens to
Capernaum will be worse than what happened to Sodom. I don't know how much
worse it could be; Sodom never recovered from God's judgment on them!
The next verse has a couple of parts to it. Verse 25 is essentially a prayer of
thanksgiving that Yeshua speaks publicly so that the crowd can hear it and learn
from it. It extols The Father as the true Lord of Heaven and Earth. So while as
Believers we can speak of Christ as Lord of Heaven and Earth in one sense, we
must always understand it from the perspective of seeing Christ as The Father's
agent. The Father didn't die or retire and turn the family business over to his son.
Christ continually receives His power and authority from The Father in order that
it would be used to continually carry out the Father's will; Yeshua emphasizes
this at every opportunity. It is interesting that the phrase "Lord of Heaven and
Earth" only occurs 3 times in the entire New Testament. Each time it is meant for
the readers to recall God The Father creating the Universe from Genesis 1:1.
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
The second part of verse 25 says that God has hidden "these things" from the
wise and educated, but made them known to the simple. I imagine your version
will say something different but similar as I'm trying to condense all the translation
possibilities into one. First: what are "these things" God has hidden from the wise
and educated? There's many different theological opinions on this statement.
From the general sense it had to be whatever it was that Jesus was revealing.
What He was revealing was an awareness of just where Israel and the Jewish
people stood at that moment in history. More specifically, it was a revelation of
awareness of what comes with the Latter Days.
As we've discussed on many occasions, the Jews believed they had entered the
End Times. They were wrong about that, but indeed they had been experiencing
the Latter Days. Christians tend to make the Latter Days and the End Times as
synonymous terms, yet clearly they are not because in the New Testament we
find 2 Latter Days and only 1 End Times. The term "End Times" means exactly
what it says; the End. There will be no more human history as we know it after
that. However after the first of the two Latter Days, history will (and did) continue.
Both Latter Days require an appearance of the Messiah (His advent and then His
return); and this is what confused the Jews the most as concerned Jesus
because they didn't see two appearances of the Messiah in their theology
(although interestingly we do find later Rabbis suggesting it).
Second: another part of this verse concerns who, exactly, is having the revelation
hidden from them, and who is being allowed to receive it. This question must be
coupled with: why would The Father want this revelation hidden from anyone
let alone wise and understanding people? What's wrong with being wise? I
thought that's what we're supposed to be as God-worshippers? We find the
following in Isaiah 29.
CJB Isaiah 29:14 therefore, I will have to keep shocking these people with
astounding and amazing things, until the 'wisdom' of their 'wise ones'
vanishes, and the 'discernment' of their 'discerning ones' is hidden away."
And in 1Corinthians:
CJB 1 Corinthians 1:19 Indeed, the Tanakh says, "I will destroy the wisdom
of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent." The term "wise and understanding" or "wise and intelligent" or "wise and
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
prudent", had become among 1st century Judaism a negative expression. It is
sarcastic in tone because it refers to people.... sometimes secular.... who are
enamored and puffed up by their own intelligence and are certain of having
unassailable wisdom (they're a legend in their own mind). But in reality as for
correct knowledge of God, they have little or none. So who were those to whom
these revelations were revealed? Again we find a variety of translations from the
Greek to English. These people are babes. They are children. They are the
childlike. They are the simple. They are, as the CJB has it, the ordinary folks. The
Greek word being translated into all these words is nepioi. In certain usages it
means infants. But the idea as it is used here is that it represents people who are
the opposite of the wise and learned. So, are we to assume that Yeshua doesn't
much like intelligent people? Or people who are educated? No, that's not what is
happening. We have to put our 1st century Jewish mindsets on to get it.
The term "the wise and the learned" is a direct shot at the Pharisees and the
Scribes that drips with sarcasm. It probably includes the heads of the Jewish
religious academies, the most renowned among them located in Jerusalem (just
like the one Paul attended). This is a negative characterization of the arrogant
Synagogue and Jewish academic leadership that boasts of their personal
wisdom and knowledge that is anything but God-inspired. All during His ministry
on earth Yeshua had a running battle with the Jewish religious elite and the
Pharisees. They never failed to question His doctrine, and He never failed to
denounce theirs. The babes, on the other hand, represent the opposite. They
were those common Jews who in the opinion of the Jewish religious authorities
are weak and simple; but in God's economy they are His elect.
It is embedded in Jewish literature of that time (and later) that God's revelation is
not there for everyone to share. There is an underlying criteria that God uses to
determine who among His created humanity receives such divine revelation. We
can find this thought in the Book of Job.
CJB Job 28:28 And to human beings he said, 'Look, fear of Adonai is
wisdom! Shunning evil is understanding!'"
So the criteria is that those who are wholehearted and have prepared
themselves, humbly, to receive God's revelations by fearing Him, will gain
wisdom by means of obeying Him. The moral, obedient and meek will be given
such knowledge but those who see God's revelations as but mere literary or
human based knowledge to be obtained, or perhaps as something that should be
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
measured against secular standards, will be denied. I want to editorialize a bit to
give you a practical, but perhaps shocking, example of this for the 21st century
because you need to be made aware.
There are several modern era Bible commentators that not only don't believe in
Christ, they don't claim any belief in God. If they do, it is not necessarily the God
of the Bible but perhaps of some undefined non-earthly intelligence or a mix of
attributes of gods of various religions so as not to appear bigoted but rather fair
minded. It is in vogue today at many Christian Colleges to add an Islamic Studies
department, because they either see no conflict between that and the Christian
faith or that there is an intellectual argument to be made for Believers to learn all
about Islam so as to promote more diversity, tolerance and understanding (if not
acceptance) of a faith that they see as having a common heritage to ours.
Some of this particular strand of popular Bible commentators, professors, and
their colleagues believe in a kind of spiritualism, but not Spirit. Others don't
accept the spiritual whatsoever. This is actually not only a 21st century
phenomenon; it began among the European Bible commentators of the early
19th century because of the rise of European Enlightenment that tars and
feathers anyone believing in God as a primitive, ignorant person, who trusts
superstition instead of science and reason, and in so doing impedes mankind's
social and intellectual progress.
Since many Bible commentators today operate out of secular Universities, they
long to be respected by their peers and so for many decades now Christianity
has become relegated to the status of but one of many human philosophies, and
the Bible as a specific kind of ancient Jewish literature and myth that is no
different than any other ancient literature and myth except that it is entirely
religious in nature. Therefore, the Bible is perceived that way, read that way,
interpreted that way, and taught that way to their young, eager students. And as
hard as it might be to believe, folks, much of the teaching material used in
modern seminaries and even in Christian theological schools comes from that
particular strand of commentators because their approach has gained such
popular appeal.
I tell you this not only as a caution, but also as object lesson because these
particular scholars and commentators I'm describing are indeed intelligent, well
educated and decent people who are at the same time the prime examples of
what Jesus is speaking against in Matthew 11:25. They are who Job warns us
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Lesson 41 - Matthew 11 cont 2
about, and are also what Paul is getting at in 1Corinthians (and he ought to know,
having gone to the elite of Jewish religious academies). Some of the most
respected Bible commentators of our era believe, rightly, that the academic
preparation and the criteria for being able to properly understand the words of the
Bible so as to be able to teach others about it is scholarly expertise in the original
languages, or literary knowledge of the Bible era, or being a historian of the
ancient Near and Middle East, or all of the above. These are all good and useful
(if not indispensable) disciplines for learning and teaching God's Word. But....
tragically what they leave out, and they don't understand, is that the doors to true
wisdom and authentic divine knowledge and revelation are closed to them
because they don't know or trust God. Without that trust they are operating and
teaching only within their own limited human understanding, intellect, and
wisdom. This is an explosive mixture that makes them just as dangerous for the
God seekers of today as it was when many of the Pharisees and Scribes used
their human-centered thoughts to instruct the Jews who sought God in Yeshua's
era. Yeshua aptly described them, earlier in Matthew, as wolves in sheep's
clothing.
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 11 next week.
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 42, Chapter 11 and 12
We wrapped up the prior lesson with a message of awareness to a sad but
dangerous reality within Christianity in modern times, in which not only is it
acceptable within the academic branch of the Church for agnostics or even
atheists to create commentaries on the various books of the Bible, but that these
commentaries have found their way onto the desks of prominent theologians and
into the course material of many of our seminaries. While I cannot know for
certain what the motivation is for a person who believes neither in God nor in
Christ to write papers and instruction material on the Bible, in general I don't see
an intent to intentionally deceive the reader. For whatever their reasons, these
scholars have chosen Bible history, or the biblical languages, or ancient literature
as their specialty. So it is from expertise in these scholastic disciplines, and not
any personal knowledge or experience with God, that they establish their
authority to be a Bible commentator and teacher.
I incorporated in that lesson my warning to you about them because of a
comment Jesus made in Matthew 11:25 & 26 part of which is essentially a brief
prayer of praise that He made for the crowd surrounding Him to hear. Christ's
comment made reference to the sophisticated and educated... or more literally to
the wise and the learned.... but it was intended as sharp sarcasm towards those
Pharisees and Scribes and Jewish academics that operated the Synagogues and
instructed in the religious academies. Yeshua clearly had a bone to pick with
these fellows because earlier in Matthew He referred to this group as wolves in
sheep's clothing. That is, they were deceivers that harmed the flock (whether or
not their intent was to deceive). How did they deceive? The more nuanced
answer will come later in the Book of Matthew, but I'll quote some of it for you
now.
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
CJB Matthew 15:6-9 ...Thus by your tradition you make null and void the
word of God! 7 You hypocrites! Yesha'yahu was right when he prophesied
about you, 8
'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far
away from me. 9 Their worship of me is useless, because they teach man␂made rules as if they were doctrines.
In the way it is used here, man-made rules are what at times are called traditions
(or Traditions of the Elders), and doctrines more refers to biblical instruction and
principles. As with most things said, they are neither black nor white but rather
exist in shades of gray. That is, Yeshua isn't denouncing all traditions as
unscriptural. But He is denouncing the ones that in essence go against the
biblical truth and intent of God. In Matthew 11:25 & 26, He lays this accusation
directly at the feet of the Jewish religious leaders, mostly aimed at the
Synagogue leadership, which was dominated by the sect of the Pharisees. The
reality is that such a negative comment can also be directly applied today to
many Christian Theological institutes, Seminaries, and Church leaders. That the
Church is fractured into at least 3000 identifiable denominations is proof of itself
that man-made rules instead of the Bible have long ago become the bedrock of
Christianity. And Yeshua says we're not going to get true divine revelation from
them if that's who they are (again, as a general but not all inclusive statement)
because God withholds revelation from them, and instead gives it to ordinary
folks because it pleases Him to do so. Who are the ordinary folks? Those who
trust God's Word, are obedient to Him, and are not puffed up with pride and self␂deceived with false beliefs and traditions that always have a hidden agenda
behind them.
Let's move on the final 4 verses of Matthew chapter 11. RE-READ MATTHEW 11:27 - 30
Yeshua makes startling claim after starling claim in the last half of Matthew 11,
and His statement in verse 27 that the Father has handed "everything" or "all
things" over to "Me" only adds to it. I imagine that His listeners (and it's not
entirely clear who they are) weren't certain about what He meant. They were in
good company because to this day there is still no universal agreement over His
intent.
We should begin to understand it by (as always) taking it in context. And the
context is that He just finished saying that the self-important Jewish religious
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
leadership are not going to understand God's revelations, so His next claim is
only for those who don't fall into that category of people. He then follows this up
with the revelation and wisdom that The Father has handed over "everything" to
Him. And then follows that up with saying that only the Son truly knows the
Father, and only the Father truly knows the Son. We are entering the realm of the
enormous and the mysterious, and it is challenging to comment on some of the
things Christ is saying in any kind of a succinct way. I mean that in the sense that
we live in a "bumper sticker", short attention span world that craves having the
complex reduced to a sentence or less of explanation. That which by its very
nature necessitates deep study, prayer, and much nuance to understand
correctly and to properly apply to our lives is to be described by a glib and very
short phrase. And I promise you that what comes next the Sabbath
controversy is even more complex.
That said, modern Christianity has used this statement about the Father turning
"everything" or (depending on your Bible version) "all things" over to Christ as if it
was a mammoth Christmas tree on which every type of ornament can be hung.
There is simply no way around the fact what is meant by, and included in "all
things" can seem ambiguous because in the English language that term is by
nature general and non-specific. So great liberties have been taken to use this
statement to validate any number of man-made Church doctrines. For instance:
some say it means that the Father has handed the entire physical Universe and
the Spiritual world over to Christ and gone into retirement. Or, it means that since
Jesus is now in charge whatever the Father has previously ordained can now be
updated and changed because He has given His Son the authority to do so.
Some say that it is pointing towards what He is about to say in the next couple of
verses (several wisdom sayings). I suggest that if we simply remove the
paragraph changes and verse markings that our Bibles have in them, the
meaning becomes a little more clear.
It bears repeating that the Hebrew Bible the Tanach... the Old Testament,
which is the only Bible that existed in Jesus's time or would for the next 150
years, had no chapters, paragraphs, or verse numbers. While on the one hand
these sorts of simple devices make our ability to reference various parts of the
Bible easier to read, study and communicate by breaking up the narratives into
smaller bite-sized chunks, they can also misguide us. How so? Because in
Western literature chapters and paragraphs indicate definite changes in the flow
of words such as the end of one scene and the beginning of another, or the end
of one thought and the beginning of another. And because we find in most Bible
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
translations a paragraph change between verses 26 and 27, then we think that
Christ has ended one train of thought and moved on to the next. I want to remove
those markings and read it to you in a way that I think may make the meaning of
"these things", or "all things", or "everything" more clear.
CJB Matthew 11:25-27 25 It was at that time that Yeshua said, "I thank you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you concealed these things from the
sophisticated and educated and revealed them to ordinary folks. 26 Yes,
Father, I thank you that it pleased you to do this. 27 "My Father has handed
over everything to me.
He next goes on to speak of the Son and Father knowing each other. It is my
opinion that the best choice is to connect the statement concerning "these things
which the Father has concealed" in verse 25 with the "everything" of verse 27.
That is, the Father has turned over all the knowledge of all revelatory wisdom to
Yeshua. It is not an issue of transfer of possession of physical property such as
the Temple or even of the entire planet. Nor is it about turning over the
possession of literary property such as the Law Code (The Law of Moses) or the
entire Old Testament. Remember: Matthew has structured his entire Gospel
around a handful of concepts among which is that Jesus is Wisdom. He is the
tangible form, the embodiment, of Wisdom. And wisdom is to be understood as
meaning divinely sourced knowledge.
Yet another concept that Matthew puts forth is that Yeshua is the 2
nd Moses. And
thus when we add these verses I just quoted to the statement that "no one fully
knows the Son except the Father, and no one fully knows the Father except the
Son", it connects nicely to Moses in Exodus chapter 33.
CJB Exodus 33:11-14 11 ADONAI would speak to Moshe face to face, as a
man speaks to his friend. Then he would return to the camp; but the young
man who was his assistant, Y'hoshua the son of Nun, never left the inside
of the tent. 12 Moshe said to ADONAI, "Look, you say to me, 'Make these
people move on!' But you haven't let me know whom you will be sending
with me. Nevertheless you have said, 'I know you by name,' and also, 'You
have found favor in my sight.' 13 Now, please, if it is really the case that I
have found favor in your sight, show me your ways; so that I will
understand you and continue finding favor in your sight. Moreover, keep on
seeing this nation as your people."
14 He answered, "Set your mind at rest␂my presence will go with you, after all."
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
Both Moses and Jesus speak of knowing the Father and the Father knowing
them, but then notice how the thought ends with the concept of rest. God tells
Moses to "rest" because His presence will go with Him into the wilderness, and in
Matthew 11:29 Yeshua tells His followers that if they'll take on His yoke, they will
find rest. This is not a coincidence.
So Yeshua knowing the Father fully, and the Father knowing the Son fully at least
includes the idea of having mutual knowledge. As always, we must understand
this in a general and not a precise or all-inclusive-without-exception sense. I
caution this because another common Christian doctrine (especially in the
Evangelical branch of the Church) is that Yeshua's knowledge is a carbon copy
of the Father's, which then makes them co-equals. In other words, the doctrine is
that Jesus and God the Father are equally omniscient. However this doctrine is
clearly dashed in any number of statements out of Yeshua's own mouth,
including this as perhaps His most famous concerning the subject:
CJBMatthew 24:34-36 34 Yes! / tell you that this people will certainly not pass
away before all these things happen. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will never pass away. 36 "But when that day and hour will
come, no one knows- not the angels in heaven, not the Son, only the
Father.
So here Yeshua confesses that there are things, there is knowledge, which the
Father holds but it has not been imparted to the Son. We need not see this as a
contradiction to Matthew 11:27 but rather we need to understand that the words
of the various authors of the Bible and the words of the many Bible characters
who are quoted, are similar to how we talk in everyday speech. "Everything" and
"all" doesn't have to mean 100%, and it usually doesn't. Rather it more typically
means the majority but with some exceptions.
No matter how we might wish to nuance and understand what Yeshua meant by
this statement of the Son knowing the Father and the Father the Son, we must
once again put on our 1st century Jewish mindset and try to see this the way the
Jews who heard Him would have taken it. Clearly Christ was setting Himself in
the position as being the Son; and just as clearly the Father meant God the
Father (and not Yeshua's own human father, Joseph). So, Yeshua was saying
that He was the Son of God who possessed the same wisdom that God the
Father had and that He (God) was the one who would reveal divine revelation to
whomever He chose. Yeshua was making a strong case for His own divinity and
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
all that came with it.
Now that He has made this pretty straightforward claim, He takes it a step further
in verse 28. He says that because of who He is, all who are struggling and
burdened can find rest in Him. I think the KJV translates these words the best
and most literally. The KJV says:
KJV Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Yeshua is making a word play in order to make an illustration. The English words
labor and heavy laden, play well with the final word of the passage, which is rest.
These 3 words translate the Greek words kopiao, phortizo, and
then anapauo that work together to form a mental picture for His Jewish listeners
of hard labor, heavy loads, and then a welcome break (a rest) to allow the body
to refresh and re-energize. The focus of the passage is that it is Yeshua who will
provide the welcome break. He then continues with this word play by employing
the word yoke. In its literal sense, a yoke is an uncomfortable-looking, heavy
wooden device made to join two work animals together in order to pull a wagon
or a plow. However mid-sentence we see that the mental picture this conjures up
is to be taken metaphorically. Jesus is not talking about literal hard manual labor,
or carrying heavy loads, and then some blessed idleness that comes about in
order to let the exhausted body rejuvenate. Rather, He says, "learn from Me".
And the reason they should learn from Him is because He is gentle and meek.
Other Bible versions might say that He is humble and gentle, or lowly in heart.
OK, pause. Why does the quality of being gentle (or humble) and meek make
Him the better choice for the people seeking truth? What did Christ just finish
saying about to whom God chooses to give revelatory wisdom, and to whom He
withholds it? God gives it to the humble and the meek (which is what Yeshua
says He is), but withholds it from the arrogant and self-important (Scribes and
Pharisees) who see their own wisdom as equal to, or above, God's. I'll repeat:
Christ says that He is humble and meek, so He qualifies (even from the purely
human aspect) to be one that God would choose to reveal Heavenly wisdom.
Therefore, the people should seek Yeshua for true knowledge and wisdom and
not those they had been listening to.
So the term "yoke" in this passage becomes a metaphor. In Jewish thought
"yoke" is used to mean obedience and subordinance. It also includes the idea of
education, commitment and connection. It was common then, and still is among
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
the Jewish Orthodox today, that "yoke" is a term used to define a Jew's
relationship to the Torah and to the Law. That is, they speak of the "yoke of the
Torah" or the "yoke of the Law" and it is intended in these several senses. It was
(and remains) a positive term, and not something to avoid. The thing to
understand is that a man could, in the metaphorical sense, yoke himself to the
Torah, yoke himself to his wife, yoke himself to his family and clan, yoke himself
to his Rabbi and to a number of other things all at the same time. So in this way a
person could have more than one "yoking", but one was never to be yoked to
opposing or opposite things.
Therefore Yeshua is saying to change who and what you are yoked to. The
question for Believers then becomes, so what yoke is it that Christ is saying they
should discard in favor of His yoke? The standard answer within Christianity is
that we should shuck-off the yoke of The Law of Moses. But the Law of Moses
has not been part of the conversation about what it is that Yeshua is speaking
about or denouncing. When Yeshua says that His yoke is "light" this is clearly not
in contrast to the biblical Torah or the Law of Moses. Rather it was in contrast to
the burdens of a yoke of man-made traditions that was hung upon the necks of
the common people by the wise and learned (the Scribes and the Pharisees); a
yoke that was indeed heavy and full of needless difficult burdens. By turning
people away from those man-made burdens and back to the comforting truth of
God's Torah, Jesus offered rest in the sense of peace of mind and soul instead of
ceaseless activities that revolved around behaviors rather than a Godly attitude
and determination.
I hope most of you have studied the Torah with me. If you haven't, I wonder why
you're trying to follow these lessons on the Gospel of Matthew? You're not as
prepared as you could be because you're putting the proverbial cart before the
horse. For those who have studied the Torah then you know that it is anything
but a system of heavy burdens placed upon us by a stern God, and Jews have
certainly never considered it so. Rather the Torah and the Law instructs us on
how to love God and how to love our fellow man. It tells us how to be in harmony
with the Universe as God created it, rather than battling against it. It provides for
the welfare of the poverty stricken and the defenseless of society. It provides a
proportional and fair standard for civil and criminal justice. It gives us a perfect
moral compass whose needle never deviates simply because circumstances
change. It provides us with firm and unequivocal definitions of good and evil. It
provides us the source for determining our personal worth and value as human
beings. The Torah is the indispensable foundation for all Believers and the New
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
Testament assumes our familiarity with it.
So by Yeshua saying "learn from Me", He was telling the Jewish people to give
up the Scribe or Pharisee they were listening to for their religious instruction and
instead listen to Him. He made it abundantly clear back in Matthew chapter 5 in
the Sermon on the Mount that the people were to return to, cling to, and obey,
the biblical Torah.... every last detail. And if they'll do that with the sincere
motivation of loving God, they'll find rest for their souls and become members of
the Kingdom of Heaven. Yeshua is using words many of the people hearing Him
might have found familiar from Jeremiah chapter 6. This is a very dramatic and
heart-rending passage, but... oh!.... how this also applies to us of this world of the
21st century. Or better to those of today who claim to worship God but don't pay
attention to Him; so their disobedience produces a weak faith that is exposed for
what it is as they live lives of anxiety, worry, trouble and without the contentment
that comes from meaning and purpose.
READ JEREMIAH 6:1 -16
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 12.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 12 all
This chapter begins with what I call the Sabbath controversy. I have for some
time pondered how to teach this section of Matthew because its ramifications are
both immense and terribly misunderstood. We'll spend some time discussing the
Sabbath because what you think you know about Sabbath is likely either not
sufficient for understanding Matthew's Gospel or it is laced with manmade
doctrines from both Judaism and Western Roman Christianity. I may get more
emails on this subject than any other. The first question I get is usually: as a
Christian do I have to obey the Sabbath law? Second after that is: what is
considered as work?
The subject of Sabbath is big enough for at least one large book, and it is
covered in Jewish Law by a number of books and documents. It is quite difficult
to teach this effectively because it is a matter that is often smothered in details
and nuances that themselves require lengthy explanations. Sometimes much
must be unlearned about Sabbath before we can learn what God actually says
about it. Let's begin with the 1st verse of chapter 12 and use Matthew's words
and Christ's instructions as a skeleton framework upon which I hope to flesh out
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
the issue of Sabbath.
The opening word of verse 1 makes it clear that the context of everything that
happens in the opening scene has to do with observing Shabbat. Shabbat is the
Hebrew word from which we get the English word Sabbath. We don't know how
near to the time of the actions described in the previous verses of chapter 11 that
this is occurring; it could have been hours or a few days. Perhaps weeks. We
also don't know exactly where Jesus was; but there's nothing to definitely indicate
that He had journeyed to a different region of the Holy Land, out of the Galilee.
But what we do know is this: the Jews hearing what Yeshua was speaking held
some pretty rigid views about Shabbat because the weekly life for Jewish society
revolves around it. Some of those views and practices were biblically grounded
and some not.
Christ and some of His disciples were walking through an unidentified grain field
and obviously the grain was ripe enough to eat. The grain was either of barley or
wheat; we can't say with certainty which it was. So the time of year was
anywhere from spring to early summer. Matthew says that the disciples Yeshua
was with were hungry. I doubt that this was the 12 Disciples but rather they were
some other disciples, because we don't read of any of the 12 returning from their
mission (although we know that at some point they must have) and they aren't
characterized as "The Disciples" but only as His disciples. They did what
probably seemed natural; as they strolled through the grain fields they plucked off
some heads of grain, rolled them in their hands to expose the edible kernels, and
ate them. But some Pharisees spotted them and confronted Yeshua as their
leader and Master. At once they told Yeshua that what they (and probably He as
well) were doing was violating Shabbat. So what law concerning Shabbat were
they violating?
There's much involved here that is needed as preparation for understanding the
problem. So let's take this from the top. The disciples were walking in someone's
field and taking grain from it. However this was not stealing; it was permissible
according to the Torah.
CJB Deuteronomy 23:25-26 25 "When you enter your neighbor's vineyard,
you may eat enough grapes to satisfy your appetite; but you are not to put
any in your basket. 26 When you enter your neighbor's field of growing
grain, you may pluck ears with your hand; but you are not to put a sickle to
your neighbor's grain.
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
The purpose for this law is twofold. First, it is a means for the poverty stricken to
have a way to have food. Second, it is for travelers to be able to get a little
something to eat on their journey as they go through people's vineyards and
fields. But of course, the accusation of the Pharisees had nothing to do with theft
or eating. It had to do with it happening on Shabbat.
Shabbat (Sabbath) is the 7
th day of the week. In the old Hebrew system it is the
only day of the week that is given a name instead of a number. Since among
Hebrews a day is defined as beginning and ending at sunset, then in Western
terms Sabbath begins Friday at sundown and ends Saturday at sundown. Do not
confuse this with another use of the word Shabbat that we seen in the Old
Testament. In addition to this every-weekly Sabbath there were others that were
associated with various of the 7 biblical feasts of Leviticus. The rules for what is
to be done, and not done, on the weekly 7
th day Sabbath were generally not the
same as that for the feast Sabbaths... or at least not all of them.
An important question to be answered is: where did Shabbat come from? The
usual answer from Christians is that it is the 4
th of the 10 Commandments given
to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Yes and no. The Sabbath law came much earlier. I'll
quote an extended passage so that the context is established.
CJB Genesis 1:27-2:3 27 So God created humankind in his own image; in the
image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 28 God
blessed them: God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and
subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living
creature that crawls on the earth."
29 Then God said, "Here! Throughout the
whole earth I am giving you as food every seed-bearing plant and every
tree with seed-bearing fruit. 30 And to every wild animal, bird in the air and
creature crawling on the earth, in which there is a living soul, I am giving as
food every kind of green plant." And that is how it was. 31 God saw
everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So there was
evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.
CJB Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with
everything in them. 2 On the seventh day God was finished with his work
which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made. 3 God blessed the seventh day and separated it as
holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had
created, so that it itself could produce.
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
Thus, the 7
th day ended Creation and was consecrated by God the Creator and
set apart as holy at that time. The 7
th day would be special and completely unlike
all other days of the week. So much later in Exodus when Moses is given the 10
Commandments and in the 4
th one concerning the Sabbath we read:
CJB Exodus 20:8-11 8 "Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for
God. 9 You have six days to labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh
day is a Shabbat for ADONAl your God. On it, you are not to do any kind of
work- not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave,
not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates
to your property. 11 For in six days, ADONAI made heaven and earth, the
sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why
ADONAI blessed the day, Shabbat, and separated it for himself.
We see a fair amount of detail is offered about this commandment, but let's not
overlook the first word of it: remember. Remember. So this is not about creating
something new but rather about calling to mind something old. It was an
ordinance that God made a long time before Mt. Sinai, at Creation. And what is
really interesting is that while the majority of the mainstream Church argues that
the Law is only for Jews, and therefore Sabbath is only for Jews (so gentiles
don't have to obey it) there were no Jews around when God originated this
commandment. In fact, there was (at most) 2 people on the entire face of the
earth and they weren't Jews or Hebrews or Israelites or even gentiles because
none of those sorts of identities that eventually came as a result of divisions of
society even came about until the time of Abraham. Thus it is rather hard to
argue that of all the Laws of Moses, or even of the 10 Commandments, that the
Sabbath is uniquely for the Israelites and their descendants.
Biblically speaking Shabbat, the weekly Sabbath, is the day following the 6th
day the 7
th
. There is no other day of the week that is Shabbat. Since Shabbat
is actually the name of the 7
th day, to claim that there is "a" Sabbath each week
as opposed to "the" Sabbath is bogus. It would be like saying that there is "a"
Saturday each week, but we can place Saturday anywhere in the week we like,
and change it as often as it suits us.
The Christian notion of a 1
st day Sabbath (Sunday) as opposed to the biblically
ordained Sabbath (the 7th day) is a misnomer. In fact, Christianity (meaning early␂on the Church at Rome, long before it was called the Catholic Church), didn't
change the Sabbath to another day, it abolished it. In 363 A.D. at the Council of
11 / 13
.....


Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
Laodicea, the Church created a long list of new Church rules called canons.
Many of them were specifically aimed at customs the Jews followed, and
therefore in their view gentile Christians should not. Here are the actual words of
the canon that effectively abolished Sabbath for Christians.
Canon 29. Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must
work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting
then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be
anathema from Christ.
The Lord's Day was referring to Resurrection Day Sunday as the Romans
called the 1
st day of the week. Sunday was so named in honor of the Sun God.
The primary religion of the Roman Empire as of that time worshipped the Sun
God, and Sunday was declared as the day of communal worship of the Sun God
(hence Sun Day). The suggestion of the Laodicean council that if a Christian felt
the need to take a day off, to do it on Sunday was to be in tune with the rest of
Rome. But please notice: this was NOT a change of Sabbath from Saturday to
Sunday....from the 7
th day to the 1st day.... it was the abolition of the God
ordained holy day of Sabbath for the Christian Church. Instead of the biblical
Sabbath the canon said that Christians should rest on the Lord's Day. So
Sabbath was exchanged for the Lord's Day. They are in no way the same things,
nor do they celebrate the same things.
Most modern day Christian denominations (some even confused by their own
doctrines on the matter) will admit at the upper levels of Church government that
they have never observed Sabbath. But at the lower level (the individual
congregation level) the Pastor or Minister will sort of mumble that Sunday is
Sabbath rather than trying to explain what the Bible obviously says about
Sabbath, and just as obviously what is in the minutes of the Council of Laodicea
about what the Church did to that God-ordained holy day. I've always found it
curious that Church members will so easily dismiss the ONLY day in the Bible
listed as Shabbat, the 7
th day, in exchange for the 1
st day without blinking an eye.
That said, some denominations are more forthcoming about it and condemn any
Christian for celebrating Sabbath whatsoever. They see Sabbath as a thing of the
past, a burden, and a repudiation of Christ.
I can't count the times that I've heard Christians say something like: "Well, I make
Tuesday (or some other day) as MY Sabbath" as though they are in the holy-day
ordination business. In other words, their notion is that God has told us: Just
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Lesson 42 - Matthew 11 & 12
take a day off each week; I don't care which one. Any day you choose is fine;
just call it Sabbath. Folks: Sabbath, Shabbat, is directly linked to Creation. It is a
set-apart day honoring the completion of God's Creation. Shabbat is the day after
God finished His work of Creation. So it would be comical, instead of
blasphemous, if we could just understand that by declaring some other day of the
week as Sabbath, we're essentially declaring the end of the Creation as some
other day than God says it was. But this is how far Christianity has gone to
distance itself from the Old Testament, from God's laws, and from Jesus's own
people, the Jews.
We'll continue with understanding Shabbat and the Sabbath controversy of
Matthew 12 next week.
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 43, Chapter 12
We closed last week with discussing the establishment, purpose and ongoing
relevance of the Sabbath. This stems from the opening verse of Matthew 12.
CJB Matthew 12:1 One Shabbat during that time, Yeshua was walking
through some wheat fields. His talmidim were hungry, so they began
picking heads of grain and eating them.
As one who spent the first half of my life not observing the true Sabbath, or
believing I was observing it on a Sunday, it still perplexes me in some ways why
the truth eluded me. Yes, I carried a lovely white leather covered Bible with my
name on it in gold letters to Children's Sunday School (it was awarded to me for
perfect attendance). And later in life I carried the more adult black leather
covered Bible under my arm to Church each Sunday; still believing I was
observing Sabbath Day. I had a beautiful copy of the 10 Commandments framed
and prominently hanging in my home. So why didn't I believe what both the Bible
and that listing of the 10 Commandments says? That the Sabbath is the
7
th day not the 1st day of each week and that I have an obligation to God
to observe it.
I suppose I could point a finger at the countless sermons of the many Pastors
and Ministers I heard over those 40 years, who either proclaimed Sunday as the
Sabbath, or while not necessarily claiming it their words and prayers heavily
implied it. After all.... weren't they the "experts"? Who was I to question them?
And yet, how many times did I read right over the words of the Bible.... Old and
New Testaments that the Sabbath was the 7
th day of the week, and it never
occurred to me to wonder, even challenge, why the Church determined that we
1 / 13
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
didn't have to obey it, and even moved Sabbath to another day. Yet in reality,
such a "move" wasn't actually the case, either.
As I explained to you last week, in reality it was at a council of Church Bishops
meeting from various far flung parts of the Roman Empire, in the year 363, when
Christian observance of the biblical Sabbath was officially brought to halt, and
abolished. The attending Bishops established that Sunday, the 1
st day of the
week, was to become the new weekly communal meeting day for Christians; and
if they desired to have a rest, then it should be on Sunday. And that Sunday
would be, for Christians, considered as "The Lord's Day". So the Lord's Day was
a sort of substitution for Sabbath. This wasn't a mistake; it was intentional, it was
part of an agenda, and it was wrong.
After the Lord opened my eyes to the truth of His Word, and I was forced to face
the unnerving reality that several of the long cherished Church doctrines I had
been taught defied the clear words and divine instructions of the Bible I began a
faith journey to discover that truth in a more comprehensive and authentic way.
One of the first challenges I encountered was that of the Sabbath.
Last week we established the plain biblical truth about the 7
th day Sabbath
(Shabbat in Hebrew), and also that the Sabbath was NOT originally ordained on
Mt. Sinai during the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, but rather it was
established at the beginning of the world, as the concluding act of God's work of
Creation.
CJBGenesis 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with
everything in them. 2 On the seventh day God was finished with his work
which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made. 3 God blessed the seventh day and separated it as
holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had
created, so that it itself could produce.
Thus when we read the 10 Commandments as written in Exodus 20, the
4
th commandment was NOT that God was inaugurating the Sabbath but rather
the Israelites were to remember it to recall it.... and to re-start its observance.
That is, it had always been, from Adam and Eve onward, that the 7
th day was to
be a day of ceasing in remembrance of the Creation. However at Mt. Sinai, since
the entire world's population that had emerged since the Great Flood seems to
have forgotten it, God also made observing Sabbath as the sign of acceptance of
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
the Covenant of Moses whereby He set Israel, and all God worshippers, apart
from all other humans on the planet as His own.
CJB Exodus 31:12-17 12 ADONAI said to Moshe, 13 "Tell the people of Isra'el,
'You are to observe my Shabbats; for this is a sign between me and you
through all your generations; so that you will know that I am ADONAI, who
sets you apart for me. 14 Therefore you are to keep my Shabbat, because it
is set apart for you. Everyone who treats it as ordinary must be put to
death; for whoever does any work on it is to be cut off from his
people. 15 On six days work will get done; but the seventh day is Shabbat,
for complete rest, set apart for ADONAI.Whoever does any work on the day
of Shabbat must be put to death. 16 The people of Isra'el are to keep the
Shabbat, to observe Shabbat through all their generations as a perpetual
covenant. 17 It is a sign between me and the people of Isra'el forever; for in
six days ADONAI made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day he
stopped working and rested.'" Therefore from a biblical perspective there is no more important day, and no
more important observance for God worshippers, than that of Shabbat. Further, it
is not an option.
So how are we to observe Shabbat? This is actually what is at issue in the first
several verses of Matthew chapter 12 as regards the hungry disciples plucking
grain on the Sabbath. To answer this question of how to observe the Sabbath
we're going to have to approach it from a few different perspectives. Today I'd
like to begin the with the Orthodox Jewish perspective.
I have in my library a 2 volume set of Shabbat observance instructions that total
over 300 pages. Among religious Jews this is actually considered as a more or
less Reader's Digest version of the many laws and commands of the Rabbis that
have been compiled over the centuries. Rabbi Ze'ev Greenwald is the author,
and I'd like to quote for you part of the introduction from volume 1 of the set.
"Shabbat is not merely an opportunity for physical rest; it is an exalted and
sublime day that we are to utilize for spiritual inspiration. We relate in the
Shabbat Minchah prayer: "A day of rest and holiness you have given to
your people. Abraham rejoices, Isaac sings joyously, and Jacob and his
sons rest thereon. A rest of love and free will, a rest of truth and
faithfulness, a rest of peace and tranquility, and of serenity and security.....
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
a perfect rest with which you are pleased. Your children will realize and
know that the rest comes from you and through their rest, they sanctify
your name.
Shabbat has the power to release us from weekday concerns, enabling us
to rise above the mundaneness of the six weekdays and feel the spirituality
of the seventh which is a foretaste of the cessation of work and the rest
of the eternal world. A person who truly observes Shabbat is able to carry
over to the other days of the week the spirituality and special mood of the
Shabbat prayers and meals. Thus Shabbat becomes a source of inspiration
and holiness to the days that precede and follow it".
Jesus would not have disagreed with a word of that, and in fact as we'll see He
validates it especially as Shabbat being a "foretaste of the cessation of work and
the rest of the eternal world".
But herein lies one of the challenges of Sabbath (Shabbat); exactly what are we
to do and not do to properly observe that day? Anyone who has been to Israel
quickly learns that the entire Jewish society there revolves around Sabbath. Their
week is structured around Sabbath, work hours are structured around Sabbath,
and store opening hours are structured around Sabbath. The week precisely
follows the biblical command; it is not based on Jewish Tradition. Stores begin
the closing process on mid-afternoon on Friday, work ceases in time for everyone
to get home before the Sabbath commences but also to give working folks time
to prepare for the Sabbath. By sundown the city streets and sidewalks throughout
Israel are empty; whether we are talking about the super-religious places like
Jerusalem and Tzfat, or the super-secular places like Tel Aviv and Eilat, the
rhythm of Israel beats to the drum of Shabbat.
Yet at this point, Yeshua would not agree with everything that the revered
Orthodox Rabbis and Sages of the past have ordained as Jewish Law
(Halachah) that defines what goes on, and doesn't go on, on Shabbat. The mere
fact that I have spoken to you about a 2 volume set of Sabbath instructions ought
to be enough to make my point especially when no such large set of numerous
Sabbath regulations exists in the Torah, The Law of Moses, or the entire Bible
Old and New Testaments. We find the following in the Torah:
CJB Deuteronomy 5:12-15 12 '"Observe the day of Shabbat, to set it apart as
holy, as ADONAI your God ordered you to do. 13 You have six days to labor
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Shabbat for ADONAI your
God. On it you are not to do any kind of work- not you, your son or your
daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of
your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates
to your property- so that your male and female servants can rest just as
you do. 15 You are to remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,
and ADONAI your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and
an outstretched arm. Therefore ADONAI your God has ordered you to keep
the day of Shabbat.
I want you to notice two things about Sabbath observance as defined by God in
His Word. First: Sabbath is NOT a God-ordained day of communal worship. No
biblical instruction... Old or New Testaments... sets aside a weekly day of
communal worship. Sabbath and Day of Worship are in no way connected. The
Jewish custom of communal worship on Shabbat is a Jewish Law... a manmade
tradition. This doesn't at all make it wrong in some way. But what IS wrong is to
pronounce it as a God-ordained instruction. For Christians, the nearly universal
communal meeting day of Sunday is also not to be found in the Bible. Rather, it
too is a Christian Church Law... a manmade custom... which I have shown you
was ordered as a formal doctrine and rule more than 3 centuries after Christ's
time. Neither is this long-standing Christian tradition wrong. But it IS wrong to in
some way holy-fy it as though it was of divine origin or instruction.
The second thing to notice is what the ONLY commanded biblical observance of
the 7
th day Sabbath is: no work. Essentially the bulk of Jewish tradition about
Sabbath has to do with defining what work is, and sort of rolled-up with the issue
of work is what ceasing creating amounts to. That is, since God ceased creating
on the 7
th day, then so should mankind. Thus from the 30,000 foot view, work can
be defined as humanity ceasing from creating in imitation of God. This entire
issue is itself wrapped up in the Jewish word that is always translated to "work" in
English Bibles; that word is melakah. Therefore all the commandments about
Sabbath revolve mostly about what we are NOT to do; we are not to do melakah.
We are not to create.
The Hebrew lexicons are in full agreement as to what melakah means and refers
to: it is occupation, work, and business. Once we understand this, then what we
are NOT to do begins to reveal itself. We are not to do our occupation or skill; we
are not to do work (hard labor), and we are not to conduct business on the
Sabbath. Every one of these things involves "creating" and "ceasing". But even
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
trying to discern the specifics of what this means is the topic of hundreds of
Rabbinical rulings in the Mishna and Talmud.
It is easy to look at the many arcane rules of Jewish Law about Sabbath and
discount them on their face. Some of those rules even involve the intricacies of
how one carries a cooking pot or the order in which one cuts their finger nails.
More practically many Christians know that Jews don't drive cars on the Sabbath.
Or they don't turn on a stove or oven on Sabbath. The even more strict don't turn
on lights. This is because one strand of Jewish Law says that "ignition" (as in
igniting a fire) is part of creating. That is, when we drive a car, ignition is
occurring in the engine. When we turn on a stove, we either ignite flammable gas
or we create a spark for electric heating elements. All ovens that Jews use have
what is called a Sabbath setting. This is essentially a tiny heating element in the
oven properly sized such it doesn't have to turn on and off to regulate the
temperature; so it is enabled just before the beginning of Sabbath and disabled
immediately following. Light bulbs are unscrewed from their sockets before
Friday sundown, and yet others are turned on and left on during the duration of
Sabbath because the action of turning a light bulb on causes ignition.
We can snicker or roll our eyes at such things, yet we should also remember and
respect that for many centuries before Yeshua arrived, the Israelites continually
and sincerely wrestled with what NOT to do on the Sabbath versus what was
permitted, in order to obey and thus please God. Christians on the other hand
have for around 17 centuries dismissed Sabbath altogether; so little serious
thought within the Church has been directed at the subject other than to
denounce its observance or to strike it from the 10 Commandments. My point is
not that as Christians we should follow Jewish Law on the matter of Sabbath, but
rather that it can be a most useful resource to help us gain a practical
understanding on the matter of work, and what it amounts to, which has been
studied and various solutions found within the Hebrew community for over 3000
years.
So as we get ready to continue in Matthew 12, I'll sum up the issue of Sabbath
observance as it is presented in God's Word. First and foremost is that gentile
Christians are as equally bound to the biblical 7
th day Sabbath as are Jews,
because gentile Believers are spiritually bound to Israel and to their covenants.
And because it was a law ordained at Creation. Second is that the ONLY biblical
rule about how to observe the 7
th day Sabbath is to do no work on it. But...
communal worship is not only NOT commanded for Sabbath, nowhere in the
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
Bible is a weekly communal worship service on a specific day commanded.
Third is that the Church didn't actually "change" the Sabbath from Saturday to
Sunday, it abolished it. This change or abolishing is purely an unauthorized, and
frankly wicked, manmade tradition that was made to not just discourage Jews
from being part of the Body of Christ, but also to turn gentile Christians into anti␂Semites. It has succeeded much to Satan's delight. Fourth is that the definition of
work, especially as it applies to 21st century Western society, means to not labor
within our occupations, or to do our regular or hard labors (such as cooking or
making repairs), and we are not to operate our businesses.
I've only touched on the tip of the iceberg as it relates to Shabbat, and I have no
doubt you have tons of questions now circulating in your heads. But we need to
move on and we'll deal with the matter of the Sabbath in more bite-sized chunks
as we continue our venture through the Gospel of Matthew. Open your Bibles to
Matthew chapter 12.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 12:1 - 16
Now that you have an understanding of the many issues about Sabbath as
regards what may be done and not done on that day, you are better equipped to
understand this Sabbath controversy that Yeshua encountered (some might even
say that He caused). Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that in no
way was Yeshua abolishing Shabbat or easing its God-given rules, or remolding
them to His liking. Rather He was challenging the many manmade rules and
doctrines that the Pharisees were insisting upon that so greatly burdened
1
st century Jewish society. Although it is impossible to know precisely how many
rules and what they all were regarding Shabbat in Yeshua's day, we encounter a
few of them in Matthew's Gospel. Today, Judaism counts 39 categories of what
work amounts to.
The specific issue before Yeshua is the picking of grain on Sabbath by His
disciples, and that such picking was prohibited by the Jewish Laws of the time. It
was 3 laws about Sabbath that the Pharisees would have seen as being violated.
The first was that by plucking the grain kernels, they were harvesting. The
second was that by rolling the grain in their hands, they were threshing. And the
third was that by separating the grain from the chaff they were winnowing. All of
these things were, by Jewish Law, categorized as melakah... labor. And who
among us would claim that harvesting, threshing, and winnowing was NOT labor,
and therefore the very thing God prohibited on Shabbat? Yet I would argue this
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
against this point. The Pharisee's position that the disciples were harvesting,
threshing, and winnowing is the straining of gnats. It is not taking into account
proportion and scale. Pinching a few heads of grain off of some stalks as you
stroll by is not the same as taking a handful of stalks and cutting them with a
sickle. Rubbing a few kernels of plucked grain in the palms of ones hands is not
the same as spreading thousands of stalks on a hard surface and running them
over with a weighted sled pulled by oxen. And the bit of chaff that falls to the
ground from the disciples rubbing the grain in their hands is not the same as
having a huge pile of threshed grain being systematically thrown into the air with
a pitch fork. It's an issue of degrees and God absolutely looks at things in
degrees... and so then does Christ. Such a matter of degrees is front and center
in the Sermon on the Mount when Yeshua speaks of the status of the lesser and
greater that enter the Kingdom of Heaven based upon the measure of one's
diligence to obey The Law of Moses.
Already the concept of a Sabbath Day's walk existed. Walking on Shabbat was
permitted; otherwise all of Israel would be frozen in place. Note that there was no
objection by the Pharisees to the disciples walking (from somewhere) to get to
the grain field, and then walking through it to get to somewhere else. They didn't
ask where they came from or where they were going. There was some amount of
physical exertion called walking that was allowed on Sabbath; but walking
anymore than a distance prescribed by Jewish Law constituted melakah (labor)
of the kind outlawed on Shabbat. At that time the distance was 3000 cubits,
around 3/4's of a mile.
Jesus responds to the Pharisees with what I think is an answer that doesn't seem
on the surface to be a good analogy. In verse 3 He refers to "what David did".
The only rationale Jesus offers for what David did is that his men were hungry.
And what they did was to enter the Tabernacle (at that time located in Nob), take
the shewbread that was being replaced that day with the new, and eat it. Let's
look at this story as it is documented in 1Samuel 21.
CJB 1 Samuel 21:1-7 So David got up and left, and Y'honatan went back to
the city. 2 David went to see Achimelekh the cohen in Nov. Achimelekh
came trembling to meet David and asked, "Why are you alone? Why is no
one with you?" 3 David said to Achimelekh the cohen, "The king has sent
me on a mission and told me not to let anyone know its purpose or what
I've been ordered to do. I've arranged a place where the guards are to meet
me. 4 Now, what do you have on hand? If you can spare five loaves of
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
bread, give them to me, or whatever there is."
5 The cohen answered David,
"I don't have any regular bread; however, there is consecrated bread- but
only if the guards have abstained from women. 6 David answered the
cohen, "Of course women have been kept away from us, as on previous
campaigns. Whenever I go out on campaign, the men's gear is clean, even
if it's an ordinary trip. How much more, then, today, when they will be
putting something consecrated in their packs!" 7 So the cohen gave him
consecrated bread, because there was no bread there other than the
showbread that had been removed from before ADONAI to be replaced by
freshly baked bread on the day the old bread was removed.
Notice a few things. First, David and his men set out from Jerusalem (we find this
in the preceding chapter). It wasn't very far to Nob; maybe a day or a day and a
half's walk. Second, David didn't barge in and take the shewbread. He went to
the priest in charge and asked for food. Three; the priest said the only bread they
had was the consecrated bread (the shewbread) that had been removed from the
Holy Place a few hours earlier and replaced with fresh. This occurs, by biblical
command, each Sabbath. And fourth: David and his men were welcome to have
5 loaves of it (less than half of the total amount) provided they were ritually clean
(that is the meaning about their staying away from women because having sex
brought ritual impurity with it). So David didn't commandeer the bread, or enter
the holy spaces of the Tabernacle that were prohibited to him. And, unlike what
Jewish Tradition says, David and his men were not in starvation and thus their
lives were not in danger. Rather, they were merely hungry.
The thing that was wrong with what David did was not that he stole something or
that it was Sabbath when this happened. It was that only priests are entitled to
eat the consecrated bread. So David broke no Sabbath laws, but he did seem to
break the Law of Moses about eating holy food that was only allowed to be eaten
by holy men (priests). And, on the surface, the priest that voluntarily gave it to
him was every bit as much sinning as was David. The thing is that neither were
Jesus and His disciples starving nor were their lives in danger if they didn't eat.
Like David and his men, Yeshua and His men were merely hungry as all humans
get hungry during the day. It was Sabbath; no business could be transacted to
purchase food and so they had to make do. Therefore what is the principle by
which Christ is saying that it was OK for His disciples to pluck the grain and eat it
on Sabbath?
The David incident and the Jesus incident have been debated among scholars
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
with no consensus of opinion. I'd like to analyze it this way: first, the only reason
Sabbath enters the picture in the David incident is that it is only on Sabbath that
the old shewbread is removed from the Tabernacle and the new bread replaces
it. The priest didn't offer, and David didn't ask, for the new fresh bread. No matter
what the circumstance or what day of the week it might have occurred, no one
but priests were allowed to consume the shewbread whether it was the old or the
new.
The Jesus incident also happened on Shabbat, and the fact that it was Shabbat
is the crux of the matter. Any other day of the week and the Pharisees would
have found no fault in Christ's disciples plucking some grain and eating it. The
common ground between the 2 stories is the issue of hunger... but not at all to
the level of starvation... and what to do about it on Sabbath. The other common
ground was that there was no other means for the people involved to get food at
the time. Nob was in a wilderness area and it was a sizable distance to the next
town. Stopping at Nob was David's only choice; and the priest there claimed they
had no other food except for the old shewbread. Jesus's disciples were going
somewhere on Shabbat at a time when the normal purchase of food was
prohibited so some other means to get food was needed. Plucking grain from a
field and eating just a few bits of it, raw, was the solution. The only bottom line
that can fit both of these scenarios for why it was not wrong in Jesus's eyes, is
mercy. The priest of Nob showed mercy to David and his hungry men; but the
Pharisees showed no mercy to Jesus and His hungry men. Jesus is saying that
they should have. Therefore we learn that Shabbat doesn't bar acts of mercy, but
rather ought to encourage them. And considering the holiness of the day,
shouldn't mercy have perhaps an even greater priority?
What a great example this story is of how God worshippers can turn obedience to
the Law into a burden, or even into unkindness. The Law of Moses is essentially
several hundred case examples showing us in detail how to put into action the
two foundational and over-riding God-principles that drives the instruction of the
entire Bible: Love God with all our heart, mind and strength, and love our fellow
man as ourselves. We should not deprive our fellow man of food or mercy
because his needs occur on a holy day, even if it means we may not be following
a specific Law of Moses according to the letter. This is a Kai V'homer argument;
light and heavy. That is, there are weightier matters and there are lesser matters
of the Law; every law and command is not equal in seriousness or effect. Every
sin is not equal in seriousness or effect. What matters is our motive and intent,
with every act tempered with mercy. I want to say this in the strongest possible
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
way; if it is sincerely our motive and intent to obey God, then we must study His
Word. And if we study His Word, denying no part of it, then we'll understand what
God is demanding of us far better than if we don't. Upon that understanding, we'll
be able to determine (upon any of the infinite number of situations we could find
ourselves in) how best to properly apply The Law of Moses in the spirit God
intends.
I'll also inject a pet peeve. When I hear someone say that they are a "New
Testament Christian" (meaning they see no relevance of the Old Testament to
their lives) it is only out of better judgment that I don't say to that person: "then
you are also an ignorant Christian". If one refuses to know the Torah and the Old
Testament then that person has a greatly diminished way to properly discern the
words of Jesus or of the Apostles. I know this as an indisputable fact from
personal experience and from working with so many "New Testament Pastors".
And while mercy is called for as a high virtue, at the same time mercy doesn't
relieve us of devoted obedience to God's Laws.
So in verse 5, in defending His stance on the rightness of His disciples plucking
grain from a field to satisfy their hunger, Yeshua says something that cannot be
understood without knowledge of the Torah. He says that according to the Law,
on Shabbat priests profane the Sabbath and yet they are held blameless. Here's
the issue: on Shabbat priests still do melakah. work. They practice their regular
occupation. They do physical labor. They perform the Temple rituals on Shabbat,
just as they do on other days of the week. Yeshua has but moments earlier given
an example of this with the priests of Nob making and replacing shewbread in the
Tabernacle on Sabbath. But sacrificing animals and produce on the altar also
occurs on Shabbat, and this too is a Law of Moses.
So this "work" of the priests on Shabbat can in one sense be rightfully seen as
profaning the Sabbath. And yet God holds those priests blameless and innocent.
Why? Because they are serving Him in the way they are obligated to, even if on
the other hand it may indeed be sin in some circumstances. This is yet another
example of Kai V'homer; light versus heavy. The priest has to choose: does he
find it the weightier matter of The Law to serve both God and His fellow man by
sacrificing animals on the Sabbath on behalf of all Israel? Or does He determine
that it is weightier to do no work and to take away any chance of his being held to
have personally broken a commandment? If ever there is proof to destroy the
argument that the Law of Moses is a rigid, mechanical set of burdensome rules,
this is it. The Law is anything but rigid, and when obeyed and applied in the
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
proper spirit, obedience to it is beautiful and satisfying, and it is beneficial to, and
in harmony with, God's Creation and Kingdom. What Yeshua is doing is
condemning the rigidity and lack of mercy inherent in the manmade doctrines and
traditions of the Pharisees. He is pointing out the mercy of the priest of Nob, but
the unkindness and merciless traditions that the Pharisees insist upon.
This may all sound lofty, highly spiritual, or even something that can only occur in
Hebrew society from ancient times. Not true. In modern times we regularly find
ourselves confronted with a situation in which it seems that whichever way we
turn, we are going to break one of God's Laws, and thus commit a sin. I have
used (because it is so dramatic) the situation of the WWII hero Corrie Tenboom,
who hid Jews in her home so that the * wouldn't kill them. Her duly elected
German government passed laws to end the "Jewish problem". Her duly elected
leaders made it a law that all Jews were to be turned in, and no one was to
harbor them. On several occasions she was confronted by her civil authorities if
she knew the whereabouts of certain Jews.... Jews she was hiding. She lied and
said no. She made a choice that countless of her Christian friends in Germany
didn't make. They decided that Jesus's command to obey their local government
and the command not to lie was weightier than saving the lives of innocent Jews
whom the State wanted to murder by the millions. She decided correctly. She
acted with mercy. Those other Christians decided wrongly, showing ignorance
and the lack of mercy.
Was her lying a sin? Yes it was. But it was better before God (it was weightier)
for her to save innocent human lives than to allow her local government to
murder them, even if the law to eliminate them was by earthly standards entirely
legal. No doubt by showing mercy, her sin of lying was forgiven by our merciful
God just as the priest at Nob had his sin forgiven for feeding David and his
hungry men the shewbread to which they were not entitled.
Verse 6 says: "I tell you, there is in this place something greater than the
Temple". This sentence nearly seems out of place considering the subject of
Sabbath controversy and what it is lawful to do on the Sabbath. What can it
mean? To understand it, we have to break it down simply and not let our minds
fill in the blanks. The phrase "in this place" can only mean right there in the grain
field where the Pharisees were confronting Yeshua (and we really don't know
where in the Holy Land it was). The second issue is what the Temple has to do
with it. Notice that in the last 2 versus the subject has revolved around actions
located at the Temple (the priest at Nob and the shewbread, and then the priests
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Lesson 43 - Matthew 12
profaning each Sabbath by doing Temple sacrifices). So whatever it is that Christ
is talking about that is greater than the Temple something that is present there
in the grain field is being weighed against the things that go on inside the
Temple. There are 3 primary solutions usually offered as to who or what it is that
is greater than the Temple. Some scholars believe it is referring to the arrival of
the Kingdom of Heaven. Others think it is referring to the disciples. Still others
think it is referring to Jesus Himself. It is also often thought that by saying that
something is greater than the Temple, it is to be interpreted that Yeshua means
something is greater than The Law of Moses. This last interpretation of course
fits into the standard Christian narrative that The Law of Moses was abolished.
And to those who make that claim I say: there is not one word about the Law of
Moses here. The Temple is the subject; not the Law the Moses.
I think Robert H. Gundry has the most probable answer that fits the context; I'll
paraphrase. He explains that what is present in that grain field is a superior
greatness even when compared to the greatness of the Temple. He stresses that
what he means by that is the QUALITY of superior greatness as opposed to the
superior greatness of Yeshua's personal identity. What exactly is that certain
quality of superior greatness? It is the incomparable earthly presence of the
divine saving activity... redemption... as embodied within Yeshua of Nazareth:
Daniel's Son of Man. Christ saves; the Temple does not.
We'll continue in Matthew 12 next week.
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 44, Chapter 12 Continued
While every chapter of the Book of Matthew is packed with important information
for the Believer, chapter 12 is one of the meatiest of them all. This chapter also
helps us to recognize something I highlight in the very first lesson on the Gospel
of Matthew in that of all the Gospels, his is the most Jewish. Clearly whoever this
Matthew was, He was a Jewish Believer in Yeshua that was well educated and
knowledgeable in both Jewish Law and in the biblical Torah. Therefore Matthew
will by instinct dwell more on things like the ongoing relevance of the Law of
Moses in a Believer's life and he maintains an assumption that the reader is
aware of the many nuances of Shabbat observance and is familiar with both
Temple and synagogue operation and liturgy. Therefore we'll continue to spend
considerable time unpacking the words of chapter 12 and revealing them in the
context of 1
st century Jewish society.
Let's begin by re-reading just a small portion of Matthew. Open your Bible to
Matthew chapter 12.
RE-READ MATTHER CHAPTER 12:6-15
The backdrop of these verses is that Yeshua is being confronted by some
Pharisees who object to Yeshua's disciples picking heads of grain in a field and
eating them. They accuse His disciples of breaking Sabbath day laws at the
direction of their Master. To sum up what we covered last week, the Pharisees'
complaint is not that there is something wrong with the disciples' picking heads of
grain from a field they don't own, and eating them. On the 6 other days of the
week this would have not been prohibited. But on the 7
th day Shabbat, the
Pharisees considered what the disciples were doing as melakah; work. This was
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
forbidden.
The Pharisees didn't seem to directly confront the disciples, but rather their
Master, Yeshua. This would have been rather standard for that era because it
was understood that whatever practices and doctrines a flock of disciples held, it
was because of their Master. Yeshua responded by telling the complainants to
remember "what David did" on a particular Sabbath many centuries earlier when
he and his men arrived at Nob, where the Tabernacle was operating, and asked
for food. The priest there said he had none, but offered David and his men some
of the week-old shewbread that had just been removed from the Sanctuary. They
ate it. However according to one of the Laws of Moses, David was not permitted
to do such a thing, because the shewbread was deemed by God as holy food,
and thus could only be eaten by the priests. Clearly Christ saw no more wrong in
it than Him allowing His disciples to pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath.
I pointed out that while the Sabbath controversy with Jesus and His disciples
entirely revolved around the matter of Sabbath, the incident with David at Nob did
not. This is because in David's situation it didn't matter what day of the week it
was; the shewbread was never to be eaten by laymen. Thus the common ground
between these two incidents was the issues of food and of showing mercy on a
Sabbath. The priest at Nob showed mercy; the Pharisees did not.
Therefore Christ is demonstrating that the spirit of the Law (which is defined by
its underlying foundational principle that we are to love God with all our hearts,
minds, and strength, and that we are to love our fellow man as we love
ourselves) is always to be the guiding light in determining how best to obey the
Law of Moses. And the spirit of the Law reflects God's greatest quality towards
humanity; mercy.
So in verse 7 Yeshua publicly chastises the Pharisees (who considered
themselves great and wise authorities on the Holy Scriptures) when He says: "If
you knew what 'I want compassion rather than animal sacrifice' meant, you
would not condemn the innocent". Yeshua is quoting Hosea 6:6. He is saying
to the Pharisees: you read, you teach, but you don't know. Are you picking up on
the fact that Yeshua is a confronter who doesn't mince words? Interestingly He
likes to pick fights especially on Sabbath in order to make His points. Can you
imagine a layman (which is what Jesus is in the eyes of the Pharisees) walking
up to the stage of a Pastors' convention, taking the microphone, and
admonishing his audience by saying: you read, you teach, but you don't know?
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
This is of the greatest offense to these synagogue leaders who believe they are
the repositories of biblical knowledge and are not to be challenged except by one
of their own.
So what did Yeshua expect the Pharisees to understand about the meaning of
this Hosea quote that they apparently didn't? In Hebrew the word that is variously
translated as compassion or mercy is chesed. Both English translations are
correct. And both could apply to what Jesus has just taught that ought to be the
reaction of the Pharisees to people who are hungry on the Sabbath. That is;
compassion or mercy is to be shown to them by feeding those who are hungry no
matter what day of the week it is. Sadly, much of institutional Christianity has
declared that Yeshua is essentially saying that animal sacrifices are hereby
abolished (along with the entirety of the Law of Moses). This is an issue of taking
a biblical quote out of context and also of not knowing the Holy Scriptures and
their meaning from a God's-eye view (just as the Pharisees didn't).
God's message through His Prophet Hosea and through Yeshua is that the only
reason animal sacrifices exist in the first place is because humans do wrong. If
humans always did right.... and chief among doing right is displaying mercy and
compassion then animal sacrifices wouldn't even be needed to atone for
wrongdoing.... for sinning. The principle is so simple yet profound that neither
institutional Judaism nor Christianity in general seems to comprehend it. It also
means that if humans obeyed God and always did right by displaying mercy and
compassion, the ultimate sacrifice Christ... wouldn't have had to suffer so
severely and go to the cruel cross.
What is also interesting about Yeshua's response are the words: "you would not
condemn the innocent". Yeshua is directly saying that although the Pharisees
see the disciples as guilty for picking grain, God (and Yeshua) judges them as
innocent. Although the commandment to observe the Sabbath law is worthy,
there is a weightier law, a greater law, for God worshipers to show mercy and
compassion to our fellow man. I want to be clear here: God is not some spiritual
fascist dictator who says that special circumstance doesn't matter; obey My Laws
to the letter, no matter what, or suffer the consequences. Most of the Laws of
Moses that we are obligated to obey will have exceptions to the rule that happen
occasionally. This is why it is so irreplaceable for humans to trust Christ, and thus
to gain the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, such that we have a helping and guiding
source who can direct us to obey The Law from a God-perspective. For instance;
if every Shabbat Christ's disciples decided they would go out and pick grain to
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
eat, this would become sin because mercy and compassion no longer apply.
They are simply trying to find a loophole in the Law to do something they want to
do. Common sense says that their motive in the action of picking grain every
Shabbat would be wrong. If they know ahead of time they are going to be
traveling on every Shabbat and naturally needing food, they could prepare in
advance and thus obey the Law of Sabbath as well as complete their mission.
Clearly Christ decided to lead these disciples of His somewhere on this particular
Sabbath, and they (appropriately) obeyed; but this situation was outside the
norm. Just as it was outside the norm for David to journey to Nob and need food
on the Sabbath, and for him to eat the Tabernacle shewbread (the only food
available) that he of course knew was, according to the Law, off limits to him.
Perhaps since we're not told for what purpose Yeshua had the disciples traveling
on Shabbat, at least one reason was precisely for Christ to have an opportunity
to teach about the true intention of the Sabbath law and how to properly observe
it in all its fullest divine meaning.
The next verse has led to as much false Church doctrine as did the previous.
Yeshua says: "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath". The most widely
accepted interpretation and application of this verse is: 'Since Jesus is the new
Lord of the Sabbath, He can remake it to mean anything He wants to. And He
has just essentially said that the old rules no longer apply'. Let's examine this
closely. When Yeshua yet again refers to Himself by the favored title "the Son of
Man", He is saying that He is divine. As I've shown you, this can only be referring
to Daniel 7's Son of Man. Therefore, Yeshua is claiming He has God-given
authority.
Interestingly, we find these same words in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 2:28) but
there are also some additional words in Mark that precede it. In Mark 2:27 we
read:
CJB Mark 2:27 Then he said to them, "Shabbat was made for mankind, not
mankind for Shabbat;
These words are sometimes used within Christianity to validate a doctrine that
Yeshua can completely redefine Shabbat; even doing away with it. Of the various
interpretations of Christ's words that we find within commentaries and among
denominations, I'd like to offer this thought instead. When we go back to the
Creation story in Genesis, we see that God created Adam... humankind... on the
6
th day. The following day (the 7
th day) God ceased His creative activities and
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
ordained the day as the Sabbath. Now please listen carefully: the Sabbath had in
the past, and has in the present, and never will in the future possess meaning
unless mankind exists to observe and obey it. Sabbath was not given to animals
as an instinct written in their DNA. Sabbath was also not a God-given irresistible
instinct within humans. Sabbath is a divine instruction, a Law, that comes with a
moral choice: do it or don't do it. Doing it is obedience and it comes with a
blessing; not doing it is disobedience and it comes with a consequence. It is true
that humans are instructed to give their work animals a rest on Shabbat; but that
is something humans are responsible to do and something that humans must
direct.
CJB Deuteronomy 5:12-14 12 '"Observe the day of Shabbat, to set it apart as
holy, as ADONAI your God ordered you to do. 13 You have six days to labor
and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Shabbat for ADONAI your
God. On it you are not to do any kind of work- not you, your son or your
daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of
your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates
to your property- so that your male and female servants can rest just as
you do.
We are told by God to impose a day of rest upon work animals in the same way
humans must impose days of work upon those same animals as needed. Even
so, the rest that is given to work animals was ordained because if work animals
are working, necessarily a human has to be working as well (work animals don't
just do their work all by themselves). So Shabbat revolves around mankind.
Therefore what Yeshua says in verse 8 is more proverb than instruction. He is
making a point.... an instructional reminder... about the reason for the existence
of Shabbat: who it is for, why it exists, and that it is all about humanity.
This is such an important point that I want to take this line of reasoning a bit
further. If mankind didn't exist, and only the Universe and God existed, then there
is no point to having a Sabbath. Here's another way to think about it. Why would
God create a nearly infinite Universe if He also did not create sentient beings to
observe it? As amazing as the Universe is, without intelligent life it is just there...
existing... but for what possible purpose? Without humans to observe it and
wonder in awe at it and (most importantly) give God the glory for making it, then it
is a useless mass of objects, cosmic clouds, energy, and gases. Applying this to
Shabbat, then it is self-evident and a profound truism that (as Jesus said) the
Sabbath was made for the sake of man and not man for the sake of Sabbath.
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
From a merely logical perspective, if man was made for the Sabbath, then
Sabbath would necessarily have been created first; and afterward man to serve
it. So this is not such a mysterious or difficult statement of Yeshua to understand
after all.
As for the direct connection of this line of thought to Yeshua's confrontation with
the Pharisees, He's telling them that because they read, they teach, but they
don't know, they have reversed the entire meaning of Shabbat. Because of the
series of burdensome, non-biblical manmade rules and traditions about Sabbath,
which the Pharisees have established or modified and laid it upon the backs of
the Jewish people, they have made humans as though slaves to the Sabbath.
They have declared that God only made humans in order to serve the Sabbath.
That is not only illogical, it is a perversion of the mercy of God and of the divine
purpose for a designated weekly day of rest and ceasing for the benefit of
mankind.
Thus when we read Yeshua's words from this perspective, and also read it in
Mark, it becomes clearer.
CJB Mark 2:27-28 27 Then he said to them, "Shabbat was made for mankind,
not mankind for Shabbat; 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of Shabbat." The understanding is that because of the proverbial truth that Shabbat indeed
was made for humans, and not that humans were created in order to serve the
Sabbath, then the divine Yeshua is the Lord of the Shabbat because He
represents the rest it provides for humanity. Yeshua is the very embodiment of
Sabbath rest.
Verse 9 ends the grain field confrontation with the Pharisees. Jesus and His
disciples leave the field and go into a synagogue. Actually it says that Yeshua
went into their synagogue. So the synagogue Yeshua went into was the one that
some or all of these disciples of the grain field incident attended, or perhaps
Matthew is speaking about the synagogue these particular Pharisees attended.
When Jesus arrived, there was a man inside the synagogue who had a shriveled
hand; there were, of course, some Pharisees as well that wanted to test Him.
Was this the same group of Pharisees that He had been disputing with? Hard to
tell, but I think so since they kept up the same line of question about what is
permissible on Shabbat. So they turn and ask Christ if it is lawful to heal on the
Sabbath (in reference to the man with the shriveled hand). Remember the
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
context: as of this point in His earthly ministry Jesus is perceived by the Jewish
public as a Holy Man; a Tzadik whose primary ability is to heal the sick and lame.
He has done little to dispel that notion even though His regular Son of Man
references to Himself are the strongest of implications that He is divine for those
who have the ears to hear.
We must notice that like with David wanting food on the Sabbath, this man with
the withered hand did not have a life threatening situation that required
immediate attention. So this right away tells us that again Christ is going to
foment a confrontation with the Pharisees in order to make an instructional point.
But the Pharisees know what they're doing. Pharisees didn't necessarily think
healing on Shabbat was unlawful; the issue for them was the seriousness of the
condition of the patient. In Mishna Yoma 8:6 we read:
"A case of risk of loss of life supersedes the Sabbath Law".
The goal of the Pharisees was to entrap Christ. As was typical of Yeshua, He
answered their question with a question of His own, and then proceeds to provide
the answer to His question. So in response He asks the Pharisees that if a sheep
(a farm animal) were to fall into a pit on a Shabbat, would the sheep's owner work
to the take the sheep out? This, to us, is a rhetorical question because the
common sense answer would seem to be: "Yes, of course". However as with the
issue of healing on a Sabbath, whether to remove a farm animal that had fallen
into a pit on Sabbath was not of consensus opinion among the Jews. The
Essenes and the author of the Book of Jubilees would have said: "one should do
neither". One should not heal (no matter how dire the situation), and one should
not remove a farm animal from a pit (even if the animal was going to suffer or
die). If we can apply the thoughts of the Mishna to Yeshua's day, then very likely
the most accepted answer among the Pharisees as to whether Yeshua was
permitted to use His Holy Man gifts to heal the man with the withered hand was
"no" because the man's life was not in danger. And the same logic would also
apply to the farm animal in the pit. If the animal wasn't gravely injured, then it
probably should be left there. So while we might say that it is only logical and
merciful to take the animal out of the pit, the people Yeshua was debating with
would not have agreed. Yeshua is intentionally provoking the Pharisees and
openly challenging their doctrines.
There is one other aspect regarding Yeshua's attitude regarding the value of farm
animals: He was from the Galilee. The Galilee was the breadbasket of the Holy
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
Land, and the bulk of the people living there were poor farmers and herders.
These people lived a simpler life than their Jewish brothers in Judea, and had
less interest in long winded theological debates and the tiny nuances of doctrines
and traditions. Of course a Galilean would take a farm animal out of a pit on
Sabbath; both for the sake of mercy on the animal and because it was valuable
and he couldn't afford to lose it.
So, reasons Christ, if you agree a sheep should be rescued from a pit on the
Sabbath (something He believes ought to be agreed to), regardless of its
condition or the danger it may or may not be in, then because a human life has
such greater value than a farm animal, healing a human ought to occur on the
Shabbat. What is permitted on the Sabbath is to do good, says Jesus. Here's a
note to the wise: "to do good" does NOT mean to do whatever your own heart or
emotions tell you to do. "To do good" always means to do God's will; to do what
is righteous. This statement "to do good" is similar in nature to the one He
pronounced earlier (recorded in Mark) that the Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath. That is, it is proverb. A proverb is a statement of general
truth. It's not a strict rule or a law, or something that has no exceptions. He is also
once again using the standard Rabbinical debate and Scriptural interpretation
method of Kai V'homer. light versus heavy. When two or more laws seem to
collide in a particular situation, how does one choose what to do? So it comes
down to what the weightier matter of The Law dictates. Once again Jesus puts
compassion and mercy (in the form of healing, or even rescuing a trapped
animal) as weightier... it is of a higher righteousness... than following the letter of
Sabbath Law that one should do no labor (or more in tune with the real issue
Yeshua is contending with... Jewish Law and tradition about the matter). So
Yeshua tells the man to hold out his disabled hand, he does, and instantly it is
healed.
What is the reaction of the Pharisees to Jesus healing this man on Shabbat?
Verse 14 says that they determined to do away with Him. Why? Because He
made some claim about Himself that they couldn't tolerate? Did they disagree
with Him over Jewish tradition regarding Sabbath observance? Or was it because
He showed them up, and they couldn't have some Galilean riff-raff... even if He
was a demonstrated miracle healer... threaten their authority? Either way, the
matter of Jesus being the divine Messiah never enters the discussion because at
this point Christ has not said He is, and no one seems to suspect He is. Simply
put: this was a personal matter. He had publicly offended the wrong people and
done it more than once. Christ sensed the danger and immediately left the area.
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
Let's read more of Matthew 12.
RE-READ MATTHEW 12:15-29
The first several of the verses we have just read have to do with Yeshua's status
as a servant. We are told that Yeshua left the area of the Sabbath controversy at
the grain field, but was followed by large crowds. The people who formed the
crowds were Jews looking for this Jewish Tzadik to heal them; and that He did...
all of them. Those words are really of a summary of Jesus's ministry to this point.
I've mentioned before, but in order that we don't lose the overall flow of what is
happening thus far in Matthew, the attraction to Jesus has been 2 things: first and
foremost His miraculous ability to heal physical infirmities and to exorcise
demonic possessions. Secondly, people followed Him to seek His wisdom. The
second matter, alone, put Jesus into direct competition with the Pharisees and
Scribes.
He healed all who came to Him but also warned them not to make Him known. I
don't think the meaning of this is all that difficult. It is that He already knew the
Pharisees were plotting His demise; that is why He abruptly left the area. He of
course didn't want to be found; He didn't want His location or itinerary known. So
He told people not to say anything about Him.
Verse 17 is a statement by Matthew the Gospel writer in order to explain all that
Christ had been doing and saying. He then goes on to quote from Isaiah 42:1 - 4.
This is a loose quote, and not an exact one. From Isaiah 42 through Isaiah 53 we
have the "Suffering Servant" chapters. If we had the time it would prosper us to
study those 12 chapters. However as regards the Suffering Servant matter, it
must be noted that in the Book of Isaiah at first the Suffering Servant is definitely
the sovereign nation of Israel. At other times it represents the people of Israel.
And at still other times it can only be referring to an individual; a single person.
And that person... that one particular Suffering Servant... is the Messiah. As
David Stern rightly points out, this progression of the meaning of the Suffering
Servant in Isaiah reveals the close association of Messiah Yeshua not only to the
land and nation of Israel, but also to the Jewish people. I would take it one step
further and say that it shows that Christ is the epitome, the ideal, of a perfect
Israel. He represents all that Israel was meant to be, but had never become
because they were and are, just as is the rest of humanity, too fleshly,
disobedient and corrupt to attain the lofty goals set out for them through the
Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and by the Covenant of Moses.
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.....

Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
Let's discuss these few verses from Isaiah that Matthew quotes. The quote
opens with: "Here is My servant..." When we look at the Hebrew the word
translated to servant in English it is eved or ebed (same word, just pronounced
slightly different). It means slave or servant. In the Greek of the New Testament
{pais) it means the same. It is not a negative term as we think of the term "slave"
or "servant" in the modern West; rather it simply means a person who serves
(and most often, it is voluntary servitude). So in the case of Yeshua as the
Father's servant, it is that Yeshua voluntarily serves the Father's will, according to
the Father's purposes and plans, and not His own. Yeshua sits in a divine
hierarchy below the Father. The terms slave and servant cannot be taken in any
other light. I have previously asked you to see Jesus in terms of an agent; an
earthly representative of the Father. Christ carries the authority of the Father, but
He is not fully equal in rank, and He carries only the range of authority (although
it is very wide) that He is given. No one gives the Father His authority; no one
sets boundaries or limits on the Father. Authority is inherent in Him as the
Creator and author of all things.
So in this passage from Isaiah it is God the Father who characterizes Yeshua as
His servant whom He has chosen. And it is also that all the healing activities
Yeshua has been doing are viewed by Matthew as a fulfillment of Isaiah's
prophecies. When we look back to Matthew chapter 3, we find that when John
immerses Yeshua the heavens open and God thunders: "This is my Son, whom I
love; I am well pleased with Him". So while those words are not identical with
Isaiah 42, the sentiment is the same. However in Matthew 12 we get the
revelation that the "Suffering Servant" is also to be identified as God's own Son.
There is no doubt that to Matthew, Isaiah 42 verse 1, which was made some 700
years before the birth of Christ, is at last fulfilled in the announcement of Matthew
3:17.
Next we read that "I (God) will put my Spirit on Him". Back to Matthew 3 we read:
"At that moment Heaven was opened, he (John) saw the Spirit of God coming
down upon Him (Jesus) like a dove". More direct fulfillment of Isaiah, even down
to the detail of the Spirit "on" Him....not "in" Him is spoken. We could spend an
entire lesson talking about the nuances of the Holy Spirit being upon someone as
opposed to being in someone. However in this case, since Yeshua is seen as the
repository of the Holy Spirit on earth during His ministry, perhaps it is less a
matter of precisely where the Holy Spirit resides (upon Christ like with a garment,
or in Him as if He were a container) and rather it is about how and when it came
to Him in the first place. It could also be that an exact literal fulfillment of Isaiah (/
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
will put my Spirit on Him) was manifested with the image of the dove
descending upon Yeshua, for the sake of God's worshipers in order that they
(and we) might positively identify God's Son and our Messiah as Yeshua of
Nazareth.
After God putting His Spirit upon Yeshua, the next words in Isaiah are that He
(this Suffering Servant) will announce justice to the Gentiles. I want to begin with
the final word of this phrase: gentiles. In Hebrew the word is goyim. It indeed can
be properly translated either as gentiles or as nations. If one understand the
biblical meaning of the term "nations" it makes translation of goyim more clear
about how it should be used in various verses.
After the advent of Abraham and his pledge of allegiance to Yehoveh, the world
became divided into two groups: Hebrews and non-Hebrews. Non-Hebrews are
called gentiles. However once this division of humanity occurred, then the reality
became that all nations on Earth consisted solely of gentiles (except for
Israel...which did not yet exist until the advent of Jacob). Thus in Bible-speak a
nation is automatically a gentile nation unless that nation is specifically Israel. So
the Hebrew word goyim now means a sovereign nation of gentiles, or a group of
gentiles in general. To me, the context of the Isaiah quote demands that the word
is "nations". That is, the Suffering Servant will announce justice to the nations.
What is this justice that He will announce? The Hebrew word for justice
is mishpat; the word has a deep meaning that we don't have the time to
thoroughly explore today. I go into great depth on the subject in a number of
lessons on the Book of Exodus, so you can go to the TorahClass.com website,
enter the word mishpat in the Search Box, and do some study on your own.
What we need to understand for today is that there is mankind's type
of mishpat (justice), and there is God's type of mishpat (justice) and they are not
the same (although they should be, and in the Millennial Kingdom it will
be). Mishpat runs closer to what we might call a judicial ruling... a verdict. And
the verdict is that all of mankind is guilty of sinning, and of offending God, and so
faces the death penalty for it. However God has provided for redemption; a
means for not facing the death penalty. And here in Isaiah 42 we find that justice
in the form of redemption is not only offered to Israel, it is for all nations... all
gentile nations plus Israel. And the person who will announce that this type of
justice has arrived is the Suffering Servant... God's Son... the Messiah, Yeshua.
This person is God's agent for redemption, to all who will accept Him.
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
Next we see that it is prophesied that this person will not fight or shout. This
means that He is not coming to form an army and free Israel from some kind of
national oppression, nor is He coming to gain a reputation for Himself. Thus no
one will hear Him on the streets. That is, He will not be standing on a soapbox
yelling: "The End is Near". He will do His work (mostly) quietly, gently, and with
the common folks. Only when He is confronted by the opposition leadership that
is leading His people astray (Pharisees, Scribes, and later Temple Priests) do we
see Him holding His ground and instructing them in their wrong doctrines.
This gentle and meek quality of Jesus is what is meant by "He will not snap off a
broken reed or snuff out a smoldering wick". That is, He is coming to heal broken
people; even those whose faith is nearly gone (the smoldering wicks). The
Suffering Servant is not coming to deliver them to the grave in condemnation, but
rather to revitalize them... to save them.
But then a very important word follows that statement... until. That is, for the time
being He won't condemn the barely spiritually alive person. But in time, He will.
When is that time? It is when He has brought justice (mishpat) through to victory.
That is, it is God's justice to bring redemption to the guilty; and Jesus is God's
agent to perform that task. And once He has done that, then the guilty (the
broken reeds and smoldering wicks) will indeed be sent to their graves... their
spiritual graves... if they refuse to reach out to Him. Please hear me: Christ has
already brought God's justice to the world. It is done. What is left for Him to do is
to snap off those broken reeds and to snuff out those smoldering wicks. This will
happen with His second advent when He comes to punish and not to heal.
Again to end the quote from Isaiah we read something about non-Hebrews
(today we would say, non-Jews). "In Him the gentiles will put their hope". Here
we should take the term gentiles (goyim) more as meaning gentile people rather
than gentile nations, because it is individuals that put our hope for redemption in
Christ.
Since the next activity of Christ will be to return and lead an army of Believers in
a real, literal, physical battle for planet Earth, then in the time between His
ascending to Heaven back in the 1st century, to today in the 21st century, the job
of healing those broken reeds and smoldering wicks has fallen to us; He has
commanded it.
CJB Matthew 28:19-20 19 Therefore, go and make people from all nations
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Lesson 44 - Matthew 12 cont
into talmidim, immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the
Ruach HaKodesh, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you. And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until
the end of the age."
It is up to us as His followers, Jew and gentile Believers in Yeshua and
worshipers of the God of Israel, to take the Good News of God's justice... His
redemption... to the inhabitants of this world. But this news must be told in truth,
not in pagan inspired doctrines that have crept into our faith. Otherwise, we
preach a false Messiah, and not the true One.
We'll continue in Matthew 12 next week.
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 45, Chapter 12 Continued 2
Of the several things Matthew continues to underscore in his Gospel, here in
chapter 12 we seen this growing contrast... an unfriendly polarization, if you
would... between Christ and the leaders of the Synagogue. As we read let's
always remember that the Temple and the Synagogue were completely separate
institutions and systems. Up until now the primary religious leadership Yeshua
has been dealing with is Synagogue leadership. Only later, as He nears His
mock trial and His crucifixion, does the attention turn to the Temple leadership...
the Priests. So by the time of His death, Jesus will have had serious
confrontations with the full spectrum of Jewish religious leadership in the Holy
Land.
The primary players and leaders of the Synagogue were the Pharisees and the
Scribes. Since Pharisee was, in 21st century terms, the name of a sort of
religious/social movement, then we also need to understand that Scribe was a
title; it represented an office, a position of authority within the Synagogue
("Pharisee" did not). While not a precise illustration, we could say that the
comparison between Pharisee and Scribe is similar to how in the USA
Democrats and Republicans are the names of political/social movements; but
President is the name of an office of authority. In addition a President also
belongs to one or the other of these two political/social movements. So just as
every American President is also either a Democrat or a Republican, so was
every Scribe (so far as we know) a Pharisee of one sort or another.
All Pharisees were not the same. Josephus claims that there were 7 identifiable
segments of Pharisees that each held slightly different doctrines and ranged from
kind and merciful to rigid and outright mean. I tell you this because when Jesus
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
speaks of the Scribes and the Pharisees He is speaking mostly towards one end
of the spectrum of them and in no way is He condemning the Synagogue as an
institution, nor is He lumping all Scribes and all Pharisees together. Just as today
in every part of the world we inherently understand (without always saying it) that
in every political/social movement and in every religion and branch of it, there are
the extreme, there are the mainstream, and there are moderates and variations
in between; so it was in Christ's day with the Pharisees. Conversation concerning
them, however, necessarily speaks in generalities unless a specific segment of
them is the subject. So let's not unfairly paint all Scribes and Pharisees with the
same broad brush. Just because Jesus didn't agree with all of their theology and
actions doesn't mean that He saw them all as bad people. But some of them He
most definitely did. Clearly that is primarily those whom He confronts and
denounces and calls wolves in sheep's clothing and even snakes.
Despite which of the 7 segments of Pharisees a Scribe might belong to, there
was at least one thing held in common among them all: a devotion to Jewish
Law... Tradition... that often outweighed the teaching and the principles of the
biblical Torah. The divisions among the Pharisees had to do with who would be in
control of establishing and overseeing Jewish Law. So before we move on I want
to leave you with this thought about both Bible characters and modern people:
one person can be kind and deceived, another can be without mercy and
deceived. A person can be tolerant and believe wrong theology, and they can be
unbending and believe in wrong theology; especially when the source of their
beliefs is more custom and tradition than God's Word. This applies to Judaism
and to Christianity, ancient and modern.
Let's re-read a short segment of Matthew 12.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 12:22 - 29
The 4 verses that come prior to verse 22 are of paramount importance to our
faith and so we examined them rather thoroughly in the previous lesson. They
are taken from the Book of Isaiah, and Matthew identifies Yeshua of Nazareth as
God's chosen Servant that Isaiah also identifies as the Suffering Servant. In
these verses it is also announced that God's Spirit will be placed upon this
servant and that He is not being sent to condemn but rather to bring justice to
Israel and even beyond to include individual gentiles and the many nations of the
gentiles.
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
Such a pronouncement would have been an escalation in Yeshua's battle to
restore and reform Israel's theology; especially to the more extreme Pharisees
and Scribes. It made Him the fulfillment of Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophesies.
We must understand how controversial and radical this would have been seen by
most of the 1st century Jews that heard this, and then as the news spread. Jesus
was no longer an unknown; His position as a miracle healer made Him famous
far and wide in the Holy Land. And yet, it is not at all clear that Christ actually
uttered those words from Isaiah nor did any of His followers. In fact, Matthew
does not say that He or they did; rather it is Matthew editorializing what Yeshua's
many miracles and His dazzling and authoritative teaching meant. Verses 18-21
represent Matthew's own conclusion that Yeshua was the fulfillment of Isaiah
42:1 - 4. If we are to trust Matthew's Gospel as inspired then we are compelled to
trust that Matthew's conclusion and connection between Isaiah's prophecies and
Christ as God's Servant is correct. At the same time intellectual honesty requires
that we must not put those words in Christ's mouth as His own declaration about
Himself, because Matthew makes no such claim. And, we find this statement
from Isaiah 42 in none of the other Gospel accounts.
So, we also must not connect what comes next in verse 22 with the previous 4
verses. Verse 22 begins a long, and separate, story about the reaction of some
Pharisees who witnessed Yeshua exorcise a demon from a man. This man was
brought to Yeshua for healing by some locals; he was both deaf and mute as a
consequence of this demon possession. There was nothing particularly profound
or different from the countless other exorcisms Yeshua had performed; but the
Pharisees had decided against Yeshua and so everything He did they spun in a
negative way. The Pharisees saw themselves as the rightful controllers of the
doctrines of the Hebrew faith and of Jewish Law; and so they saw Yeshua as a
threat to their authority.
The crowd, of course, had an entirely different reaction. They were astounded
and highly impressed by the exorcism and consequent removal of this man's
disabilities, and so raised the question: "Could this be the Son of David?" What
do they mean by this thought? We discussed this phrase before, but I'll just
remind you that the most likely meaning to these 1st century Jews of "Son of
David" is to be taken literally. The Son of David in Jewish society referred to
Solomon; David's biological firstborn. Solomon was, among other things
(according to Jewish Tradition) a miracle healer par excellence'. So if a person
appeared who was "The Son of David", it meant that this person was either an
appearance of Solomon in another form, or more likely that the "spirit" of
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
Solomon was present within that person. It was really not much different than the
earlier statement of Yeshua that John the Baptist was Elijah; He meant it in a
similar sense. The bottom line is that the crowd wondered out loud if Yeshua
carried the spirit of the "Son of David" (Solomon) within Him and it was this
quality that gave His miracles a cut above those of the other Tzadikkim (Jewish
Holy Men) that had come and gone. No doubt it was the reaction of the adoring
crowd that caused the Pharisees to discount Christ's actions and to claim them
as evil in their source.
The Pharisees' retort reminds us of virtually the same argument they used
against Him in Matthew chapter 9, when they said that Yeshua's healing power
came from Ba'al Zibbul... The Lord of the House. This had become an informal
title for Satan. The crowd is told by the Pharisees that such an exorcism could
only happen if Satan himself... the author of evil... made it happen. But Yeshua
quickly exposes the absurdity of their logic.
He begins by saying something that was not meant as an instruction or a law, but
rather as a proverb; "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and
every city or household divided against itself will not survive". It is
interesting that Matthew begins this record of Christ's proverbial statement by
saying that Yeshua, "knowing what they were thinking"... The Gospel of Mark
2:28 that records the same incident has Jesus saying "Why do you reason
these things in your hearts?" The Greek word for heart is kardia; so the
translation is correct. Yet as this statement clearly illustrates, it was believed in
that era that the heart organ is where thought and reasoning took place; they had
no idea of the function of the brain. Matthew didn't bother to include the word
"heart" because it was taken for granted at that time that thinking took place in
the heart. So we must not interpret the term "heart" through modern Western
eyes as being mostly about emotion or deep feelings of sincerity as it has
evolved to mean especially in English speaking cultures. If Jesus was standing
here in the 21st century and speaking to us in English, He would have said; "Why
do you think these things?" And of course we would take for granted that thinking
is a function of the brain and mind. So Yeshua is not questioning the Pharisees'
emotions or sincerity, but rather their flawed reasoning.
Yet I don't for a second think that the Pharisees' honestly believed what they
were claiming about Jesus before the crowd. Rather, just as happens among
politicians, they were merely taking a position in order to discredit an opponent.
So I also don't think Christ's response was meant as much as a point of
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
correction for the Pharisee's so that they might learn from it, as it was a way to
neutralize their illogical remarks so that the crowd of ordinary folks might learn
and not be deceived by the Pharisees.
So now that Yeshua has made His proverbial statement, He makes a direct
application. Since the proverb is true in nearly every imaginable circumstance, it
follows that it cannot be true that Satan can or would drive out Satan (from a
person), thus making him divided against himself. Because if he did such a thing,
Satan's kingdom wouldn't survive. Notice how Yeshua calls Satan's sphere of
authority a "kingdom". It is important for us to notice that because the Kingdom of
Heaven has recently arrived, the Kingdom of Satan has risen in opposition to it.
Yes, Satan has his own kingdom. Right now that kingdom extends over the
length and breadth of Planet Earth, and into the reaches of *. So the Kingdom
of Heaven was birthed within Satan's Kingdom, so to speak and Satan isn't going
to stand still for it. Thus the world is in for a long term battle royale. There will be
no compromise. There is no middle ground; either God's Kingdom wins out and
Satan's is destroyed in total, or the other way around. People of faith who read
their Bibles already know the outcome, even though we look all around us today
and can't help but wonder. This is why Yeshua tells us later in the Book of
Matthew:
CJBMatthew 24:13 But whoever holds out till the end will be delivered.
Again in Revelation we read:
CJB Revelation 2:10 Don't be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Look,
the Adversary is going to have some of you thrown in prison, in order to
put you to the test; and you will face an ordeal for ten days. Remain faithful,
even to the point of death; and I will give you life as your crown.
Thus Christ's instruction to His followers... to us... is to hang in there; trust Him no
matter all the catastrophe and evil and chaos that seems to have enveloped the
world. For one reason, this is not the sign of the End. Make no mistake; we are in
for an all-out war to the bitter end, and we are Heaven's warriors on Earth. We
can't sub this one out; we can't kick the can down the road. We'll have our
glorious victories and our demoralizing defeats; such is the way of all wars. But in
the end, even what seems like obvious defeat God will use for ultimate victory
because the game is fixed and the outcome is predetermined. When the final
buzzer sounds, we win because God wins. As Believers, if we have the attitude
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
that Yeshua expects us to have, then there is only victory for us... even though
that may not be our experience on earth at the present. This was His attitude
even in His final hours as He was headed for the cross; it is to be ours as well.
Yeshua, in verse 27, turns the tables on the Pharisees. He says, using
impeccable logic, that if He is driving out demons by means of Satan's power,
then by what means do they drive out demons? Wouldn't logic dictate that it has
to be the same for the Pharisees? The same actions resulting in the same effects
must have the same cause; and it cannot be that good comes from an evil
source. Notice that Jesus more or less confirms that these Pharisees also have
conducted successful exorcisms. So to apply Yeshua's logic in reverse: if the
Pharisees claim that it is the spirit of God that gives them the power to remove
demons from people, then it can only be that the source of Christ's power is also
God.
A little puzzling is what Yeshua means at the end of verse 27 when He says: "So
they shall be your judges." Since all versions and translations render the Greek
essentially the same, it seems that to make sense of this statement it works
better to take the concept of "judges" in the context of "judgment". That is, at the
End of Days when the Great Judgment happens, then those who have been
released by Jesus from the power of demons (and, presumably, saved), will be
the judges against the Pharisees who claim that it was done by the power of
Satan. It is hard to know whether this is meant literally or rhetorically.
Nonetheless the primary point is clear; obviously the claim of the Pharisees
against Yeshua is not only false, it is absurd on its face and reveals a dark
agenda.
Verse 28 makes yet another startling claim. Yeshua says that if He is able to
drive out demons from persons, then it is proof that the Kingdom of God has
arrived. I cannot say what percentage it is but it seems to be the majority of Bible
commentators that have serious doubts about whether these words are actually
from Jesus or not. The reason is that He has already admitted that the Pharisees
have accomplished successful exorcisms; but apparently that is not necessarily a
sign that the Kingdom of God has come. We must notice that it is not a general
statement about exorcisms but rather Jesus is saying that when HE drives out
demons by the spirit of God it means the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. It is
about a specific person doing the exorcising. This is but one of a few attributes
that the people are to notice about Him. Thus the result is supposed to be that
when people see all these things He does by the power of God the Father, then
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
the logical response from them ought to be: "so who is this guy?" Please take
note: Jesus has yet to say: "I do these things because I'm your Messiah".
Yeshua concludes His debate with the Pharisees by adding:
CJB Matthew 12:29 "Or again, how can someone break into a strong man's
house and make off with his possessions unless he first ties up the strong
man? After that he can ransack his house.
Clearly Yeshua makes Himself as the one who breaks into the strong man's
house (Satan's kingdom), binds him (that is He thwarts his power) and begins to
ransack it. It is not that later on at another time will Yeshua begin this attack on
Satan; it is that upon His coming (and the Kingdom of Heaven with Him) the
attack has already begun. So the exorcisms Christ performs are part of the
ransacking process because Satan possessing people using his hoard of
demons as minions is one of His greatest weapons against God's Kingdom.
Christ demonstrates that He has power over that; He is stronger than the Satanic
strong man. That is, the Father's power and will are channeled through Yeshua,
as God's agent, to defeat Satan.
Verse 30 says:
CJB Matthew 12:30 "Those who are not with me are against me, and those
who do not gather with me are scattering.
This is but another way of saying:
CJBMatthew 6:24 No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate
the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first.
You can't be a slave to both God and money.
Although this statement is self-explanatory, I think it is one of those principles that
we hear so often as Believers that we can become personally immune to it... if
not oblivious... as it expresses one of the most basic expectations God has
placed on every Believer. Whether that Believer has become so but a day earlier,
or has been in the fold for decades, our life with Jesus and His Father can never
be one of neutrality, even though countless Believers unwittingly try for it. We try
to find favor with God while maintaining favor with what God calls evil. Yeshua is
very clear that the rules of the game didn't change just because the Church has
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
inserted a piece of blank white paper between the Old and New Testaments to
give us the impression that it did.
We are and will be, until the Universe and the Earth are dissolved back to their
elements and re-created, bound to the Law of Moses, as Yeshua so plainly tells
us in Matthew 5:17 - 20. But the gentile controlled Church would have it, since
about the start of the 3
rd century, that since The Law was given to the "wrong"
race of people, then as the "right" race we can self-determine to divest ourselves
of it and its obligations. This fundamental faith issue was not left to us as a matter
of opinion or biblical nuance. Obedience to God, to His Son Yeshua, and to the
Law of Moses is entirely wrapped up in, and cannot be separated from, salvation
in Christ.
Now it's time for what I think is an important preaching moment of application. In
a podcast interview I did recently, I explained to the show's host that trusting in
any god is not the same as trusting in the biblically presented and defined God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And trusting for salvation in any Jesus is not the
same as trusting in the historical and biblically defined Jesus. Today, too much
within the Church, Jesus is a caricature, remolded and reshaped into a form that
is more comfortable for gentiles to accept. Even what Christ taught has been
filtered, laundered, and spun dry to allow it to be re-interpreted and practiced in
countless ways to fit mankind's' every desire. If such a thing can be right in God's
eyes then there is no objective truth. And if there is no objective truth, there can
be no salvation from our sins because there is no need for it since there is no
standard for us to be judged sinful. The Law of Moses must continue to exist and
remain in force, or we have no means by which to determine right from wrong,
good from evil.
When in verse 30 Yeshua says those who aren't with Him are against Him, it
needs to be understood on two levels. From the P'shat sense, it means that to
be a Believer is to be with Jesus by trusting Him; and to deny Him... to not trust
Him... is therefore to be against Him. But on the Remez level, simply calling on
His name... and to personally identify with our own created image of Him..... is by
no means proof of "being with Him." Yeshua covered this exact scenario earlier
in Matthew as it regarded neither pagans nor deniers, but rather as it is for those
of us who claim to be His followers and devoted Believers.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
When we discussed this as we studied Matthew chapter 7, I had much to say
about it that I won't echo today. But I am going to say this: verses 21 - 23 in
chapter 7 are for everyone who calls themselves a Believer.... or a Christian... or
a Messianic... or a member of the ecclesia. Your claim... our claim... upon
Yeshua as Lord is not sufficient. It comes with a basic requirement to be
accepted by the Father as sincere belief. We must do what who wants? We must
do what the Father in Heaven wants.
For us to say, 'but in Jesus's name I prophesied (here meaning taught the
Scriptures). In Yeshua's name I expelled demons from people. In Christ's name I
performed actual, real miracles. What greater proof of my salvation in Messiah
Jesus can there be than to do these things in His name?' Christ says the
performance of such things is not the standard. The greater proof is obedience to
the Father. And the Father says that the Law of Moses presents the standard of
righteous behavior for humans, which is what He wants for all those who worship
Him. The verse previous to what I just read to you says:
CJBMatthew 7:20 20 So you will recognize them by their fruit.
That is, the verses of Matthew 7:21 -23 explain how to sort out the true Believers
from the false ones (perhaps deceived ones is the better way to think of them),
and it is according to their fruit. What is fruit? Good fruit is righteous behavior that
is God directed. Righteous behavior is that which meets the standard that God
gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai a long time ago. Believing in Jesus in once sense or
another and doing things in His name may be good; but it isn't proof of one's true
devotion to the true Jesus. Such declarations and claims doesn't substitute for
righteous behavior nor does Christ ever give us a new and different set of
standards that ends the older one.
To be with Yeshua means to be in tune with who He actually is... historically...
and what He actually taught in its fullest context. Who He is historically and what
He taught contextually is Jewish in manner and thought. The moment we deny
that, or attempt to re-configure this Jewish man into a gentile mold, then it's no
longer Him we are trusting in but rather a figment of our imaginations. And just as
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
we refuse to recognize Him as He truly is, He will refuse to recognize us as one
of His no matter how much we might plead and bargain. Further, if we refuse to
fight against Satan... against God's definition of evil... alongside Yeshua as part
of His army, then as far as He is concerned we are against Him and are part of
the army of the enemy. Again; no middle ground. Kind of severe, isn't it? Yes it is.
But when the eternal battle of good versus evil is at stake, then no price or
requirement is too high.
Verse 31 begins with: "Because of this". Other versions say "Therefore, I say to
you". The point is that it is what Christ has just said in this scene that sets the
stage for what He's about to say now. And what He has to say are dire warnings.
The first warning is this: people can be forgiven any sin and blasphemy. Probably
Christ is directly referring to what the Pharisees falsely said about Yeshua getting
His power from Ba'al Zibbul to heal people and to expel demons. But the
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not forgivable. Notice the continuing divisions of
power and authority Yeshua speaks about between God, the Holy Spirit, and
Himself. I am certain that you have heard any number of explanations about
exactly what this means. So what, exactly, is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? I don't
know that I can necessary solve this challenging statement, but to approach it, it
first helps to understand what the Law of Moses has to say about sins and their
consequences.
In the Law of Moses sins are divided into two main categories: forgivable and not
forgivable. Forgivable means that a properly done ritual sacrifice of atonement on
the Temple altar, coupled with sincerity of regret and repentance, pays the price
God demands from the sinner. Unforgivable means no sacrifice of atonement can
pay the price; it is simply beyond the sacrificial system to deal with it. Only the life
of the sinner will do. These unforgivable sins are also at times called high␂handed. At other times the two categories of sin are called intentional and
unintentional. You can go back to the TorahClass.com teachings on the Torah
and get some extensive understanding of these designations, but in short it does
NOT mean on purpose versus accidental. Rather intentional more means the
most serious category of sins that are otherwise called "high handed" and they
are, therefore, not forgivable through an animal sacrifice. These are capital
crimes such as murder and adultery. Thus despite the Christian refrain that all
sins are the same under God... a sin is a sin is a sin... stealing a loaf of bread is
no different than killing someone because they are both sin... this is refuted time
after time in the Bible. Sins are indeed structured according to their seriousness,
and so, therefore, are the consequences. Thus Jesus's statement in Matthew
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
12:31 about blasphemy rides upon this understanding.
Just as a high handed sin is always a direct, malicious, thought-out sin against
God, so is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of God. One cannot do something against
another human... no matter how terrible... even murder... that amounts to
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So another aspect of Jesus's statement involves
understanding the difference between sins and blasphemies. Generally speaking
sins are acts against our fellow man, while blasphemies are acts against God. So
what Yeshua is saying is that God stands ready to forgive our sins; and yet there
are still limits as to what He will forgive.
Verses 31 and 32 work together in parallel.
CJB Matthew 12:31-32 31 Because of this, I tell you that people will be
forgiven any sin and blasphemy, but blaspheming the Ruach HaKodesh will
not be forgiven. 32 One can say something against the Son of Man and be
forgiven; but whoever keeps on speaking against the Ruach HaKodesh will
never be forgiven, neither in the 'olam hazeh nor in the 'olam haba.
Here's the thing: despite the fact that there are sins of human against human in
which an altar sacrifice will not atone for them, the coming of Yeshua and the
Kingdom of God has provided for a higher and better justice. There is no sin of
human versus human that sincere trust in Christ together with sincere repentance
cannot be forgiven (repentance does not mean sorrow or regret; it means
positive change by actively turning away from those sins). In fact, says Christ,
one can speak against the person of Yeshua and that of itself may be a form of
blasphemy, but it is not necessarily a disqualifier for eternal life. However there is
a fine line in all this, and exactly where that line is between forgivable sins and
unforgivable blasphemies can be difficult to find. It's one thing to say some
unkind things about Yeshua; even to disagree with Him on some things (which
might be rather foolish, but still doesn't condemn one to *). But it is quite
another to slander the work of God's Spirit to save. I don't know when slander of
Christ becomes slander of the Holy Spirit; but clearly it can. It is almost (and it
may be exactly this) that it is not so much that one rejects the person of the Son
of Man in His humanness that is blasphemy. But rather it is that since the sign of
our salvation in Christ is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who stays with us until
our death, then it is the result of this rejection of Yeshua in His divinity that
necessarily blocks the work of the Holy Spirit to save. And so while some degree
of saying words against Yeshua can be forgiven, at some point they exceed the
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
limits and it rises to the category of the unforgivable crime of blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit from which there is but one result.
While this is probably still a somewhat hazy definition of where the line of
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit falls, from a practical sense I am confident to say
this: why get close to the line at all? There's no need to. Why tempt God to
classify you as a blasphemer of the Holy Spirit with a consequence of eternal
damnation, when it doesn't have to be that way? And really I think this is
Yeshua's intent and meaning. This is not an issue of "the finer points of the Law"
that He has brought up. This is not about someone sincerely wanting and valuing
salvation, but just missing it by a hair's width. This is about the blatant denial of
God's will and plan to redeem and save through His Son that becomes an over
whelming and unquestionable allegiance to the opposition to the Kingdom of
Heaven, which is the Kingdom of Satan. Just as no one is accidentally saved, no
one accidentally loses the opportunity for it, nor accidentally loses it once
received. Therefore, there is not a question in my mind that, for instance, a
blatant and sincere atheist is blaspheming the Holy Spirit so his or her eternal
future of darkness and torment is set in stone, barring an amazing and unlikely
change of heart.
Verse 33 presents another metaphor using agricultural terms. This makes sense
because Jewish culture was a primarily agricultural society and so the people
listening would easily grasp Yeshua's meaning. As verse 34 shows, the target of
His ire continues to be these Pharisees. And equally of little doubt is that in the
earlier verses about blaspheming the Holy Spirit it, too, was meant as a direct
shot at the Pharisees. So using indisputable logic that most any member of
Jewish society would understand, Christ says that obviously good fruit comes
from a good tree; but if the tree becomes bad, then its fruit will also become bad.
This is an inescapable dichotomy both of the physical and the spiritual world
because the Creator of the spiritual is the same as the Creator of the physical;
that is, the principles are the same for both realms. Then the meek and gentle
Yeshua points to the Pharisees in the crowd and says: "You snakes!". Oh, man;
that wasn't exactly charitable, kind, or subtle was it? Yeshua's pattern is that He
makes many allowances for the ordinary folks; but He has no patience with the
Jewish religious leadership because it is they that are supposed to know and
teach the scriptural truth to the common folks. But instead it is they who lead
people away from that truth by putting more stock in their long held customs and
traditions, and vying for personal power, than in teaching and trusting God's
Word.
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Lesson 45 - Matthew 12 cont 2
Pastors, Rabbis, Ministers... lend me you ear! I hope you... we... all heard this. It
is so very easy to get tied to denominational or organizational doctrines some of
which that, as it turns out, don't really square with an intellectually honest and in␂context reading of the Bible. We of course want to protect our jobs, so in turn we
protect the doctrines. Sometimes it is that we've so wed ourselves to believing in
certain interpretations, and have sold it to others for so long, that we can't bring
ourselves to admit that maybe we were wrong. Perhaps it is fear that our
congregation will think that if we admit we were wrong about some things, then if
we change what we believe why would they believe anything we say? I can tell
you from experience that an occasional admission that we don't know everything,
and that over time God can teach even the oldest of dogs new tricks about His
Word (if we're open to it), tends to make us more human and authentic and
accessible to our congregation. They learn that we remain teachable and
continue in our pursuit of truth and would rather accept the consequences for
admitting previous errors than covering it up so that we don't risk our reputation
as fountains of biblical knowledge.
But to those denominational Pastors who might be listening, I realize and
sympathize that your situation is harder. You may be (probably are) required to
faithfully adhere to a certain set of doctrines or else you could be let go and
perhaps have your ordination revoked. I can only offer this comfort for you: our
devotion to God and to His truth must always be higher than our devotion to
customs and traditions, and to the rules of human institutions... and to our
employment. When we make our devotion to God as our highest aspiration by
doing what is right, and not what is safer and easier, the rewards for it... even if
postponed until we enter our eternal rest... are going to far outdo anything we
could receive from an earthly human religious institution. But equally I don't want
any of us to stand before God on Judgment Day and hear from Him that we knew
the truth but withheld it from those who need it, and trusted us to provide it for
them, because we were afraid we might look bad.
We'll continue in Matthew 12 next week.
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 46, Chapter 12 Continued 3
Last week in Matthew chapter 12 we left off with the thorny issue of what
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit amounts to. And the reason that is important is
because even Christ's death on the Cross can't atone for it. I'll begin with the
bottom line: if you're worried that you have really fouled up in your walk with God
and committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit... described as the unforgivable sin...
you probably haven't. The reason is that your relationship with God matters to
you or you wouldn't care about blasphemy.
When Jesus was speaking about blasphemy, it was directed at the Pharisees
and Scribes.... the Jewish Synagogue religious leadership. It was to those who
had knowledge of the Tanach (the Old Testament) and yet were so hard hearted
and so eager to protect their turf, they were willing to slander Yeshua, who spoke
truth about the Torah and the Prophets, and thus they tried to thwart the work of
the Holy Spirit among the common people; a divine work to redeem and save
them. When people (here, the Jewish leadership) know the Holy Scriptures and
still put up a wall against God's Messiah, they are in more peril than pagans who
know nothing at all (and Yeshua has already given examples of this reality).
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not about some particularly egregious sin of
omission or commission; it is about joining the opposition against God. We all sin;
and we'll continue to sin even after we've accepted Yeshua as Lord and Savior,
although we are to be cognizant of the great gift that has been given to us, and
our obligation to follow the principles of the Law of Moses that show us what sin
is. The sad fact is that our fallen nature continues to exist within us (or, at the
least, a powerful remnant of it) and it taints our thoughts and behavior some
times. The sins that Jesus atoned for are not only the sins we committed before
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
we were saved, but also for those that WILL come after. It's not that this blessing
gives us license to sin and not be concerned about it; but it does show us what a
loving and long suffering God we worship. Paul says this about the subject of sin,
including what our attitude and actions are to be after we accept our Messiah.
CJB Romans 5:19-6:4 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one
man, many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the other
man, many will be made righteous. 20 And the Torah came into the picture
so that the offence would proliferate; but where sin proliferated, grace
proliferated even more. 21 All this happened so that just as sin ruled by
means of death, so also grace might rule through causing people to be
considered righteous, so that they might have eternal life, through Yeshua
the Messiah, our Lord.
CJB Romans 6:1-4 1 So then, are we to say, "Let's keep on sinning, so that
there can be more grace"? 2 Heaven forbid! How can we, who have died to
sin, still live in it? 3 Don't you know that those of us who have been
immersed into the Messiah Yeshua have been immersed into his
death? 4 Through immersion into his death we were buried with him; so that
just as, through the glory of the Father, the Messiah was raised from the
dead, likewise we too might live a new life.
Let's read a few more verses in Matthew 12.
RE-READ MATTHEW 12:33 - 37
What we have here is a few verses that form a unified thought and so adhere to a
pattern. Remember: this is not being directed to the crowd but rather at the
Pharisees and Scribes to whom Yeshua is giving a good dressing down for their
corrupt spiritual leadership. He begins by employing a rather common illustration
used in His era; that of a fruit tree and the fruit it bears. He does this because the
bulk of Jewish people, especially in the Galilee, were country people; they were
either farmers or herders. Thus He states the obvious, even logical. And the
obvious is: good fruit can come only from a good tree. By a good tree He is
meaning something that it is healthy, viable, and pleasant and it is doing what it is
supposed to do: bear fruit that is good for eating. Continuing with the obvious and
the logical, Yeshua says that if the tree goes bad, so will the fruit become bad.
That is, if the tree loses its health to disease or infestation, and therefore
becomes unviable, then the fruit it bears necessarily loses its pleasantness and
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
becomes bitter or rotten. Believe me; the Pharisees and Scribes got the gist that
what Christ was saying was a repudiation of them, personally. That is, at first
these Pharisees and Scribes were good fruit trees bearing good fruit; but over
time they have gone bad (turned wicked), and so the fruit they bear has also
gone bad (it has turned wicked).
Next, just to be sure there was no ambiguity, we have Christ exclaim "you
snakes!" at these bad fruit trees standing before Him. I imagine it was all rather
dramatic and unforeseen to those religious leaders and the crowds of common
folk that were following. "How can you who are evil say anything
good?", continues Yeshua. Notice how this statement is still tied to the fruit tree
illustration. If a religious leader has gone bad (like a fruit tree has gone bad), it is
impossible that he can say anything good (because a bad tree can only produce
bad fruit). The context and reasons for Christ's barbed criticisms are that He is
responding to the Pharisees' and Scribes' false accusations that He did His
exorcisms and healings by the power of Satan. Thus Yeshua is saying that to
speak slanderous falsehoods (evil things) is to be evil. But then again, Yeshua
says, why would this be surprising? These bad fruit trees are incapable of
bearing anything good. These evil religious leaders are incapable of teaching or
preaching anything but falsehoods (evil).
It is important that we take such words with a grain of salt. I think we could say
that Yeshua's words were somewhat overstated because He was speaking in the
manner of conversation. That is, even the most wicked of the Pharisees and
Scribes no doubt held some correct doctrine, and taught some correct things.
Christ's strong comment is a push back against them for lying by saying that He
was in league with the Devil instead of being in league with God. They were not
only slandering the Son of God, and so being deceptive and steering the Jewish
people in the wrong direction, but they were also slandering the work of the Holy
Spirit that is the power of God on earth to save (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit).
They were speaking these evil falsehoods from hearts that had become
darkened because they established and held up manmade doctrines (Jewish
laws and Traditions of the Elders) as though they were God's Word. And
because they were arrogant and prideful, and believed these Jewish common
people in the crowd were theirs to teach and to have authority over. Yeshua
exposed them for what they were: wolves in sheep's clothing.
"For the mouth speaks what overflows from the heart", says Jesus. That is,
the evil things they said about Yeshua getting His power to exorcise demons
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
from the chief demon were spoken because it reflected the condition of their
hearts. Or better, the condition of their corrupted minds.
Still continuing the same flow of thought, verse 35 has Christ saying that the
good person brings forth good things from his store of good, but the evil person
brings forth evil things from his store of evil. This is but another illustration of the
obvious and logical that good produces only good, and evil produces only evil. I
don't think I need to flesh this out any further; Christ has made His point. He was
using multiple ways of saying the same thing (a habit of His) in order to create
emphasis and understanding. He pulled no punches by publicly and explicitly
declaring that these particular Synagogue leaders were evil men through and
through and so whatever instruction or declaration came from them is evil and
ought not be paid attention to or believed. But then comes the devastating bottom
line: on Judgment Day they are going to have to give an account to God of what
they just accused Yeshua, and as a result what they have just tried to teach the
Jewish people that witnessed it all. Something, which if believed, will lead to
eternal destruction for those people whom Christ would soon give His life to save.
These folks looked to their religious leaders for truth and that is not what they
served up. So, says Yeshua, the Father's verdict upon them can only be guilty as
charged, and their sentence is the final death on Judgment Day.
What is the source of our words? They come from our thoughts. And what is the
source of our thoughts? They come from our minds. Therefore since our words,
thoughts, and minds are organically tied together, the nature of who we are (evil
or righteous) will be revealed by what comes out of our mouths (our words).
Although the topic can be hard to grasp, there has been an ongoing debate
throughout history... including among Jews and within the Christian faith... of
whether it is our body (our flesh) that is inherently evil that causes us to sin, or it
is our will that resides in our mind. Paul addressed this very subject in Romans
7:14 - 25 and it is my view that he never reaches or proposes a firm conclusion.
In fact, what he expresses is his exasperation over trying to understand the never
ending tug of war between good and evil that is still within him.... even as a
passionate Believer in Christ. The earliest Church Fathers struggled at not only
understanding what Paul meant in that passage, but what they felt to be true
according to their human experience and trust in Messiah. Origen claimed that
the problem of evil resided in the mind and not in the flesh. Chrysostom was firm
that Paul did not mean to say that the flesh was evil nor did the flesh wage a
never ending battle against the mind.
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
Over my time as a Bible teacher, as God has been kind and full of grace to allow
me to continue to grow in understanding, my position on this matter has
evolved... or perhaps a better way to say it, my position has become more
nuanced... such that I cannot say that our physical bodies are inherently evil.
They are certainly corrupted in the sense that the introduction of sin into God's
Creation has caused these fleshly vessels to become weak, to deteriorate over
time, and eventually die. But our tangible, physical flesh is not where the power
of sin and evil reside within us. Rather sin and evil reside in our souls and in our
minds... wholly intangible things. Even words (what Christ is currently
addressing)... human speech... are intangible things. Words are just as invisible
as the thoughts from which they sprang; just as a mind is invisible. One cannot
reach out and touch spoken words nor can one reach out and touch thoughts.
Yeshua says that our words are what reveals our evil "for the mouth speaks
what overflows from the heart (the mind)." And that on Judgment Day we will
be found innocent or we'll be condemned by God according to our words,
because they reflect whether our minds are evil or good (that is, our spiritual
condition). Let's pause for a moment. What Yeshua is saying must be taken
within a far larger context. He does not mean that words we have said during our
lives (our speech) is the sole determining factor that will be used on Judgment
Day to determine our eternal future. Let's remember the scene: Yeshua is
dealing with a particular matter, with a particular group of Pharisees and Scribes,
at a particular moment in time. He is condemning them for giving credit to Satan
for the good deed that the power of God's Holy Spirit has done in chasing away a
demon from a possessed person. Christ was not speaking the Gospel message
of salvation to them. He was not giving these Jewish Leaders a detailed lesson
on good and evil, nor how true righteousness is achieved. So His statement that
it is our words that will lead to our acquittal or conviction on Judgment Day do not
present the entire picture of what will be judged by God.
However... just as we discussed regarding where the line is between slandering
the person of Christ (that can be forgiven) versus slandering the Holy Spirit (that
can not be forgiven), there is also a line regarding what our spoken words
indicate about our inner spiritual condition. To a point, our words can
demonstrate mere carelessness of our tongue and perhaps unguarded emotion
or passion. But over that line it points to an evil mind and identity as far as God is
concerned. Yeshua has just said that these particular Pharisees and Scribes (not
all) have been exposed as evil because their words of slander have crossed over
that line.
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
The Church Father Chrysostom had this to say about our words:
"Do you see how far the Judge is from being vindictive? How favorable the
account required? For it is not upon what someone else has spoken of you
but from what you have yourself spoken. From this will the Judge give his
sentence. This is the fairest of all procedures. It rests wholly with you to
speak or not to speak."
Let's read more of Matthew chapter 12.
RE-READ MATTHEW 12:38 - end
Almost as though sloughing off Yeshua's condemnation of their words, these
Pharisees and Scribes (called Torah teachers in the CJB) respond by asking Him
for a sign. This is almost comical. One has to ask how, after His astounding
series of miracles of various kinds, could they could ask for yet another? The
answer is that it is not a miracle, per se, that they are seeking. In fact, it is nothing
specific that they are asking for. Rather they are saying that He needs to come
up with something (a sign) that is a verification or authentication of who He
claims He is. Or perhaps it is to better define who He is. And remember; He has
yet to say that He is the Messiah even though His words have become heavier
and heavier in their implication that He is divine or at the least is closely
associated with the divine... in a Moses-like way. What they are really more
disputing is His authority that He openly asserts is greater than theirs. And His
publicly stated reasoning for this controversial assertion is because Yeshua says
He is Daniel's Son of Man, and therefore God's agent on earth.
So in the minds of Yeshua's opposition, what is a sign? A sign is somewhat like
an omen. An omen in the sky (a sign) is what led the Star Gazers from the east
to go in search of the newborn king of the Jews (the infant Yeshua). It is also
something done that creates an identity or validates a promise. For instance: the
sign from God to Noah that never again would the world be destroyed by a flood
is the rainbow; something enduring that can be visibly seen. The sign of following
Abraham and His God is male circumcision of the flesh; something enduring that
is tangibly worn. The sign of following Moses and accepting the Covenant given
to Israel on Mt. Sinai is observing the Creation 7
th day Sabbath; something
enduring that resides in the heart (the mind). Essentially, there is no "sign" that
Yeshua could give these particular Jewish religious leaders that they would
accept. The single thing I can think of that they would have liked to see is for
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
Yeshua to announce that He has formed a militia and is going to lead the Jews in
rebellion against Rome (since that is what they expected God's Messiah to do).
Yeshua's response to this request for a sign only continues His incredulous
denunciation of them. He says: "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for
a sign?" Then says none will be given. This statement once again stirs up
memories of the past of Moses and the Exodus.
CJB Deuteronomy 1:35 Not a single one of these people, this whole evil
generation, will see the good land I swore to give to your ancestors..."
CJB Deuteronomy 32:5 "He (God) is not corrupt; the defect is in his children,
a crooked and perverted generation." And in a later time of Israel's development God speaks similarly through the
Prophet Jeremiah.
CJB Jeremiah 3:9 The ease with which Isra'el prostituted herself defiled the
land, as she committed adultery with stones and with logs.
Most of the Book of Hosea is dedicated to an extensive reproval of Israel that
uses marriage, adultery and prostitution to make the same point. The meaning in
the Bible each time this thought of generational adultery is rolled out, including
what Yeshua is saying against the Synagogue leadership, is that this generation
that is being confronted is unfaithful to God. Christ using the term "adulterous"
continues the thread throughout the Bible that likens the relationship of God's
worshipers to Yehoveh as a marriage. Human marriage is a sacred union with
God as the guarantor, and as people of faith we must always keep that in mind
(although today the government has intervened, redefined marriage for political
purposes, removed it from the realm of the religious, and made it little more than
a legalized financial arrangement). Therefore from the biblical sense to be
adulterous is to come into union with someone or something other than with
whom one is wed. This does not have to be only a sexual union; it can be a union
of identity. So in a sense Yeshua has expanded His condemnation to a more
broad group of people. He is branding Israel in general as an adulterous and evil
generation.
We have to be a little careful with the term "generation"; it is used in different
ways in the Bible. In this case it is not referring to the modern technical definition
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
and use of the term. Rather Jesus means all those who are living at the current
time. So it is inclusive of newborns to the extremely elderly. And yet it is by no
means a term that means "every last individual". It is a general term that is
applied loosely. However, as the Torah so vividly teaches, God evaluates both
individuals and entire communities that can range from congregations to nations.
That is, He judges both the overall condition of a community, as well the
condition of individual members of that community. So an evil and adulterous
community by no means indicates that every individual of that community is evil
and adulterous. However, should God pour out His wrath on that community,
even the righteous individuals that form it are likely to be collateral damage.
Therefore in the Book of Revelation we read this bone-chilling warning:
CJB Revelation 18:3-5 3 "For all the nations have drunk of the wine of God's
fury caused by her whoring- yes, the kings of the earth went whoring with
her, and from her unrestrained love of luxury the world's businessmen
have grown rich." 4 Then I heard another voice out of heaven say: "My
people, come out of her! so that you will not share in her sins, so that you
will not be infected by her plagues, 5
for her sins are a sticky mass piled up
to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.
Sometimes it is seems impossible (or very nearly so) to come out of an evil and
adulterous community. However God is warning Israel in particular to leave the
nations where they have gone because the nations are about to receive His full
fury. This has always been understood to mean that a faithful God worshiper
should detach and leave whatever community one is part of if it is evil and
adulterous, because even the most faithful will be affected as a consequence of
that attachment. In our time, as Believers in Jesus, this perhaps most applies to
our congregations and associations. It falls to us to gauge whether the leadership
and teaching of our congregational community is true to the Bible, and therefore
faithful to God, or if it reflects that congregation's manmade traditions and
doctrines that have strayed from biblical ordinance and principle. And if it does,
then we have a free-will decision to make: do we follow God's call to us to come
out of it? Or do we put social connections, comfort and personal preferences
above that?
So in verses 39 and 40, Jesus tells the Pharisees and Scribes that He absolutely
will not give them a sign. However: they will witness the sign of Jonah, which was
that for 3 days and 3 nights Yonah was in the belly of a sea-monster. Therefore
Yeshua (the Son of Man) will be 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the earth.
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
Jonah was sent (quite unwillingly) by God to prophesy to the gentiles of the city
of Nineveh. The prophecy was that if they didn't turn from their idolatrous and evil
ways, God would destroy them. Jonah didn't want to go because he didn't want
Nineveh to be delivered; he would just as soon see them destroyed. Much to his
surprise, the leaders of Nineveh listened to Jonah, heeded God's warning,
repented, and so God's fury was averted; exactly what God wanted.
What happened to Jonah had never been taken as a "sign" by the Jewish people;
but Christ just revealed it as one. Yet the undefined sign the Pharisees
demanded will not occur there on the spot, nor will it occur during Yeshua's
lifetime. A sign will only happen upon His death and resurrection because His
death and resurrection ARE the fulfillment of the sign of Jonah. A few decades
later Paul will confirm this as his interpretation of the event.
CJB Acts 2:22-24 22 "Men of Isra'el! Listen to this! Yeshua from Natzeret was
a man demonstrated to you to have been from God by the powerful works,
miracles and signs that God performed through him in your presence. You
yourselves know this. 23 This man was arrested in accordance with God's
predetermined plan and foreknowledge; and, through the agency of
persons not bound by the Torah, you nailed him up on a stake and killed
him! 24 "But God has raised him up and freed him from the suffering of
death; it was impossible that death could keep its hold on him.
In my teaching entitled "The Passover Problem Solved" I go into depth about the
literal fulfillment of Jesus's prophecy about Himself as the sign of Jonah. Nearly
every biblical commentator will go to great lengths to explain away how Jesus
didn't actually spend 3 days and nights in the tomb; or some go so far as to
virtually redefine days and nights so that it comes out to 3 days and 3 nights.
Others merely dismiss it and say it really doesn't matter. Well, it does matter.
Otherwise how much else of the New Testament are we to spiritualize and
marginalize away or as in this case, to keep manmade Easter doctrines alive.
When we understand the Torah and we understand the biblical feasts (of which
the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Passover, and Firstfruits were directly involved
in the sequence of Yeshua's death and resurrection), then we can see how
indeed He was in the tomb for a literal 3 days and 3 nights. You can go to
TorahClass.com and insert the words The Passover Problem Solved into the
search box and find the teaching.
In verse 41, continuing His promise to fulfill the sign of Jonah, He says that the
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
people of Nineveh (gentiles who are now God fearing) will stand up at the
Judgment (Judgment Day) and they will be witnesses against this (evil)
generation as they too stand before the Great Judge. Why? Because these
gentiles turned from their sins and wickedness to God (this is the biblical
meaning of repentance) when Jonah told them about God and that they had
been wrong in their idol worship. That is, the people of Nineveh obeyed the
Hebrew principle of shema, they didn't merely passively listen to God's
instruction; they heard, believed, and actively carried it out. Luke says virtually
the same thing in Luke 11:32.
And by the way: ancient Nineveh is modern Mosul, Iraq. One has to wonder
because of the way biblical prophecies are fulfilled, and then repeat (sometimes
more than once), if Mosul, Iraq might not eventually become a center of Christ
Believing Arabs by the time of the Day of Judgment. While no one can say for
certain, I sort of expect it.
Yeshua next says, rather cryptically, that "what is here now is greater than
Jonah". He can only be speaking of Himself. In this chapter Christ has made the
sign of Jonah as His own sign, and He has made Himself to be the Son of David,
which is Solomon, who was seen as a seer and a fountain of Wisdom. Solomon
and Jonah were two highly regarded figures within 1
st century Judaism, and
Yeshua says He is greater than both. But in another sense He is complaining that
while the Pharisees and Scribes accept both Solomon and Jonah as legitimate
and highly revered holy men, they don't accept Him even though these two and
so many prophets from Israel's past (as well as Moses) spoke about Him. This
contrast ties together with the irony that the Jewish Prophet Jonah went to an
unfaithful pagan city and the residents listened to his prophecy, repented, and
became faithful, but Israel's own prophets went to the people of Israel and they
refused God's words and warning. Thus, says Christ, the pagan "Queen of
South" will be yet another witness against unfaithful Israel on Judgment Day. This
is referring to the pagan Queen of Sheba who, hearing of Solomon's great
Wisdom, came to him and spent quite some time learning from him and returned
home changed, as a God worshiper. So we can only imagine that despite all
Yeshua is saying that is the truth, the Pharisees and Scribes (and soon the
majority of Jews in Judea) became livid over Yeshua speaking of the inclusion of
gentiles having favor with Yehoveh, God of Israel, without first converting and
becoming Jews. The fighting words that Jesus puts forth is that gentiles might
even be more accepting of Him than the Jews; which, of course, has turned out
to be true.
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
Verses 43 - 45 are admittedly challenging; so challenging that there are several
different interpretations of them. We don't have the time to sort out the several of
those that I think are off the mark, so I'll only go with what I conclude Jesus
meant. I will add that this is a story that combines parable, metaphor, and
scriptural truth. He is also employing a language and terms and illustrations that
were understood within the Holy Land in the 1st century, but are very challenging
for us to try to reconstruct today. That said, here is what I think the meaning is
based upon what we can know with help from the Torah.
The unclean spirits mean evil spirits (demons), and they are generally
interchangeable terms. So the illustration or teaching begins with the scenario
that through exorcism a demon possessed person is released from its power.
The question then becomes: so where does this demon that has been kicked out,
go? Back in Matthew chapter 8 we read this:
CJB Matthew 8:28-32 28 When Yeshua arrived at the other side of the lake, in
the Gadarenes' territory, there came out of the burial caves two men
controlled by demons, so violent that no one dared travel on that
road. 29 They screamed, "What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you
come here to torture us before the appointed time?" 30 Now some distance
from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged him, "If
you are going to drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs." 32 "All right,
go!" he told them. So they came out and went into the pigs, whereupon the
entire herd rushed down the hillside into the lake and drowned.
So to Jesus's way of thinking, and to the demons being driven out of these 2
men, they had to reside and exist somewhere else; that is in some tangible place.
Since they were being driven out of humans they were fine with residing in pigs
(as not a particularly desired alternative). But in Matthew 12:43 Yeshua explains
what happens to a demon when it has no place to reside. It wanders around in a
dry country seeking rest (that is, a place to cease wandering and settle down).
What is dry country? A desert wilderness.
Jews believed that the Judean desert was the abode of a highly ranked demon
named Az'azeL This was more than legend; his name and that he lives in the
desert wilderness is found in Leviticus.
CJB Leviticus 16:6-10 6 Aharon is to present the bull for the sin offering
which is for himself and make atonement for himself and his
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
household. 7 He is to take the two goats and place them before ADONAI at
the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 Then Aharon is to cast lots for the two
goats, one lot for ADONAI and the other for Az'azel. 9 Aharon is to present
the goat whose lot fell to ADONAI and offer it as a sin offering. 10 But the
goat whose lot fell to 'Az'azel is to be presented alive to ADONAI to be used
for making atonement over it by sending it away into the desert for
'Az'azel.
What we are reading about in Leviticus is called the Scapegoat ceremony that is
associated with Yom Kippur. The name of the desert demon Az'azel plays a
prominent role. It may even be that Az'azel is yet another name for, or
manifestation of, Satan. In the Scapegoat ritual two goats are sacrificed: one goat
is killed by throwing it over a cliff and another is sent away into the wilderness,
bearing the sins of Israel (it will die there). The idea seems to be to return sin
from whence it came; back to sin's author, Satan.
Apparently the dry desert wilderness is where demons who don't reside in some
living creature are exiled; and they don't want to be there. So, says Jesus, after
wandering around the desert for awhile, the dispossessed unclean spirit
determines to return to his former human host. And when he returns, it turns out
the space where it lived (the man's spirit or soul) is still vacant. Why is it vacant?
Because spiritually speaking, every human, without exception, is going to be
inhabited by the spirit of God or by the spirit of Satan. And this formerly demon
possessed person, although happy to be rid of the demon, has foolishly not
replaced that evil spirit that left his soul with God's spirit; so metaphorically
speaking, that space remains vacant. Upon seeing the vacant space that he left
some time ago, the demon tells 7 other dispossessed and wandering demons to
come join him and take up residence with him. Thus making this formerly
possessed, but then exorcised, but now re-possessed person far worse off than
he was before because now instead of but 1 this man has 8 demons living in
him.
So what's Jesus's point? It can only be a continuation of the condition of the
souls, and the destiny of, these particular Scribes and Pharisees He's been
chiding. It is that (from Christ's perspective) these fellows must have had an
unclean spirit in them at one time, but for some reason it left them. However
instead of filling up the vacancy (their soul) with a spirit of good and truth, it was
left empty and now they are filled with evil 8 times worse than it was before. And,
says Christ, this is how it will be for this evil generation. That is, this evil
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Lesson 46 - Matthew 12 cont 3
generation is not going to get better, it is going to get worse.
The final 5 verses of chapter 12 has Christ redefining what family is. By no
means is He disavowing His own mother and brothers. And, by the way, here is
one of a few places in which Jesus is said to have biological brothers from his
biological mother Mary. However, we cannot get away from the fact that as much
of a natural familial bond that Jesus had with His biological family, the bond was
even stronger with His spiritual family. So He points to His disciples and says that
these are His mother and brothers. Mother and brothers is a dramatic phrase that
simply means "family".
Let's look at this another way. The bond Yeshua had with His mother was
biological and physical. The bond He had with His actual Father (God) was
spiritual. The lesson? Spiritual bonds are tighter than physical bonds. But let us
never think this operates only in a positive way. While Yeshua is saying that
those who do His Father's will (and within the Father's will is that His Son,
Yeshua, is accepted as the Father's agent) become His family resulting from a
common spiritual bond with Him, it is also that one can create a spiritual family
that is evil in nature by doing Satan's will and thus bonding with Satan.
Notice that while to start this passage He speaks of "who is my mother and who
are my brothers", He ends it with "brother and sister and mother". This is
important because He makes no distinction according to gender as regards
spiritual bonding with Him. Women are as equally welcome to be part of His
spiritual family as are males.
We'll begin Matthew chapter 13 next time.
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 47, Chapter 13
Matthew chapter 13 begins this way:
CJB Matthew 13:1 That same day, Yeshua went out of the house and sat
down by the lake; 2 but such a large crowd gathered around him that he got
into a boat and sat there while the crowd stood on the shore. 3 He told them
many things in parables: ... From here forward in Matthew's Gospel we're going to find Jesus employing
parables in His teachings. Some Bible academics and commentators will say that
He has already used parables when speaking to the crowds that seemed to be
following Him everywhere; perhaps making up as much as one third of the
recorded words that came from Him. But therein lies the rub: what is a parable,
what is not, and what is the difference between a parable and merely an
illustration that uses metaphors to make a point? Perhaps even more: does this
difference really matter in how we are to interpret those words?
So before we delve into the meat of Matthew chapter 13, it is necessary for us to
understand the literary form of parables so that we can learn what to take from
them.... and what NOT to take from them. This is a rather complex matter, but I'll
do my best to make it not too extensive nor so hard to understand. Even so, hang
in there with me because little is more important to Christianity than Jesus's
words, and little is more important within Jesus's words than His parables. And
the first thing to understand is that Christ was not the inventor of parables, even
though if it is not directly taught that way (although it often is), it is heavily implied
within Christianity that not only was it He who created them, He was the only one
who used them.
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
Much of what I'm going to discuss with you comes from a seminar I attended a
few years ago, as well as information gleaned from the works of various notable
scholars such as David Flusser, Brad Young, Steven Notley and Ze'ev Safrai. For
those of you who want to go into more depth on the matter of parables, and
especially those created by the ancient Rabbis, I recommend you obtain the book
titled Parables of the Sages published by Carta.
So what is a parable? Ze'ev Safrai says that parables are: "short stories with
moral insight and a clear aim". While that abbreviated definition is certainly the
case, that just as certainly is far from all we need to know about parables to
identify them and to comprehend their essence and meaning. The first thing we
need to understand is that parables belong exclusively and uniquely to the realm
of the Jewish culture and their Sages. Dr. Flusser would narrow that a bit and
argue that they belong exclusively within the realm of rabbinic Judaism. From this
basic understanding two critical factors emerge: one is that although the
institution of "rabbinic Judaism" did not exist in Yeshua's era, it was not far away
from becoming a reality. The concept of the religion of the Jews being led by
teachers and leaders that did not hold the official title of Rabbi (because the
office of Rabbi, as we think of it today, was not yet formed) were nonetheless at
times called rabbi but that designation was from an honorary and not an official
sense. As an example: in modern English we can say that our mother or father
taught us important things when we were young... so they were important
teachers in our lives. And yet, that in no way means that they held the formal paid
profession of being an educator... an officially recognized office of Teacher. So
for the most part when we think of Jesus and even of Paul, while no doubt they
were at times called rabbis in the sense of being teachers and masters over a
flock of disciples, historically the term rabbi hadn't yet become elevated into an
official office that held actual recognized civil or religious authority, as it would
become within only a few decades.
The next point is that parables can only be understood within the context of
Jewish society, Jewish religion, Jewish thought, and Jewish language (Hebrew).
Parables were necessarily written in Hebrew and no other languages. That
Christ's parables (as with all His words) have been handed down to us through
the Greek language, later translated to Latin, and later still translated from the
Greek or Latin to English, means that the original message and purpose can at
times be obscured or even lost. And this is because parables are based 100% on
Jewish thought and language that originated within a Jewish cultural setting. To
take them outside of that basic context begins the process of degrading them into
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
something they are not. To try to make sense of them in a Gentile world much
allegory was employed starting with some of the Early Church Fathers as early
as perhaps the 4
th or 5
th centuries. What is an allegorical interpretation? It is a
means by which the biblical words are assumed to be symbols used to reveal a
hidden meaning or a broad and general moral principle. Thus an allegorical
interpretation allows for the possibility of multiple meanings, all of which are
considered equally valid. By the 7
th and 8
th centuries allegory was the main
teaching and preaching tool used by Christian leaders and academics to interpret
not just Jesus's parables, but everything we find in the New Testament. In fact
many (perhaps most) modern Bible commentators will say that a parable is itself
little more than Jewish allegory.
The proof that parables are a uniquely Jewish form of expression is that they are
not to be found in the Greek and Roman world of the 1st century, nor before, nor
in the decades following except in the rarest of occasions. Some have said that
Aesop's Fables that were written by a Greek man from around 600 B.C. are
essentially parables. While they may seem similar to Hebrew parables, and from
the far view could perhaps be labeled as such, they are not really the same kind
of literature. The main difference is that ancient fables did not contain God. God's
will or God's character or God's promises were the framework upon which all
Jewish parables were created. But more to the point of what we're studying,
Aesop's Fables were not called paraboles (in Greek) nor were they classified
that way. Paraboles eventually became a Greek title used in the Jewish
Diaspora and in the early Christian world to refer to these Jewish short stories
produced from Jewish culture and literature, including from the New Testament.
So since the English word parable is taken from the Greek word paraboles, then
what would Jews have called these Jewish short stories that contained a moral or
illustrated a truth? It was almost certainly the Hebrew word mashal. Mashal is
found in several places in the Bible as a somewhat general term that could mean
a prophecy, a riddle, or perhaps an authoritative statement. It was sometimes
used to denote a virtue and at other times an important and instructive saying.
Let's pause here for a moment. I don't want to cause confusion by what I'm telling
you because when it comes to language there are things that might sound
complicated, but we all inherently know how it works although we rarely think
about it. It begins with the reality that all languages evolve over time. The Hebrew
of Moses was not identical with the Hebrew of Jesus. And the Hebrew of Jesus is
not identical with the conversational Hebrew spoken in Israel today. There are
Hebrew words that used to exist but are no longer used, and there are new
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
Hebrew words that didn't exist in ancient times. The English of the 13th or
14th century would not even be understood by modern day English speakers and
vice versa. In fact, language can evolve rapidly especially in the age of technical
innovation in which we live. Words like astronaut never existed prior to the late
1950's. The term "politically correct" is just 3 decades or so old. And yet as
unknown as these words were as recent as WWII, they are part of our everyday
English language and no one asks "what does this mean?" So, when we find the
word mashal rendered in the Prophets of the Old Testament, it didn't mean
exactly the same thing as it did by Christ's day. By Christ's day mashal mostly
came to mean what we now refer to as parables (even though when used in its
technical sense it also continued to mean what it always had meant especially as
it was used in the Old Testament). The context of a conversation and who was
having it determined exactly how to understand the meaning of the term.
One of the most important aspects of how to identify a parable is that it
specifically calls itself a mashal. It is self defining; it says what it is so that no
mistake can be made as to its literary genre and purpose. That is, it is important
that a mashal, a parable, be identified as such so that we know it is not a poem,
and it is not history, and it is not narrative because proper interpretation depends
upon recognizing which of each of these categories of literature is being spoken
or written. So one is not to take the meaning of a parable as though the
characters actually exist (or will exist) or that the events as depicted actually
happened or will happen. So in order for one to properly interpret a parable it
must first be firmly recognized as being a parable and not something else. This
fact appears immediately as chapter 13 opens when the Jewish Matthew makes
it so very clear by identifying what kind of speech category Jesus is about to say.
He writes: "He (Christ) told them many things in mashal... in parable."
Another important aspect for recognizing a true Jewish parable (as opposed to
merely a simple metaphor or illustration) is that there is usually a word formula
utilized to introduce it or it is contained within the body of the parable. Parables
often begin with the words: "a parable is told". Just as often, especially within the
rabbinic parables (of which there are hundreds), we'll find the telling words "to
what can the matter be compared?" Dr. Steven Notley says that sometimes this
is even abbreviated to: "similar to". The most formal method favored by later
Rabbis is: "mashal lema hadabar domeh"... "A parable: to what may the matter
be compared?"
Another way to recognize a true parable is that there is usually (but not always)
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
an obvious moral or application that it centers around. The story along with its
moral is told in terms of an already commonly understood reality within Jewish
culture, even if that reality is highly embellished... or exaggerated... in order to
draw the listener's attention and interest. It is something told that is meant to be
remembered and re-told. Almost all parables created by the rabbis involved a
king, a sick person, or a woman, although none of them were named because
that kind of detail was unimportant to the parable's meaning. Rather these were
generic and stereotypical kings, sick people, and women and not actual ones.
Yeshua on the other hand deviated from this and His parables involved
characters from among the common people; so He employed images of
maidens, and field workers, and agriculture. And, just as with the rabbis, so were
His characters generic people in stereotypical roles.
So the way a parable works is that it draws a comparison between the moral or
application intended by the teller, and an invented word-picture that is used to
turn the teaching into a memorable, and usually enjoyable, short story. The point
of it is to teach something of divine importance by means of making the complex
or even spiritual into something an average Jew could comprehend by being
given a mental picture of it. Notice I did not say that the average person could
comprehend, but rather the average Jew. A Gentile had, and continues to have,
difficulty understanding the meaning of a rabbinic parable, or even some of
Christ's, because they were told in Jewish cultural terms; something nearly all
Gentiles wouldn't be familiar with. Therefore this begs the question: why if the
underlying nature of parables was generally only understandable by Jews would
Jesus employ parables if He intended that His words were to also reach the ears
of Gentiles? As much is this might bother or even rile the typical Gentile Christian
community, remember that Yeshua's audience during His lifetime was invariably
Jews, and most often the common people of the Galilee. He did not deal with
Gentiles nor speak His teachings to Gentiles. This is not my speculation.
CJB Matthew 15:22-24 22 A woman from Kena'an who was living there came
to him, pleading, "Sir, have pity on me. Son of David! My daughter is cruelly
held under the power of demons!" 23 But Yeshua did not say a word to her.
Then his talmidim came to him and urged him, "Send her away, because
she is following us and keeps pestering us with her crying." 24 He said, "I
was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Isra'el." He indeed did relent and briefly address the Gentile woman, even complimented
her, but it was a rare case that was outside the scope of His immediate mission.
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
So it fell to Paul and later disciples... and still to us... to take Yeshua's message
to the Gentile world in a way Gentiles can understand. However changing the
meaning of Yeshua's parables by means of allegory was not, and is not, the
solution. First, though, the original meaning has to be rediscovered.
When it comes to the parables of Yeshua in the New Testament, they were used
especially to reveal the divine spiritual dimension by using elements of the
physical world that we can see, hear, and touch. When teaching the Torah I've
spoken of what I call the Reality of Duality. The concept is that because the
Creator wove the same governing dynamics and principles into all of His
Creation, both the unseen spiritual dimension and the tangible physical
dimension, then we can observe in the natural things of the world all around us
important truths about the operation and realities of the spiritual world that we
cannot observe. Thus we could say that the tangible physical things of this world
that we can see with our eyes and know by means of our several senses, is a
shadow of the spiritual. As we all know through experience, while a shadow
reveals only an outline of the object that is casting it, yet the shadow does help
us to understand the approximate shape of the object. So a parable can be
likened to a visible shadow of an invisible divine object or purpose. A parable can
also reveal the shadowy outline of future events that exist only in God's promises
until they happen. Yet there is a caution with which we must approach a parable.
Should we try to color in further details from our imaginations, the odds that we'll
be correct are remote. It's from such folly that bad doctrine can be created. So
our faith includes trusting that the shadow (the parable) is real and true even
though what it reveals to us is incomplete. Never should we draw too many
conclusions from viewing only a shadow. Our earthly experiences ought to be
proof enough of this.
So a parable is not to be treated as a Christmas tree upon which any manner of
ornament can be hung. Due to the allegorical method of teaching the Bible that
has arisen over the centuries within Christianity, the impression is made that
there are any number of correct solutions or messages that can be taken from
any one of Jesus's parables. This is not so because that is not the nature of a
parable. A parable has but one message and moral to which it aims. A parable's
final meaning can only be deciphered when taking it as a whole, as opposed to
finding several meanings by examining the several elements used to construct
the story. By that I mean that within the parable's story there indeed could be a
few interesting connections between the moral of the parable and the many
characters and details used along the way to bring the listener to the parable's
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
message. But those connections along the way never affect the outcome that
brings us to the single point that the parable teller is making. I want to emphasize
this: the point of any parable is but one thing and is not intended to be remolded
to suit the interpreter or the circumstance.
Because of this underlying concept and purpose of a parable, in the Jewish world
of Christ and later, parables were generally not used to help explain the legal
matters of Jewish Law... Halakah. Nor were they generally used when the Torah
was taught. There were a few exceptions to that rule, but too few to consider
them as anything but outliers. Parables are also not to be found in the Dead Sea
Scrolls or in the several books of the Apocrypha. We simply don't find parables
existing as a typical means of expression and teaching in the Jewish world
except in the New Testament and in writings of the Rabbis. So there is little way
around concluding that there was an observable teaching-method connection
between Jesus and the rabbis (the teachers) of His day, which were certain of
the Pharisees. Thus the crowds who heard Yeshua's parables no doubt expected
them, and were used to them because the use of parables existed only in the
Synagogue culture as led by Pharisees, but parables did not exist within the
Temple culture as led by the Priests. Such a thing ought to not surprise us;
Jesus, Himself, was a product of the Synagogue culture and not of the Temple
culture.
In the end, I think the point I'd like most to make is that a parable is intended to
help us understand what God is like. Yeshua of all people could help us
understand God, His Father, best. He also knew that parable, mashal, was the
best way to communicate this kind of understanding to the common folks. At the
same time He was a Torah teacher extraordinaire. As was customary of the
Judaism of His day, He did not use parables to teach the Torah. He limited His
parables to helping His listeners understand God's nature and God's kingdom in
a very personal and relational way. So just as Yeshua cannot be understood
apart from His Jewishness, neither can we understand His parables apart from
their Jewishness.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 13 all
The chapter opens with the words "that same day". Same day as what? Remove
the chapter markings and it becomes clear. It is the same day as everything we
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
read in chapter 12 occurred; and that day is Shabbat. Chapter 12 was the story
of the Sabbath controversy when some Pharisees were upset with Christ and
some of His followers for plucking grain from a field and eating it. The Pharisees
considered this act a violation of Sabbath Day laws. These laws were not so
much laws of the Torah, but rather Jewish Law; laws and rules made by the
Pharisees over what could and could not happen on the Sabbath.
After having a heated discussion with those Pharisees, and then upon His mother
(Miriam, Mary) appearing along with some of His siblings, chapter 13 says that
Jesus left the immediate area and went to the Lake... according to Matthew it
was still Shabbat. Therefore wherever precisely it was that He was arguing with
the Pharisees it could not have been far from the Sea of Galilee (also known as
the Lake) because it needed to be within a Sabbath Day's walk. But then
Matthew adds that Jesus "went out of the house" and to the Lake, so this is a
strong implication that He was back in his current town of residence, Capernaum,
and so the location of the Sabbath controversy had to have taken place in a
nearby field.
The ever present crowd of people followed Jesus down to the Lake, so He got
into a boat. It was not to escape them (as He had done before) but rather it was
likely to give Him a better platform from which to speak, without having people
crushing in all around Him, and therefore allowing more of the crowd to hear
instead of only those closest to Him. He decides to speak to the people
concerning the Kingdom of God, which has been His main interest. Remember:
to this point in Matthew's Gospel, Yeshua has not revealed Himself as Israel's
Messiah. So the Good News He has been preaching, and His 12 Disciples were
sent out to preach, was not the Good News of salvation in Christ. Rather until
now the Good News was only that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived.
One must ask: why this parable about a sower and some seeds at this time? I
think the reason is that Yeshua has, to this point, had relatively few successes
but many failures in getting people to respond to Him. In fact He has was at
permanent odds with the Synagogue leadership who always seemed to be
present among the crowds. These leaders were there to dispute Him at every
turn. They came not to listen, but to indict Him. They had their own agenda, and it
was to be sure that all common Jews obeyed the Traditions of the Elders...
Jewish Law... that they held so firmly to. They saw their job priority as
maintaining the status quo; to defend their manmade doctrines. They were not
open to learning. Most of the Pharisees (not all) were closed minded and not
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
teachable.
Let us also not assess that Jesus felt He had been succeeding in His efforts
simply because of the huge crowds He not only gathered but that seemed to
follow Him wherever He went. The reality is that instead of Him being happy for it,
we have read of His disappointment. So if there were huge crowds so anxious to
hear Him and follow Him around, why was He disappointed? Were the crowds
not large enough? No. It was because these crowds were not coming to hear,
obey, and have their minds changed; they were coming to have their
circumstances changed for the better. They were coming to this
extra-ordinary Tzadik, this Holy Man who could heal any disease, bring hearing
to the deaf, sight to the blind, and expel demons from people. They wanted to
have this miracle healer fix their infirmities of every variety; which He did because
He had compassion on these people and also to fulfill the ancient prophesies
about Him. Yet clearly Yeshua fully expected that these miracles coupled with
His teaching on the Torah and His preaching regarding the arrival of the Kingdom
of God would have had a different result: sincere repentance.
What a lesson to us is evident here. First, merely hearing God's message of truth
is far from a guarantee that it will be accepted or heeded or lead to repentance.
Second, if Yeshua had been anything like the typical Synagogue leaders of His
day He would have been ecstatic over all these people showing up and hanging
around. How famous that would have made Him; how well known and sought
after. Imagine all the ways His social status, influence with the wealthy and the
powerful, and probably personal wealth would have greatly increased. What the
people learned, and how close to God's intent they conducted their lives as a
measure of sincere repentance would have been secondary; drawing sizeable
crowds was the issue. While in no way would I indict an entire institution, within
Christianity too often the size of the crowd is the primary measure of success to
Church leadership. In fairness I doubt there's a Pastor worth his salt that doesn't
pray for more people to come to worship God at his Church and who tirelessly
works with his staff to facilitate that hope as much as it depends on them. We
can't help but question ourselves if no one responds or if few come. But we're not
Jesus. Jesus drew increasingly overwhelming crowds that had the result of
alarming the competition; yet that wasn't the result He hoped for. Even though
disappointed in the response of the people Yeshua didn't question His message,
because it's the one His Father gave Him to preach. Even so, He keenly
observed the dismal rate of response of the people not in terms of how it affected
His status, but rather in terms of how it affected them.
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
I must continually remind myself (and now I speak to all listening who are leaders
of Christian fellowships, and Pastors and Rabbis of congregations): our job is to
speak the Gospel truth, to teach the Bible honestly and in context, and to live out
God's commands as an example for others to follow. Upon that, we allow the
chips to fall as they may. Our job before God is be a servant to Him and a
shepherd to His people. If we do that faithfully, then we can rest easy as the
response of the people is in God's hands. We are His messengers, but we are
not the Holy Spirit. We can diligently and passionately teach God's Word and tell
folks of the truth of Salvation in Yeshua. What we cannot do is to bring one soul
into God's Kingdom based upon our will and intent. This is not to say that we
cannot do a poor job or behave in a way that ruins our witness. Our job requires
us to prepare well and serve diligently. But what we read in Matthew 13 reveals
that the size of the crowds that come to hear us can be deceiving. The presence
of people does not necessarily equal their right motive for being there, and the
lack of their presence does not necessarily mean a failure of our leadership.
If only a relatively few people that Yeshua personally healed, or were
eyewitnesses to His miracles, or were present to hear His incomparable wisdom,
came to trust in what He said or in who He was, why would the rest of us expect
to have greater success as measured by counting people?
So now with that in mind, Yeshua presents the pressing crowd with what has
become known in Christendom as the Parable of the Sower. In this exceptional
instance, we don't have to wonder at what the parable is telling us because after
telling it to the crowd He explains it to His disciples (which one can reasonably
assume means the same group of disciples that was plucking heads of grain in
chapter 12). I suppose if I was giving this parable a name it would be the Parable
of the Soil, and not the parable of the Sower because this is more about the soil
(the ground) and less about the sower of seeds. In the CJB this sower is called a
farmer.
Structurally we find that the parable is based on 4 cases of what happens
between the seed and the soil it falls upon. So this is a story of response and
reaction as well as interaction. That is the seed is sown, but how the ground
reacts to the seed is the point of the parable. So these 4 cases are represented
by 4 kinds of soil. The parable is short so let's re-read it.
CJB Matthew 13:3-9 3 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he sowed,
some seed fell alongside the path; and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
seed fell on rocky patches where there was not much soil. It sprouted
quickly because the soil was shallow; 6 but when the sun had risen, the
young plants were scorched; and since their roots were not deep, they
dried up. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the
plants. 8 But others fell into rich soil and produced grain, a hundred or sixty
or thirty times as much as had been sown. 9 Those who have ears, let them
hear!"
This same parable is found in Mark 4 and Luke 8, and they are nearly identical.
In fact, whatever minor differences might be found between them all can surely
be accounted for by the editing that naturally happens over time by interpreters
and language translators.
We always need to pay attention to the numbers involved in a Bible story. While it
is not so in every single case, in the vast majority of cases the numbers used are
important to the meaning. Here the number 4 is prominent (4 kinds of soil). Why?
Is Jesus trying to say that there are exactly 4 types of soil, ground, that the seed
could fall upon? No; it is because the number 4 in Hebrew gematria represents
the 4 corners of the earth in the same way there are 4 compass directions. Thus
the use of 4 cases indicates that the point of the parable applies universally
throughout the earth, no matter where and no matter who.
The other point to notice is that it is the same seed coming from the same sower.
This further advances the reality that the differences of reaction and response are
the result not of the farmer or the seed, but rather of the soil it falls upon.
After telling the parable, Christ tells His disciples how to understand it. This
happens in verses 18-23, which we'll get to in the next lesson. However I want
to take a moment to speak to you about the last few words of the parable that
are: "those who have ears, let them hear." This is a Jewish saying that Yeshua
uses several times. The Jewish people He is speaking to know exactly what He
means. It is used occasionally as a way to highlight an especially important
teaching. We must never, in such context, think of the terms hear and listen as
synonymous. Listening is a passive activity. We take in sounds through our ear
organs that are converted into electrical impulses that stimulates our brains. But
the concept of hearing comes from the Hebrew word shema, which means to act
upon what is heard. That is, listening that produces an active response.
Therefore in Hebrew expression a person who has ears is one who not only
listens to instructions, but acts upon them.
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
Another possible element of this parable ought not to be overlooked. I think it is
connected to Isaiah chapter 53; one of the most amazing and dramatic
prophecies in the Bible. We'll not read the entire chapter but I do want to quote to
you a few verses. The context of this chapter of Isaiah revolves around the
Suffering Servant, which has turned out to be Messiah Yeshua. I'm going to
quote from the KJV because in this instance it offers a more literal translation of
the Hebrew than the CJB; and this literalness is important to understanding its
meaning and affect.
KJV Isaiah 53:7-10 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened
not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken
from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for
he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my
people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with
the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any
deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see
his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall
prosper in his hand.
In Isaiah 53 verse 10, the Hebrew word zera is used. In a literal English
translation it is seed. Zera is used in a number of ways in the Bible from meaning
seeds like are planted in the ground that grows in to plants, or it is meant as
one's offspring (children). The term is regularly used metaphorically, and in a
spiritual sense. So for instance, in Isaiah 53 we have the Suffering Servant being
tortured and killed, placed into a grave, and yet the prophecy is that he will also
see his "seed"; his offspring. If this was meant as something that takes place
purely in human terms in the physical dimension, then we'd have a conflict at
best, or something nonsensical at worst. How can a dead person see his
offspring (his children), meaning that he will be with them? But as prophecies
often do, the physical realm is mixed with the spiritual realm, and sometimes only
the passage of time and the fulfillment of the prophecy reveals which part of the
mix was physical and which part was spiritual. So in Isaiah 53 the seed of the
Suffering Servant is more spiritual than physical, and yet the spiritual manifests
itself among and within physical human beings. Thus it is not that the Suffering
Servant was married to a woman in the human manner of marriage and
produced physical offspring. Rather his seed that he will "see" represents those
humans that are connected to Him, spiritually, because of trust in His act of self
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Lesson 47 - Matthew 13
sacrifice as a sin offering. The seed of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 in the
Old Testament turns out to be countless members of the Kingdom of Heaven (in
the New Testament) that are made members by their trust in Yeshua as their
crucified Savior; the One who atones as a sin offering for our sins.
So here is the connection to the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. The Sower
(or farmer) is God's agent, Yeshua. The seed is the Word of God, the truth, that
falls on all humans alike, but it receives different responses. The soil that reacts
to the seed in the proper way becomes members of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Thus the seed of God (His Word) produces the seed of the Suffering Servant
both spiritually and physically.
Next time we'll begin with Christ's disciples' strange question to their Master, and
His response to it.
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 48, Chapter 13 Continued
We began last week's lesson with a somewhat long dissertation about the true
nature of parables because in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13 is where Christ's
use of parables begins in earnest. I'll briefly review.
One of the most important elements of parables is that they belong only to the
Jewish world. That is, parables are a product of Jewish culture, even though
literature of similar nature (but not the same) occurred sparingly in other cultures
as well. What separates true parables from all others is the inclusion of God.
God's will and God's nature and His character are at the center of parables.
Another important element is that although the oldest manuscripts of the New
Testament (where parables appear) are in the Greek language, nonetheless all
parables were originally constructed in Hebrew, reflecting their thoroughly Jewish
origin. Thus as I have demonstrated on numerous occasions, translations from
Hebrew to Greek can, at times, distort what was intended in the original. And yet
another translation from Greek to English (or other languages) adds another
layer of difficulty that can further obscure the intended meaning of a passage.
This reality creates a particular conundrum when dealing with parables.
Another important element of parables is that they have one, and only one, aim
or moral. That is, parables are not like allegory, which gives the interpreter a wide
range of possible meanings, all of which may be considered as equally worthy
and valid. Due to the use of allegorical Bible interpretation within Christianity,
going back as far as the 4
th or 5
th centuries, and having become the main form of
interpretation and preaching of the Bible in the 21st century, then of course
Yeshua's parables get lumped in with this allegorical method and so are
automatically subjected to the possibility of having their original, intended
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
meaning blocked from view.
Approaching Jesus's parables as though they are Jewish allegory also comes
from the academic mindset that the Greek word for parables, which is paraboles,
and the Hebrew word that it is translating, which is mashal, means riddles.
While there is a kernel of historical truth to this claim, in fact it overlooks that over
time the meaning of mashal evolved (as do words and their meanings in all
languages). In Old Testament times one of the several meanings of mashal was
indeed "riddle". And the meaning of riddle is a short story that has a hidden or
mysterious meaning. But that had changed by Yeshua's day such
that mashal mostly meant parable in the Jewish sense of it. In Jewish culture, as
evidenced by the hundreds of rabbinical parables from the 1
st through
5
th centuries that can be examined in detail, parable in no way meant short story
with a hidden or mysterious meaning. Quite the opposite. A parable was meant to
explain; it was a relatively simple way to reduce a complex issue to something
understandable, and to get across a single point to a common Jewish person.
But because so many popular Bible scholars dismiss the Hebrew and Jewish
nature of the Bible, and don't want to acknowledge the 100% Jewish nature of
Jesus, they have little interest in 1
st century Jewish society, and even less
knowledge of Hebrew or rabbinical culture. Therefore their nearly universal
mantra is that parables are essentially riddles with nearly unlimited solutions;
they are anything but.
Before we move on, perhaps the most important element of Christ's parables for
us to apprehend is that they are meant to illustrate the nature and character of
God. They are intended to help us all to understand what God is like. In biblical
New Testament context, parables were an attempt by Jewish teachers and
rabbis to help everyday Jews understand what our super-natural God is like by
painting word pictures using the natural things that surrounded them to make a
comparison. Jesus once went so far as to say:
CJB John 14:9 Yeshua replied to him, "Have I been with you so long without
your knowing me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; so
how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
While this statement is not a parable, it is certainly aiming for the same goal: to
explain what God is like. It is Yeshua trying to help Philip get a better mental
picture of God the Father by comparing Him to something tangible in nature;
something that Philip can see and touch... the person of Yeshua.
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
The first parable we encounter (which is most popularly known as the Parable of
the Sower) begins in Matthew 13:3. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 13:1 - 17
Because of the non-Jewish, allegorical worldview of Christian Bible
commentators and teachers, this parable is usually called the Parable of the
Sower. In fact the more appropriate title should be something like the Parable of
the Soils, or perhaps the Parable of the Hearers. This is because the focus of this
parable is not at all on the Sower; not even on the seed per se. Rather the
parable's focus is on the 4 types of soil...the hearers... and thus 4 different cases
of the soil's reaction, response, and interaction with the seed that is spread upon
it.
After finishing the parable, in verse 10 the disciples say to Yeshua: "Why are you
speaking to them in parables?" Yeshua answers their question in verse 11 with:
"Because it has been given to you to know the secrets of the Kingdom of
Heaven, but it has not been given to them." He says more but I want to deal with
only these 2 verses for the moment.
If a person has the mindset that a parable is a riddle with a hidden meaning, then
verses 10 and 11 sure makes it sound as though they are correct. But as I have
demonstrated to you, that mindset does not represent the Jewish mindset of the
1st century, and therefore not Christ's mindset, and so this does not at all mean
that what He has said to the crowd is a cruel riddle that the common folk cannot
possibly fathom. So what does Christ mean by His response to the disciples'
question of Him when He says that the secrets of Heaven are for them, but not
for the others in the crowd? Let's work our way through this by beginning with the
logical: why on earth would Jesus tell the crowd this parable if His intent was that
they wouldn't understand its meaning? Was it to tease them? Was it to make
them feel bad for their ignorance? Was it to sort of punish them? Was it to make
them look in awe at Him, thinking that only He knows the meaning of this
fascinating short story?
And if He told this parable for none of these reasons (as I claim) then what does
Christ mean that His disciples are meant to know the meaning of the parable, but
the crowds aren't? So the first question we must ask ourselves is: what's the
difference between Yeshua's disciples and the crowd? It is only that the disciples
believe and trust in Christ (not as Savior, yet, but as a messenger from God that
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
brings with Him the Kingdom of God). In contrast, the crowds don't believe any of
this. Believing surely must have entailed repentance of sins; something that was
at the core of Yeshua's purpose and intent, but it was not what the crowds did
(thus we read of Christ's disappointment in their general response to Him).
Therefore, by trusting in Him Yeshua's disciples became equipped to penetrate
the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but the others who are not His disciples
could not. Still, since the crowds are not able to comprehend the deeper things,
Yeshua isn't going to abandon them. Rather, He will teach them using simple
parables, which are meant for those with lesser ability to understand due to their
lack of trust in Him.
Remember: parables are neither mysterious riddles nor direct exegetical Torah
teaching. They are word pictures to help the common man understand what God
is like, and also what His Kingdom is like. Most of the crowd listening to Jesus
would have understood the effects of some seed falling upon the various kind of
ground. Simple.
In verse 12 Yeshua continues explaining to His disciples His reason for speaking
to the crowds in parables. He puts it in terms of a proverb. It is that anyone who
has something will be given more until that person has plenty; but for someone
who has nothing, even that will be taken away from him. Mysterious? Hardly. Any
common Jew living in that era would understand. This is an illustration based on
what everyone observed and lived out. In the P'shat sense a person who has
something (meaning, a well-off person) will of course use his resources to
acquire more. But a person who has nothing (a poor person) has no means to
acquire more. So those who have nothing are vulnerable to have what little they
do possess taken from them. It works similarly in the spiritual sense. In
the Remez sense having a goodly amount of trust in God opens the door for
even more trust. Having a deficit of trust in God likely means that whatever little
trust you have will eventually evaporate and you'll have none.
It is the natural state of human beings to have no knowledge of the spirit world, or
of what God is like, and especially not of what is coming to the world in the
future... the End Times. In the current context, typical humans (Jews for the time
being) have no means to understand, or to even know about the existence of, the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The only way ever for a human to know the divine
truth is when it is a gift from God. While this gift is freely given, that doesn't mean
it comes without preconditions. And the precondition is that one is to trust in God
and His Son, Yeshua. How does this happen? One must seek God, hear the
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
message (the seed) from a messenger (the sower) of the Good News, and then
act upon it. There is no other way.
To help you visualize this point I want to tell you a story about my wife, Becky's,
father who is long ago deceased. One time we were visiting him in West Virginia
and staying in his home. We happily noticed a Bible sitting on the end table, but
also knew through his son who lived just down the road that he hadn't been to a
Church for so long that no one in the family ever recalled when he might have.
Becky's father was an intelligent, well educated man. He was a college graduate
and retired as a school teacher. When she asked her father about the Bible, he
said he had tried reading it more times than he could count, but it frustrated him
because he couldn't make sense of it. It was like gobbledy-*. He of course
could read the words, but their meaning so eluded him that he would just give
up.
Some years later, just weeks before he passed away... sensing, I think, that his
time was very near... he went with his son to the family church, went forward,
confessed his sin and his condition before God, and was saved. We heard of it,
and a couple of weeks later made a trip there to speak with him and, I suppose,
see for ourselves. He seemed like a different man. But what was really amazing
was that we looked and saw that same Bible on the end table, and when I asked
him about it, he said that he reads it daily because suddenly those words made
sense to him and he understood.
I have read the works of more than a few Bible commentators who didn't believe
in God or the spiritual realm (as strange as that may seem, it isn't all that unusual
any longer). They approached the Bible mostly intellectually, often from a
language translation viewpoint, trying to get the words exactly right, and then
would offer their conclusions. Often I was stunned at how these brilliant scholars
could uncover a better understanding of a word or phrase but get the meaning of
it so wrong. The reason for this irony is best summed up in what Jesus said to
His disciples: "It has been given to you to know the secrets of the Kingdom of
Heaven, but it has not been given to them". Davies and Allison in their
commentary on Matthew put it this way regarding what Yeshua said verse 12:
"Knowledge is rewarded by knowledge. Ignorance is rewarded by ignorance....
Like begets like." If you don't worship the God of the Bible, you have no chance
of obtaining the meaning of the Holy Scriptures because God won't gift you with
the ability. And since Christ's advent (when the Kingdom of Heaven arrived)
unless you trust in His Son, Yeshua, you have no chance of obtaining the
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven and what lay ahead in the future.
Further, as those of you who are studying with Torah Class know, trusting Christ
enables you... even encourages you.... to learn and understand the deeper
mysteries of the Kingdom and to prepare for the things that are coming; whereas
those who don't trust Him may listen, but they hear only nonsense. And even
more in tune with the context of Matthew 13, when you believe and follow
manmade doctrine or tradition as though it was God's Word (which the Pharisees
do), you, too, will not be able to comprehend the truth about the Kingdom and
what is coming (even though you think you might). This is more than sad; it is
dangerous to your spiritual health and to your eternal future.
In verse 13 Yeshua offers yet another reason for why He speaks in parables to
the Jewish crowds that don't trust in Him. He paraphrases Isaiah 6:9 when He
says: "They look without seeing, and listen without hearing or understanding."
Then continues by saying that these unbelieving crowds are a fulfillment of Isaiah
6; specifically verses 9 and 10. Here is how it is worded from Isaiah's Old
Testament prophecy.
CJB Isaiah 6:9-10 9 He said, "Go and tell this people: 'Yes, you hear, but you
don't understand. You certainly see, but you don't get the point!' 10 "Make
the heart of this people [sluggish with] fat, stop up their ears, and shut their
eyes. Otherwise, seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, then
understanding with their hearts, they might repent and be healed!"
What we read in Isaiah seems to say something like: "Because your eyes are
shut and your ears are stopped up (at your own willful choice) than I (God) am
going to punish you by making sure it stays that way so that you never repent
and therefore you will never come to understand". But that isn't what Christ
seems to be saying. In His loose quote of Isaiah, He seems to be saying that
because the people are willfully blind and deaf, then the repenting they ought to
do naturally doesn't happen. In other words, the way Isaiah 6 says it, it is God
intervening to prevent those Jews who have chosen to be deaf and blind to the
divine truth from ever repenting and thus finding the truth; versus Christ making it
that it is those Jews who are deaf and blind to divine truth that are doing it to
themselves; but if they choose to stop being deaf and blind then they can repent
and be made whole. And when made whole they'll finally be able to grasp the
mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven and the future times.
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
But, says Yeshua in verse 16, you (the disciples) are different than them. You are
blessed with open eyes and open ears. And even more the disciples "hear". That
is, they shema... they heard and then they acted upon the knowledge given to
them as a gift from God as a result of becoming followers of Christ. The disciples
are therefore given to see the coming to fruition (before their own eyes) what the
Prophets prophesied so long ago, but were never privileged to see it come about.
And even more He says they are learning about End Times things that their eyes
may never behold. I also want to highlight that it is because the Kingdom of
Heaven has arrived (with Yeshua as the center of that arrival) that suddenly
things about the future...the End Times... can be known. That is why, as
Believers and therefore members of the Kingdom of Heaven in the 21st century,
we have the opportunity to know quite a lot about the End Times. Remember: but
for a precious few, the Jewish people to this day still don't understand that the
Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. For them the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven
is marked by the entrance into a golden age for a revived Israel. It is a physical
phenomenon marked by the surfacing of a warrior-leader like David as the
Messiah, that leads Israel through military action to become a widespread and
powerful kingdom that is the envy of the world.
Evidence of this important understanding that we will NOT have the correct
knowledge of God's Kingdom unless He gifts it to us, and this by means of
trusting His Son AND then diligent pursuit of this knowledge, is fundamental to
the thoughts of later Apostles and writers, which forms the New Testament.
Further, just as the 1st century Believers would learn about future things, but
would never live to see most of them, so it was and will be for all us except for
the final generation.
CJB 1 Pet. 1:10-13 10 The prophets, who prophesied about this gift of
deliverance that was meant for you, pondered and inquired diligently about
it. 11 They were trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the
Spirit of the Messiah in them was referring in predicting the Messiah's
sufferings and the glorious things to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that
their service when they spoke about these things was not for their own
benefit, but for yours. And these same things have now been proclaimed to
you by those who communicated the Good News to you through the Ruach
HaKodesh sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these
things! 13 Therefore, get your minds ready for work, keep yourselves under
control, and fix your hopes fully on the gift you will receive when Yeshua
the Messiah is revealed.
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
CJB Hebrews 11:12-13 12 Therefore this one man, who was virtually dead,
fathered descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as
countless as the grains of the sand on the seashore. 13 All these people
kept on trusting until they died, without receiving what had been promised.
They had only seen it and welcomed it from a distance, while
acknowledging that they were aliens and temporary residents on the earth.
After saying all these things, Yeshua now says to His disciples that He is going to
explain this parable to them. Let's re-read His explanation.
RE-READ MATTHEW 13:18-23
So, says Yeshua, the seed in the parable is like the Word of God; specifically the
seed is the message about the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. The 4 types of
soil represent 4 types of hearers; that is 4 different reactions and responses to
folks hearing the Word of God about the Kingdom. The first is like the soil of a
pathway... a road. The seed never takes root; it just lays there on the hard
surface, unable to take root, and therefore allowing Satan to come along, scoop it
up, and take it away. Paths and roads in Yeshua's day were salted in order to kill
vegetation and keep the path clear for easier traveling. So the seed that falls onto
the ears of a hearer whose mind is hard packed and poisoned like a pathway, is
DOA (Dead on Arrival). This kind of hearer is not in the least open to hearing
God's Word and so should he happen to hear it, it's possible affect is immediately
stifled and taken away by Satan.
The next type of hearer is compared to rocky soil. The seed falls onto rocky soil.
While there is just enough nutrients and softness of the soil for the seed to send
out its roots, alas the soil is more rock than earth. So at first things look good; it
looks like God's Word has been accepted and has a home. But quickly the rocks
overwhelm the good soil, and the seedling dies. Thus this represents the person
who hears God Word of truth and immediately goes bananas! They run to the
Christian store, and buy one of everything. They even buy not one but three
Bibles. They purchase a fish symbol decal and stick it on their car bumper. They
say "God Bless You" to everybody. They get on the phone and dial everyone
they know about how they just got saved and what a different person they are
now...all this in only a matter of hours... and how wonderful it is and how they
need to drop what they're doing and do the same as he or she did. They go to
Church every time the doors are opened, and volunteer for everything. Then just
as suddenly, by the time the credit card bill arrives, they revert. Turns out their
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
enthusiastic response was mostly a huge emotional experience; and we all know
how emotions work (here now, gone in 60 seconds). So the minute that it turns
out that Salvation doesn't include having all your problems immediately solved,
the emotion turns from joy to disappointment and the person walks away from
what they so strongly professed...for a brief time... they believed.
The third case is that of the hearer that is like soil infested with weeds and thorns.
The seed falls on the ground that is actually pretty rich in nutrients, so much so
that the weeds thrive, too. The seed sends out roots, it begins to grow at a good
rate, but then as the plant gets bigger it starts to come into competition with the
weeds. This stunts its growth and so the plant never matures to bear the good
fruit it was supposed to. In fact, the plant actually takes on some of the
characteristics of the weeds; but the weeds never take on any of the
characteristics of the plant. So this is the case of a person who accepts God's
Word, and starts to grow in it. Slowly and certainly they begin to understand that
their former ways were antithetical to God's ways. But, because this person
continues to hang around the weeds... the things of this world that corrupt, and
the people of this world that mock and deny God... they turn around and begin to
look a lot like those weeds. Likely this transformation is (at first) almost
imperceptible; a sort of frog in the kettle experience. People like this only
occasionally recognize or admit they've gone off the spiritual rails and are
headed for a crack-up. They have just enough knowledge of God and His Word
to be dangerous... to themselves. They typically find ways to rationalize their
wrong behaviors and beliefs with profound words like: "Well, what is sin for you
isn't necessarily sin for me." Or, "I only do what the Holy Spirit says and He
hasn't told me to stop doing such and such." In the end, this person produces
nothing of value to the Kingdom and is back to square one.
James (Jacob actually), Jesus's biological brother, addressed just such a case.
CJB James 5:19-20 19 My brothers, if one of you wanders from the truth, and
someone causes him to return, 20 you should know that whoever turns a
sinner from his wandering path will save him from death and cover many
sins.
The final case, the fourth, is of the hearer compared to a seed that falls on fertile
ground. The seed sends out roots, it grows, the soil and the rains nourish it, and
it blossoms into a wonderful healthy plant. This is the situation whereby we have
a sincere hearer of the Word who, upon hearing and believing, repents and
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
changes their mind and ways. They understand the critical importance of the
message of arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. They embrace the seed and are
never the same again. This person multiplies what they have been given (100,
60, or 30 fold). And in fact that is the job of every Believer. We aren't supposed to
get saved and then settle in for the big sleep. We are to multiply and be fruitful for
the Kingdom. That is, we are to become workers for the Kingdom and become
the sowers of the seed for the next fertile field we encounter.
The message of this parable then is only one thing: it is that what happens to the
message of Good News entirely depends upon the soil it lands on. It explains
why such a wonderful divine message falls on deaf ears, and never thrives, more
often than not. The reason is that people, like the 4 kinds of soil, are not all the
same. Every hearer will not respond in the same way, or at all, to God's
message. It is not the fault of the sower or of the seed as to which kind of soil the
message falls upon nor what happens to the seed once it is sown. It is entirely up
to the soil... the individual hearer... about what happens next.
The crowd that Yeshua spoke to would have understood the parable because
they thoroughly understood the agricultural relationship of soil to seed. That is, it
is the condition of the soil that will dictate the amount of produce and the
abundance of a harvest. So why did Yeshua take the time to explain it in such
detail to His disciples? Because he told them more than only the parable.
Remember that this is a disappointed and probably tired Jesus preaching this
parable; a one-of-a-kind Tzadik who laments that as hard as He's worked to give
people miracle after miracle, as well as His profound message of deliverance and
a good future, that only a few seem to have responded the way He would have
hoped. At the same time, in His divine wisdom He knows the reality of fallen
humanity. He knows that His disciples who are tasked with bringing this same
message to the masses will also not have broad success. They too will suffer
slander and disappointment, maybe even self doubt, when their enthusiasm for
God and His Kingdom is not shared by as many as they hoped. Yeshua was
using this parable to prepare His disciples and to let them know that the relatively
few in number who will accept the message won't be their fault. And at the same
time he's letting those who form the crowd, and those Jewish religious authorities
who lead the crowd, know that the blame for their ignorance of the Kingdom of
Heaven falls squarely upon them if they refuse the message (something that
Isaiah's prophecies focused on).
As His followers, today, we need to always keep in mind that we are only the
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
couriers. It's not our message we carry; it's God's. Further, we can't make the
soil, the hearer, that our message falls upon behave or respond in any particular
way. Yet, we are to faithfully continue to sow the seed upon every type of soil.
And for those of you who are Seekers, and not yet Believers, understand that this
parable is primarily a message to you: you are the soil. God will not blame the
sower or the seed should you reject the message; He will blame you, and it will
be upon your head alone that the consequences will fall.
Yeshua now tells the crowd another parable. Open your Bibles again to Matthew
13.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 13:24 - 30
Notice how once again the background of this parable is agriculture based and
again is about sowing seed. Jesus always considers His audience when He
speaks to people. In this case His audience remains as Galileans; country folk.
Yeshua begins by using a standard formula for a parable: The Kingdom of
Heaven can be compared to (is like) a man who sowed good seed in his field.
Many of His parables are specifically to give His listeners a handle on what the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth is like. This is important because the standard, knee␂* understanding of a kingdom naturally is about something tangible. That is, a
visible kingdom, on visible land, led by a visible king. But the Kingdom of Heaven,
while having similarities to a typical earthly kingdom, is fundamentally
different...at least during the current age. The Kingdom of Heaven is spiritual, yet
it lives unseen within its members.
The Parable of the Tares (the weeds) is similar to the previous parable but it
addresses a different subject: evil and its prince, Satan. Before we address the
parable in detail, we first need to grasp that for now, in a sense, the earth is
Satan's Kingdom. Naturally God is the ruler above all, including Satan, and Satan
has boundaries and limits set by the Father. This issue is not at all agreed upon
within the Church. However taking God at His Word, the matter is rather clear. It
is only manmade doctrine that muddies the waters.
Isaiah gives us a comprehensive account of Satan's fall and what his desires
are.
CJB Isaiah 14:12-14 12 "How did you come to fall from the heavens, morning
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
star, son of the dawn? How did you come to be cut to the ground,
conqueror of nations? 13 You thought to yourself, 'I will scale the heavens, I
will raise my throne above God's stars. I will sit on the Mount of Assembly
far away in the north. 14 1 will rise past the tops of the clouds, I will make
myself like the Most High.'
In the New Testament Yeshua explains something so very important for us to
apprehend.
CJBJohn 12:31 31 Now is the time for this world to be judged, now the ruler
of this world will be expelled.
No lesser authority than the Son of God says that Satan has been the ruler of this
world (the earth). However, a process has begun to change that; it began when
Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven arrived, and it accelerated at the Cross. Just
as the Kingdom of Heaven comes about as a long process (and we are currently
2000 years along in the process), so is the expulsion of Satan as the prince (the
ruler) of this world well along in its process. The end of our current age is the final
moment of transition from the earth being Satan's Kingdom to fully becoming
God's Kingdom.
Paul acknowledges the reality of Satan's evil control over this world.
CJB Ephesians 2:1 You used to be dead because of your sins and acts of
disobedience. 2 You walked in the ways of the 'olam hazeh (this present
world) and obeyed the Ruler of the Powers of the Air, who is still at work
among the disobedient.
CJB 2 Corinthians 4:4 4 They do not come to trust because the god of the
'olam hazeh (this present world) has blinded their minds, in order to
prevent them from seeing the light shining from the Good News about the
glory of the Messiah, who is the image of God.
The Apostle John joins with Paul in saying the same thing about Satan.
CJB1 John 5:19 19 l/l/e know that we are from God, and that the whole world
lies in the power of the Evil One.
The final nail in Satan's coffin happens at the final judgment. His Kingdom comes
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Lesson 48 - Matthew 13 cont
crashing down in a grand finale that we call the Apocalypse. The problem is that
he is very active right now, and Satan is still recruiting members to his kingdom
(quite successfully I might add), and this is front and center in Christ's Parable of
the Tares.
So what's the difference between the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of
the Tares? It is that Yeshua explains in the Sower parable that it is each
individual's responsibility as a hearer to choose good over evil. But in the Tares'
parable, Satan is the real spoiler. Satan shares in the responsibility for potential
followers of Christ to be disenfranchised from the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore
just as Satan shall be destroyed in the End, so along with him will be those who
choose him over God, even if it is unwittingly.
We'll return to this parable next time.
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 49, Chapter 13 Continued 2
Do you want to understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? Assuming you
are Believers in the God of Israel and His Son, Yeshua, then little is more
important in our faith journey than to pursue this understanding. In Matthew
chapter 13 we are in the midst of several parables whose purpose it is to help
those listening to Yeshua to comprehend exactly that. I suppose a reasonable
question to ask might be: why was this even necessary? Why wouldn't have the
Jewish people already had a knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven? After all, this
concept was woven all throughout the ancient Hebrew faith in the Torah, the
Prophets, the Psalms, and of the Old Testament in general. Even the Son of Man
concept... with the Son of Man (Jesus) being the ruler over the Kingdom Heaven
on earth... goes back to times before Daniel (Psalm 8 for example).
Therefore, just like for those 1
st century Jews, if we are to fathom the Kingdom of
Heaven, we must first understand its history. I spoke to you last week about a
premise of the Kingdom of Heaven that may have caught some of you off guard.
It is that essentially since the fall from grace of Adam and Eve, planet Earth
became Satan's Kingdom. I gave you a handful of Bible verses to back up that
premise. Therefore, when the Kingdom of Heaven was inaugurated on Earth
upon the work of John the Baptist and upon Christ beginning His short 3 year
ministry, it was a Heavenly Kingdom that was born within a Kingdom of evil that
had existed for a very long time. I'll put it another way: the banner of the Kingdom
of Heaven was planted within the well guarded territory of the Kingdom of Satan.
For the sake of simplicity we could say that prior to the fall of Adam and Eve the
earth was indeed part of the Kingdom of Heaven. God had even established a
space to dwell for Himself called the Garden of Eden. The Fall interrupted the
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
immeasurable blessing and shalom that God had bestowed upon the Earth (and
all the Universe for that matter), and as a consequence essentially God and the
Kingdom of Heaven withdrew from the physical Earth and would exist ONLY in
the spiritual Heaven. That is, God had His original creative purposes for earth put
on hold when, as a result of Satan's deception, the first couple put their trust in
Satan rather than in their Creator. To say it more plainly: from Adam's fall until
Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven existed only in Heaven. When it returned, it would
begin again in a most inconspicuous way. Thus one of Christ's most used
illustrations and metaphors appropriately revolves around the word "seed". That
is, the Kingdom of Heaven was re-planted on earth as but a small seed in a vast
foreign field possessed by the opposition.
Let me be clear by saying that it is not that God ceased being the ultimate ruler
over His Creation for a time. God has been ultimately sovereign throughout all
the ages. He only ceded rulership over this planet to Satan, to an extent, and for
a time, as He carries out a plan to redeem it... and us. That plan is Jesus Christ;
Yeshua HaMashiach.
Since up to the time of Yeshua the Kingdom of Heaven had not been present on
Planet Earth, the Jewish people... all humanity... needed to understand what it is.
And the first thing to understand is that it is the physical shadow of the spiritual
Heaven. In the Old Testament the concept of kings and kingdoms are central;
especially the kings and kingdom of Israel. With the gentile kings and kingdoms,
we get a pattern of what Satan's kingdom is like. With the Hebrew kings and
kingdoms we get a rough conceptual idea of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
However, since all kings and their kingdoms are far from pure or entirely upright,
then they are full of flaws that won't exist when the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth
has matured into its final form. Thus the comparison between earthly kings and
kingdoms (both gentile and Hebrew), and the Kingdom of Heaven, can only be
taken so far. How does someone communicate this difference? The perfect
means for Jesus to tell people about the Kingdom of Heaven is in parables,
which are by their nature structured for the purpose of making comparisons using
short stories; each parable with a single moral or point to be made.
It is with this critical understanding that from Yeshua's perspective He is the
divine invader of an evil kingdom (Satan's Kingdom... planet Earth) that we must
approach all of our understanding about the meaning of His parables. It also puts
us on notice that while in no way are His parables intended as fables,
unfathomable mysteries or even simple riddles, their deeper meaning could, and
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
apparently usually did, escape His listeners including, at times, His own disciples.
Why? Because the parables were about something (the Kingdom of Heaven) that
the Jewish people were generally ignorant of; it was not something they could
see or touch. While there were some similarities between earthly kingdoms and
God's Kingdom, there were more and greater dissimilarities. So the 1
st century
folks should not think that God's Kingdom would eventually look just like the
common earthly kingdoms nor would its growth and aim occur in the manner of
earthly kings. In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven represented a new
dynamic that was, and remains, most difficult for humans to comprehend.
Having begun His teaching at the Lake that particular Shabbat with the Parable
of the 4 Soils, Christ (after explaining its deeper meaning to His disciples) then
quickly moved on in verse 24 to yet another parable about the Kingdom of
Heaven (He will, in a few verses, also explain this parable). This next parable, the
Parables of the Tares (or Weeds), adds another element to aid in understanding
the nature of God's Kingdom. Let's reread some of Matthew 13.
RE-READ MATTHEW 13:24 - 43
So to review: the first thing Yeshua taught about the Kingdom of Heaven (in the
Parable of the 4 Soils) is that the benefits of it, and membership to it, all depend
upon the hearer of the message of its arrival. There are different types of hearers
(people) who respond to the message of the Kingdom's advent differently. In
Christ's parable only 1 of the 4 types of hearers responds successfully enough to
become a member of the Kingdom; the one that is good, fertile soil. That is, the
one who understands the message, acts upon it, and produces good fruit.
So with the Parable of the Tares, another element of understanding the Kingdom
of Heaven is given. Then follows two more short parables in quick succession,
followed by the disciples asking Jesus to explain the Parable of the Tares. I can
only speculate that since they didn't inquire about the Parable the Mustard Seed
or the Parable of the Leaven that the disciples must have understood them. So
let's then, for the moment, jump to verse 36 and examine Yeshua's explanation
of the Tares Parable before we look at the 2 parables that follow it.
He begins by saying that the one who sows the good seed in the field is the Son
of Man. Here is yet another time that Son of Man can only refer to a specific and
unique person, and not just mean "human being" in a generic sense. Clearly it is
referring to Daniel 7's divine Son of Man, so once more Christ is pronouncing His
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
divine nature (whether anyone gets it or not). Notice that Yeshua has not only
separated Himself from the crowds, He has also moved into a house (probably
the one in which He has been residing in Capernaum), because He wants
privacy with His disciples. Notice as well the thing that the disciples focused upon
in this parable. Matthew has them saying "Explain to us the Parable of the Weeds
(Tares)" That is, in their description of it they saw this parable as mainly about the
weeds and not the sower, the good seed, or anything else. So the disciples
immediately see this parable as not about the righteous but rather the wicked and
what happens to them. And so it follows that as Yeshua says the Son of Man is
the sower of the seeds, it is also He who will be the judge of those that are
deemed wicked.
The field that the seeds are sown in is the world, which means the entire earth.
Sometimes in the Bible the term "world" can refer only to gentiles, or to a general
anti-God attitude of people. In this case it more means something like "the seeds
are sown into the entire population of the Earth (the Holy Land included)". The
good seed are the members of the Kingdom of Heaven, while the weeds are the
members of the Kingdom of Satan. Therefore the one who sows the weeds into
the field (the world) is Satan. When the time comes for a collective harvest of the
field, says Yeshua, it will be at the end of the age. That is, the end of the present
age... the one they and we, today are still living in... or in Hebrew terms, it is the
end of the 01am Hazeh. To be clear, what He means by that is that the harvest
of this field (both those who are evil and those who are righteous) is the
terminating act that marks the end of human history as we know it. Those who
perform the harvest will be Heaven's angels.
So Yeshua continues on by further illustrating that just as weeds are collected
and burned up with fire (destroyed) during the harvest process, so it will be for
weed-people (those who are not deemed members of the Kingdom of Heaven).
They will be harvested by God's angels and destroyed. He continues with more
explanation by saying that it is He (the Son of Man) who will order the angels to
begin the harvest of the weeds and all things (in general) that are evil... those
things that result in humans choosing to sin. He adds to this something that I
think the CJB has said exactly as Matthew meant it: "and all the people who are
far from Torah". Pay attention to this! That is, among those deemed wicked will
be those who have purposely distanced themselves from God's biblical Torah.
The KJV says it this way: "All those who do iniquity". The NAB says: "And all evil
doers". A number of other versions say: "those who commit lawlessness". Let's
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
pause right here. For those who have followed Torah Class for a while, this might
be a familiar subject. For others it might be new; nonetheless it is worth the re␂telling. I'll begin with the crux of the matter: what is lawlessness? Does this
mean being a criminal within one's society (breaking the local law code)? If so,
does this mean violating the laws of any nation one may live in, no matter what
the law states? Are we to assume that all laws in all societies are seen by God
as righteous? The Greek word being translated as lawless is anomia. It means
"without law". It is self-evident that Christ cannot possibly be referring to breaking
the law of any law code on earth (the Roman law code for instance, as in His
day), because the world is full of immoral laws that differ from nation to nation.
Thus lawlessness can only refer to the law code that mattered to Jews,
universally: the one God gave to them. The Law of Moses. Or as Yeshua
sometimes calls it, The Torah and The Prophets.
God is not going to send someone to eternal destruction because they did 45 in a
35 mph zone. He is also not going to send anyone to destruction because the
local law requires one to bow down and worship the local deity (a common law in
that era and today with secularism, it demands the worship of no god at all). It is
common in America for laws that don't allow prayer in school; but your child prays
anyway. Does this quality your child as "lawless"? Of course not. This is
something highlighted back in chapter 7 when Jesus said that not everyone who
calls on His Name will He recognize as being saved. Rather He will tell many to
"get away from me you workers of lawlessness". That is, you who slander or
separate yourselves from the Law of Moses (the Torah) will not be considered
members of Christ's Kingdom. These are the weeds, the tares, of the parable
who are gathered up and destroyed at the end of the present age. Let those with
ears, hear.
Moving on to Matthew 13 verse 42 Yeshua says that they (those excluded from
the Kingdom of Heaven) will be thrown into the fiery furnace. Fiery furnace,
Gehenna, Lake of Fire, etc. are all terms meant to illustrate the total destruction
that those who aren't saved will face. But even more, these particular terms are
chosen to describe the hottest of fires known to people at that time. These fires
are not like a cooking fire; not even like the fire of the Temple Altar. The terrible
heat of a fiery furnace is meant to indicate the fury and vehemence of God's
wrath upon all the evil doers. There will be no humane executions. This is why it
is said that there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. This expression means
extreme pain and mourning that cannot be comforted. Only once this extinction
level event of the wicked occurs, will finally the victory of the overcomers in Christ
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
become clear.
CJB Matthew 13:43 43 Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the
Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let him hear!
In modern times the members of the Kingdom of Heaven are usually said to be
the Church. So in the Parable of the Weeds it is common in Christianity to claim
that the seeds equals the Church. In a certain sense this is, I think, correct.
However the issue that we are forced to consider is: "What is the Church?" It is
widely taken for granted that it is widely inclusive of anyone who professes to be
a Christian. It is anyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord. But this notion is
immediately dispelled in Matthew 7:21 - 23. To sort of rationalize this away it is
common especially among Evangelical Christianity to say that those who call on
the Lord's Name in those verses of Matthew 7 (and other verses in the New
Testament) that will be told by Christ "I don't know you" aren't really Believers;
rather they are pretenders. I would say that they are not pretenders because
pretenders are trying to deceive others into believing they are something they're
not. Rather this is referring not to someone who pretends but rather to the
deceived who really do think they are saved in Christ. Or at the least, they think
that they are at peace with God and so can expect a happy life and good eternity.
They trust in some manmade doctrine or another in their denomination that gives
them a false sense of security because this doctrine is a pleasant fiction that is
easily believed.
Thus among the weeds will be those who have convinced themselves they are
saved. They see themselves as part of the Church. But it is a manmade vision of
"The Church" to which they connect, and it is manmade version of "The Church"
that most folks picture when the word is uttered, and not truly of people who
sincerely represent the extension of Yeshua's body and ministry.
Yeshua has not addressed every part of the Parable of the Tares. For instance,
He has not really addressed what He said back in verses 27 - 30.
CJB Matthew 13:27-30 27 The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir
didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come
from?' 28 He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants asked him,
'Then do you want us to go and pull them up?' 29 But he said, 'No, because
if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot some of the wheat at the same
time. 30 Let them both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest-time I
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'"

Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
will tell the reapers to collect the weeds first and tie them in bundles to be
burned, but to gather the wheat into my barn.
Returning to my comments that not everyone who claims to be part of the
Church, and believes they are, actually are. Yeshua puts it in terms of the grain
(that comes from the good seed) becoming entangled with the weeds. The
farmer's servants want to know if they should go out and pull the weeds from the
field since it is known that an evil enemy put them there. The farmer says not to
because when pulling up the weeds, the grain from the good seeds might get
pulled up as well. What happens to the weeds when they're pulled up? They are
burned up with fire. So, the Lord wants no accidental or collateral damage to
even one stalk of grain produced from the good seed. Rather, the farmer says
that he'll be patient and wait until harvest time, and then pull them both up. At
that moment the weeds will be separated away and disposed of; but the grain will
be gathered into the farmer's barn for safekeeping.
This is an important lesson for congregations to apprehend and especially for the
ministers and Rabbis who lead them. Every congregation has its "problem child".
Sometimes the person that is a problem has more to do with quirks and flaws
(even annoyances) that bother people rather than it being an issue of evil or
deception. At other times the person is clearly behaving in ways that God's Word
says he or she shouldn't. Or they disrupt the congregation wanting personal
attention or at other times to be an anti-leader. An anti-leader is a person who
isn't a good enough leader to assemble their own flock so seeks, instead, to take␂over that which another has created and led. Satan is an anti-leader. He didn't
create anything; but He sought to take over that which God has created. Human
anti-leaders are in imitation of Satan even if they don't realize it. It can be a
difficult call for a congregation leader to know when to ask that individual to
leave, and when to just try to figure out how to put up with it. That is: do we as
congregation leaders identify the tares and do the weeding ourselves? Or do we
wait and let the Lord do it... perhaps not even until the harvest: Judgment Day?
In the 7 letters to the Congregations of Revelation chapters 1-3, there are a
couple of congregations that are admonished for allowing a few weeds to
continue to thrive among them instead of the leaders dealing severely with them,
or even pulling them out. One occurs within the congregation of Thyatira.
CJB Revelation 2:18-22 18 "To the angel of the Messianic Community in
Thyatira, write: 'Here is the message from the Son of God, whose eyes are
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
like a fiery flame and whose feet are like burnished brass: 19 1 know what
you are doing, your love, trust, service and perseverance. And I know that
you are doing more now than before. 20 But I have this against you: you
continue to tolerate that Izevel woman, the one who claims to be a prophet,
but is teaching and deceiving my servants to commit sexual sin and eat
food that has been sacrificed to idols. 21 1gave her time to turn from her sin,
but she doesn't want to repent of her immorality. 22 So I am throwing her
into a sickbed; and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into
great trouble, unless they turn from the sins connected with what she
does;
So the issue of the weeds and grain planted in the same field and growing up
together is not an easy one to resolve when it happens. But Jesus makes the
overall meaning of the parable quite straightforward. One way or another, the
weeds, the wicked, the excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven, will be judged and
destroyed.
Let's back up now to verse 31 and discuss the Parable of the Mustard Seed. This
parable has some facets to it that aren't easily recognizable by gentile Christians
and so this complicates the unwinding of its meaning. It begins with the standard
opening for a parable: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like...or, can be compared to...
a mustard seed". A man took this tiny mustard seed and put it in his field. The
gist of the short story is that even though the seed is super tiny, it eventually
grows up into a huge plant, as big as a tree. So big that birds can build nests in it.
What the Jews of Yeshua's day would have focused on is quite different from
what Believers today typically focus in on.
The first thing a Jewish farmer from the 1
st century would ask is: why in the world
would a farmer intentionally put a mustard seed in his field? There's a couple of
reasons this would raise some red flags for Jews. First is this instruction from
Leviticus.
CJB Leviticus 19:19 '"Observe my regulations. "'Don't let your livestock
mate with those of another kind, don't sow your field with two different
kinds of grain, and don't wear a garment of cloth made with two different
kinds of thread.
A second Torah instruction is like it.
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
CJB Deuteronomy 22:9 You are not to sow two kinds of seed between your
rows of vines; if you do, both the two harvested crops and the yield from
the vines must be forfeited.
So clearly it would not be kosher, so to speak, for a farmer to intentionally throw a
mustard seed into his grain field because it violates the Laws of Moses. This
issue of the prohibition of mixed kinds has always played a large role in the
Hebrew religion. The Mishnah has an entire section called Kil'ayim that deals
with illicit mixtures and especially with the planting of seeds of different kinds into
the same space. So in Yeshua's parable the intentional throwing of a mustard
seed into a field that was meant for grain (nobody planted mustard plants in a
field because they were considered as pests) was not something anyone would
normally do.
Further, as verse 32 explains, this tiny, nearly invisible seed ironically grows into
the largest of all herb plants; so large it is tree-like such that birds can land on its
branches and build nests upon it. Christians have always looked at this and said:
"Oh my, this is so wonderful!" But in reality, to the Jewish farmer listening to
Jesus the mustard plant is but an invasive species; the biggest of all weeds that
grows so large that it crowds out the grain crop and even throws shade over
some of it, thereby not allowing enough sunlight to get through so that the grain
plants can grow to their optimum.
So how are we actually meant to take this since the Jews wouldn't have seen the
subject matter of this parable as a good thing at all? They might actually have
laughed a bit. To arrive at the message let's realize something that I told you
about parables in general; don't get too caught up in the details because that will
usually lead us down rabbit trails. Christian teachers have become caught in this
self-made trap for centuries, resorting to allegory to try to flesh out every detail,
even as it pertains to deciding the many different meanings they come up with.
The details of a parable are only there to embellish the story... they are the icing
on the cake... they are there to create something that can be remembered and
retold.
The next thing to recall is what we started today's lesson with: whose Kingdom is
the Earth right now? It is Satan's. So the field in Christ's parable belongs to
Satan. The field is the world just as it was then and is now; it represents the
entire population of our planet. And along comes a farmer who does something
that other farmers typically wouldn't do; he casts a seed (a mustard seed) into the
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
field that is different from the other type of seed that has already been planted
there. This story jolts the Jew listening because instantly his mind goes
to kil'ayim... prohibited mixtures. But even that's not the point. What we have is
God casting the seed of His Kingdom... starting an invasion... into the same field
that belongs to Satan where Satan has already cast his seed. The seed of God
are the members of the Kingdom of Heaven. The invasive species (Believers), as
they grow and mature, are going to eventually squeeze out areas that the seed of
Satan has been thriving in, and even throwing shade on other parts of Satan's
crop (his wicked followers) stunting the growth of his evil kingdom.
This parable is a statement of recognition of whom the current lessee of the field
is: Satan. But, the true owner of the field, God, has just dropped a tiny time bomb
into the field... a hardly noticeable one... and it is messing with Satan's plan and
its only going to get worse for him. That is, as far as the wicked world is
concerned, God planting his own seed onto the field is the one who is causing all
the trouble and chaos, and the world is aghast at it. God should not be
intervening into Satan's territory; it's just not kosher. But that is exactly what God
is doing.
The next parable is the shortest one yet: one verse. Verse 33 is the parable of
the woman who takes some leaven and secretly adds it to a bushel of flour, until
the entire batch was full of the leaven... so it rose.
There is no getting around it that in the Bible leaven is symbolic of sin. And yet in
this parable we're told that the Kingdom of Heaven is comparable to leaven. So is
this saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is the same as sin? Or that there is some
relationship between sin and the Kingdom of Heaven? Not at all. Again; don't get
distracted by the details. The details are not about any relationship between sin
and leaven, but rather that everyone knows that when you add leaven to flour the
mixture rises... it expands. What is a little harder to come to grips with is that it is
specifically said that it is a woman who performs this function in Yeshua's
parable. If we assume that the one who added in the leaven was representative
of God (or the Son of Man) how do we square that with the figure of the metaphor
being that of a woman? There's at least a couple of ways to think about it. First:
in the 1
st century Jewish culture bread making was considered as woman's work.
So it wouldn't have made sense to listeners (and may even have been offensive)
to hear of a male adding leaven to flour and making bread that rises. Second: it
may have been referring to Yeshua as the embodiment of Wisdom. We've
already encountered references to His nature of wisdom, and to folks wanting to
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
know if He might not be The Son of David (Solomon). Further, in Jewish thought
and literature, wisdom is given female attributes (she) and wisdom is always
spoken of, grammatically, in the feminine gender. I rather favor the first
explanation over the second, but I can't rule out either.
Nonetheless the point of the parable of the Leaven connects with the parable of
the mustard seed in that they are both about growing and expansion. They both
also include the idea of concealment. That is, a mustard seed is nearly
impossible to see, especially if it falls onto soil; so it could be planted without
anyone else knowing. But as it matures, what was once nearly invisible grows
into something formidable and the concealment ends. The amount of leaven
needed to leaven a batch of bread is also tiny, and is usually in the form of a
pinch of dough from a previous leavened batch. So when the pinch is thrown in, it
is nearly imperceptible; once it is mixed in no one would be able to see it or know
it is there, and yet soon the leaven starts to react with the flour and the batch
perceptibly grows on account of it. So obviously leaven had been added. So the
aim of the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven is that the Kingdom of
Heaven is like the growth of something that at first is very small and intentionally
hidden from view, but eventually it will expand into something great and visible
and the concealment of it ends. It is almost magical the way it works. On the
other hand, when what is concealed becomes revealed, those in opposition will
rise against it.
For those of us who aren't farmers or bread makers from the 1
st century, then we
need to give those people credit for at least acknowledging what they could see
happening with their own eyes, even if they didn't understand the process. We
know today that the size of a seed has little to do with the ultimate size of the
plant. But to the people 2000 years ago it was wondrous. We scientifically
understand the chemical and organic reaction of yeast to flour; but for the
ancients, it was a mystery without explanation... yet it happened the same way
every time so they did it. We could say that they had unshakable faith in the
improbable, the invisible, and the unexplainable growth of a mustard seed and of
leavened bread into something larger.
So to make an application for us, Christ's followers, it is that we need to have an
overcoming faith that the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, which is so relatively
small compared to the Kingdom of Satan, will one day surpass it because we
have been promised that it will. As we look around today we cannot avoid being
drawn into all the despair, worry, anxiety, death and war, and the sad
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
degradation and weakness of so many Christian and Jewish institutions. That
makes it so very hard to see that God's mustard plant, the body of Yeshua
Believers, is continuing its growth. Ironically, it is the presence of all the chaos
and hatred that reveals the growth of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth because
this is Satan's ever-increasing violent reaction to it.
CJB 2 Timothy 3:12-13 12 And indeed, all who want to live a godly life united
with the Messiah Yeshua will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and
impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived
themselves.
A reality that most of us wish wasn't the case is that things are only going to get
worse. What is our reaction to this knowledge to be? The world sinks into despair
when they see no hope in the things the world naturally hopes in. Material
prosperity. Human leadership. A false belief that mankind is inherently good. And
of course hope in these things can be fleeting, and eventually it always lets us
down. As Believers we must react differently. We need to double-down on our
determination and our efforts to get out the message that the Kingdom of Heaven
is near, even upon us, and that Yeshua is the Lord of that Kingdom. Our hope is
the only hope there is that is certain to win out.
CJB John 9:4 4 As long as it is day, we must keep doing the work of the One
who sent me; the night is coming, when no one can work.
So even in our hope, the day is nearing when we will not be able to do work for
the Kingdom by telling others the Good News. The telling of the Gospel has an
expiration date. What this means for the non-Believers is that they will no longer
have an opportunity to hear the message and repent. It means that at some point
known only to the Father, nearly all who don't accept Yeshua as their Savior will
have their fates sealed in concrete.
But for Believers it means that we only need to hang on a little longer. The
harvest is just around the corner; the ever-darkening world is the evidence of it.
Satan's Kingdom is about to be driven into extinction even though we can't
understand with our human senses and intellect how it can happen. Yet this is
because God's takeover of the Earth, the expansion of the Kingdom of Heaven,
is far more a spiritual rather than physical process.
We'll continue, next time, with the Parable of the Hidden Treasure.
12/13
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Lesson 49 - Matthew 13 cont 2
13/13

Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 50, Chapter 13 Conclusion
"Communion with God by means of prayer, through the removal of all
intruding elements between man and his Maker, and through the implicit
acceptance of God's unity, as well as an unconditional surrender of mind
and heart to His holy will, which the love of God expressed in the Shema
implies.... this is what is understood by the receiving of the Kingdom of
God".
These insightful words were penned in an essay by Kurt Hruby and recorded in
the book Standing Before God. The final few words explain the focus of his
essay: what is the Kingdom of God (the Kingdom of Heaven) and how are we to
understand it? Curiously this is by no means a settled matter in Christianity and if
one looks around a bit they'll find any number of definitions for the Kingdom of
Heaven.
At our congregation meeting here at Seed of Abraham each week, prior to
beginning our Bible lesson, we sing the Shema, which is something between a
Jewish prayer and a declaration of allegiance to the God of Israel. Those sitting
before me probably know it by heart. But for the others who don't attend, let me
quote it for you.
Sh'ma Yis-ra-el, A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu, A-do-nai E-chad. Ba-ruch shem k'vod
mal-chu-to I'o-lam va-ed.
Translated to English it means: Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is
One. Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and
ever. Notice the important position that the Kingdom of God holds in
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
the Shema (in the New Testament, the Kingdom of God is also called the
Kingdom of Heaven). The first part of the Shema is a quotation from
Deuteronomy 6:4. The second part is the added Jewish understanding of what
the Kingdom of God is and what it means in the life of Jew.
So the concept of the Kingdom of Heaven was hardly a new one within the
Hebrew faith that began with Yeshua. However, the actualization, or the arrival,
of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was inaugurated with His advent. Until that
time, the Kingdom of Heaven existed only in Heaven. Interestingly it cannot be
said that we have a record of Yeshua ever truly defining the Kingdom of Heaven;
rather He goes about telling the Jewish people what it is like. He does so using
parables because the structure of a parable in Jewish society was designed to
create a simple word picture using every day objects and people in order to make
a single impactful point. Thus we find Yeshua using a rapid-fire series of parables
to help His disciples learn about the Kingdom of Heaven because each individual
parable only described one very specific aspect of the Kingdom. Sometimes He
would use two connecting parables that made essentially the same point, but
with minor differences in nuance. For example the twin connecting parables of
the Mustard Seed and the Woman adding leaven to bread that we discussed last
time. Now, beginning in verse 44, we get the twin connecting parables of the
treasure hidden in the field and the man finding the pearl.
I want to say it one more time before we study those two parables: if you want to
understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, you must learn Christ's parables
about the Kingdom because that's where this knowledge is contained. Even so,
we must do it without the oddly confusing allegorical method of interpretation that
has been championed by the Church since perhaps as early as the 3rd century.
As we study these two parables I'll give you an example of what I mean by that.
First, let's read a short section of Matthew 13.
RE-READ MATTHEW 13:44 - 46
Although not universal within the Church, the most predominant interpretation of
the treasure that was found, and the pearl that the merchant discovered, is that
they both represent the person of Christ. Thus we have Yeshua telling 2 parables
about Himself and describing Himself as a treasure and as a pearl. I will say
upfront that to present it this way would be completely out of character for Him.
Yeshua never glorifies Himself; He only glorifies two things... the Father and the
Kingdom of Heaven.
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
There is no better way to explain the source of this particular Christian dogma
that Christ is the treasure and the pearl than to read it to you. The Early Church
Father Origen, who wrote in the opening years of the 3
rd century, says this in his
Commentary on Matthew.
"And, having hidden it, he goes away, working and devising how he shall
buy the field, or the Scriptures, that he may make them his own
possession, receiving from the people of God the oracles of God with
which the Jews were first entrusted. And when the man taught by Christ
has bought the field, the kind of God which, according to another parable,
is a vineyard, 'is taken from them and is given to a nation bringing for fruits
thereof'... and to him who in faith has bought the field, as the fruit of his
having sold all that he had, and no longer keeping him anything that was
formerly his; for they were a source of evil for him.
And you will give the same application, if the field containing the hidden
treasure be Christ, for those who give up all things and follow Him, have, as
it were in another way, sold their possessions, in order that, by having sold
and surrendered them, and having received in their place from God their
helper, a noble resolution, they may purchase at great cost worthy of the
field, the field containing the treasure hidden in itself." There are two important take-aways from Origen's thoughts on the matter: First,
what the Jews formerly had (the field) was taken away from them and given to
gentiles. And second, that the hidden treasure and the field (and in a later
excerpt the pearl), all represent Christ. So Origen says that since Christ is the
field and the treasure and the pearl, Christ was taken away from the Jews and
given to a "nation"... given to gentiles. The first of his precepts displays the
"gentiles only" mindset of the institutional Christian Church that began so early in
Christianity and remains embedded within it to this very day. The second of
Origen's precepts we can rather easily dismiss as bogus because the first words
of the parable of the hidden treasure are: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like", and
the first words of the parable of the pearl are: "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is
like". So these parables are in no way drawing out who Christ is or what He is
like, but rather it is Christ expressing what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Let me
say it simply: Christ is not the field, the treasure, or the pearl in these 2 parables.
This is a good time to remind you that to this point in Christ's ministry, the
message of the Good News was only and exclusively that the Kingdom of
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
Heaven in near; and nothing else. This is what Yeshua has been preaching and
teaching about in His parables, and it also what He sent His disciples out to
preach. But this information messes with the mind of the average Christian
because when we think of the "Good News" we only think of it in terms of the
message of salvation in Jesus. That, too, will soon become part of the "Good
News" message; but it is not yet as we study the life of Christ in Matthew's
Gospel account. It also means that in the revelation of the Good News in the New
Testament, salvation in Christ didn't eventually replace the message that the
Kingdom of Heaven is near; it was not a matter of one or the other. Therefore it
behooves me to say something else that I hope is not misconstrued or taken out
of context. It is that another Christian mantra (especially among Evangelicals) is
that "it is all about Jesus". End of story. No use looking further because we don't
need to know anymore than that.
While this statement is indeed meant in a lovely way, it also is not at all a true
reading of the New Testament. Yeshua never says this is all about Him, nor does
any writer of the New Testament documents insinuate such a thing. The Good
News indeed includes Yeshua as Our Divine Messiah; but it equally includes the
arrival and central importance of the Kingdom of Heaven. This message of the
Kingdom is something that gets pushed to the side rather easily in Christianity
and so when a typical Believer is asked about the Kingdom of Heaven one often
receives a rather blank stare in return. It's not that I blame them; it's because it is
a subject not generally investigated by ministers nor taught to Believers. Here in
Origen's early work (which I just quoted to you) we already find this gentile
Believer discarding the Kingdom of Heaven and replacing it with salvation in
Christ. I suspect this happened because the Kingdom of Heaven was so central
in early Hebrew thought (as I showed you in the Shema) and early gentile
Christians wanted to separate themselves from the Jewish world and the Jewish
religion. So it is easier to make a sophomoric saying that can fit on a bumper
sticker and never deviate from it: "It's all about Jesus". Rather the reality is that
Jesus Himself constantly tells us that it's all about His Father and The Kingdom of
Heaven. Let those with ears, hear.
Now for the Parable of the Hidden Treasure. First, I want to quickly do away with
Origen's contention that this parable speaks of the Jewish people having been
disinherited. Yeshua of course never meant such a thing as He (a Jew) talked to
His fellow Jewish people, and His Jewish disciples, about their membership in
the Kingdom of Heaven and the importance of its presence to them. Let us begin
by remembering the paramount rule for deciphering a parable: don't get
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
distracted by the details. What kind of a field or the size of it doesn't matter.
Exactly what the treasure box looked like doesn't matter. Who this man was or
why he would have been digging in someone else's field doesn't matter. All we
need to do is to take this short story at the face value any common Jewish
person would have in the 1
st century. It was this: should one have the good
fortune to be digging around in a random field and stumble across an immensely
valuable treasure in it, what would most anyone do next? The answer begins with
a given: since the man didn't own the field he found the treasure in, then he
would rebury it and then go find the owner and do whatever is necessary to buy
the field from him. Here's another detail that doesn't matter: the reburying of the
treasure. It has no bearing on the meaning of the parable. However is there any
significance to not just secretly taking the treasure rather than going and paying
the owner for the field? Yes, but only because otherwise it would go against all
Jewish cultural norms to find something valuable in your neighbor's field and
simply take it from him. In other words, it would have been a dishonest act. It
would have been theft. The significance of the story is that the treasure the man
found was so valuable that it was worth the man taking immediate action by
sinking every last shekel he had into obtaining the field it was in, so that the
treasure would become his. He was willing to trade away all he held dear in order
to own the treasure.
Let's move on to the parable of the merchant who finds a valuable pearl (this the
companion, ortwin, parable of the previous one). The difference between the first
parable and the second is that in the first, finding the treasure was an act of
serendipity. But in the second parable, the merchant was on the hunt for pearls.
He finds an exceptional one and, like the first man, let go of everything he owned
in order to acquire this pearl of great value.
There are really no details to deal with in this parable. The issue of the very
valuable thing being a pearl must be understood from a 1
st century viewpoint.
Pearls were among the most valuable of all items a person could own; more
valuable than silver or gold. So any pearl was highly valued; but an especially
good pearl was massively expensive.
The point or aim of both of these stories is the same: the Kingdom of Heaven is
the most valuable thing a person could possess. It is worth every material thing a
person owned or could acquire.
So in the parables of Jesus in Matthew 13, we have learned 4 things about what
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
the Kingdom of God is like. First, there are several types of hearers (people) that
will hear about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven; each will respond differently
to the message depending on the type of mind and openness of spirit that they
have. Some will hear the message but give it no heed. Others will apprehend the
greatness of it, embrace it with joy and never let it go. And there are other
responses in between those two extremes. But the point is that the entrance into
the Kingdom depends solely on the response of the hearer because the message
is free and available to all the same.
The second thing we have learned is that the Kingdom began concealed. It was
very small and largely invisible. However, even though the arrival of the Kingdom
is small and hard to see like the tiny seed of a mustard plant in a field, or just like
a pinch of leaven in a large batch of bread dough, the Kingdom of Heaven will
expand; it will grow very large as an unstoppable process. And this is so even
though the Kingdom of Heaven has been planted within an evil kingdom (planet
Earth) that currently is ruled over by Satan. So a heavenly invasion is taking
place right under Satan's nose; it began early in the 1
st century and Satan can't
stop it.
The third thing is that just like with any field and its crop, it doesn't matter how
good the seed is (that is, how good and perfect the Kingdom of Heaven is), there
will be weeds (opponents) that will grow up with it. The question is that since
Tares (weeds) look so similar to wheat or barley to the untrained eye, should the
bearers of the good seed (the messengers of the Kingdom) go out and try to
identify those opponents amongst the good and true Believers and uproot them ?
The answer is a general "no". Rather, pulling up a weed (an opponent) could
accidentally also harm a good plant. So it is better to wait until the harvest, which
takes place on Judgment Day, and then let God do the separation. Therefore,
assemblies of God worshipers shouldn't be too impulsive in our judgment on
those trouble makers and problem children in our midst, or act too quickly to
weed them out, because harm to the good people could potentially happen as
collateral damage.
And finally, as with the treasure and the pearl, Christ teaches us that the value of
the Kingdom of Heaven is so immense that people should do anything, even give
up everything, to be part of it. There is nothing on earth that compares in worth to
the Kingdom and so there is no price too high to pay to become a member. Let's
move on to the next parable in Matthew 13.
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
RE-READ MATTHEW 13:47 - 50
This parable, for me, is the most challenging so far. It is in many ways similar to
the Parable of the Tares that has to do with separating the good plants from the
weeds. And yet there may be something inherently different. In the short story of
the Tares, clearly it is that although the good seed is randomly thrown onto the
fields and some weeds voluntarily sprout along with them (as a natural thing that
happens in every field), comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to a fishing net that is
thrown into water is a little different. The net captures both good fish and bad fish
against their will. Therefore, I am not entirely sure as to whether the use of a
fishing net is an unimportant detail or it has everything to do with the point of the
story. That is, the good and the bad fish are, in a sense, involuntarily caught up in
the same net. What is a bad fish? For a Jew a bad fish is something that is not
kosher; it can't be eaten. It is unclean. The Sea of Galilee has always had a
pretty good amount of catfish in it, and those are not permissible to eat. So the
net pulls up the clean and the unclean fish together rather indiscriminately in one
big catch, and then later the fisherman sorts through them and throws the bad
fish away.
Even so, I'm inclined to not pay too much attention to how, exactly, a fishing net
works to capture fish anymore than to the details of how, exactly, a sower sows
seed. That is, it is not the net that is the point of the story any more than the
sower was the point of the earlier parable. It's only that we now have an
agricultural parable to go along with a fishing parable using scenarios of the two
most dominant industries in the Galilee to help demonstrate to the common
people the same important point. And the point is that it is only at the end of
history that a separation of people into clean and unclean, good and bad, will
finally occur. The separation happens only at the end of a centuries-long process.
And, as with the Tares, what is caught in the net that is bad will be destroyed.
Nothing is said about what happens to the good (the righteous) other than they
are gathered and set aside.
Perhaps in this parable Jesus is directing His listeners' attention to the basic
matter of when the separation of good and evil occurs (an expected separation
that was already understood by the Jews as foretold). He explains that the
separation of the good from the evil is not going to be immediate but rather it will
occur at the End Times Day of Judgment when the Kingdom of Heaven has
reached its maturity. Thus one thing we can take from all that Christ has said so
far is that even though we can know the process of redemption, the definitions of
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what is good and what is evil in God's eyes, and even the final outcome for
humanity, we (as His followers) need to remain patient. We are not tasked as the
ones to take the matter of the final separation into our own hands; so we should
be careful not to pre-judge or assume or act in haste. This certainly doesn't mean
that we aren't to be observant and aware and make choices because we've
already been taught by Yeshua to look for certain things during our earthly lives
to help us along the way and to protect us. Things like not expecting a bad fruit
tree to put out good fruit; Yeshua says that is impossible. The issue for us, then,
is not as much the identification of what is bad, but rather what to do about it.
Let me make an application as far as followers of Christ are concerned. Believers
don't have to look very far to find popular TV religious personalities, or pastors of
very large and prominent churches, who have been exposed as dishonest or
have committed blatant immoral actions and yet with the proper outward show of
contrition and at the demand of their followers, they are right back in the pulpit or
on TV. While as Believers we are not in God's position of judging their eternal
fate, at the same time Yeshua tells us that we can determine a bad tree from a
good tree by means of the fruit it bears. Dishonest fruit, or immoral fruit, means
this person is a bad tree. Why does Jesus think we need to know how to tell a
good tree from bad one if we are only meant to look the other way or do nothing
about it? We can and should identify and stay far from the influence of dishonest
or immoral persons of every walk and occupation, but especially from those that
want to teach us on spiritual matters that may have eternal consequences, even
though that permanent separation of people into the good and the bad as an
eternal matter is reserved for God Himself at the final judgment.
Verse 49 reinforces that it will be Heaven's Angels that go out and do the actual
separating of the evil and the righteous. That is, God will authorize His Heavenly
army as the ones who do the separating. Exactly how that occurs and what that
looks like we don't really know. But that it will happen is a 100% certainty. Let's
read some more of Matthew chapter 13.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 13:51 - end
Yeshua asks His disciples if they have understood what He is telling them about
the Kingdom of Heaven; they respond that they do. So He then goes on to tell
another parable.
The form of this parable is a bit different than the earlier ones in that while the
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
setting is the Kingdom of Heaven, the comparison being made is not between the
Kingdom of Heaven and something else, but rather between the person who
teaches the Scriptures and something else. Although the subject of the parable is
called a Torah teacher in the CJB, in nearly all other English translations the
word used is Scribe. I have no quarrel with either, however in the 1st century
Jewish context Torah teacher is probably the better choice for us to understand
it. So taken literally this parable focuses on the official chief teachers within the
synagogue system, but only those who have also been made into disciples for
the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, this may imply that there were indeed
chief teachers (Scribes) in the synagogue system that have accepted Christ's
message of Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived. Therefore
those that accept this message are called disciples. Yet there is another
possibility that must be considered.
Some Bible scholars claim that Yeshua is calling His disciples "Scribes". Davies
and Allison in their commentary on this matter put it this way:
"The major point is that the disciples have indeed understood Jesus'
discourse and therefore qualify as skilled scribes".
That is, Yeshua is using the term Scribes (Torah teachers) metaphorically and is
not speaking of them in any official synagogue capacity. It is not unlike Peter who
in 1Peter 2:9 says that Believers form a royal priesthood. That is, the terms priest
and priesthood as applied to Believers are not meant as physical replacements
for the official God-ordained priests and priesthood of Levites. Rather Peter used
the term priest metaphorically saying that Believers are a group of individuals
who have dedicated themselves to the Lord, and in that sense they are priests.
The problem I have with this interpretation is that therefore all who accept Christ
and understand His parables become Scribes for the Kingdom. Even more, the
wording of the parable is NOT that a disciple is made into a Scribe, it is that a
Scribe is made into a disciple. So I strongly favor this statement as referring to
the (likely) handful of synagogue Scribes who have accepted the Good News of
the Kingdom of Heaven.
As we continue with the parable, Yeshua says that these Scribes who have
become disciples for the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to the owner of a
home who brings out of his storage room both new things and old. As one can
imagine, especially due to the rampant use of allegory used to decipher His
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parables, there are a number of interpretations regarding what is meant by the
old, and what is meant by the new, that comes out of the homeowner's
storehouse. The list is too long to go through; but generally speaking the
Christian concept is that the old is the revelation of the Torah, and new is the
revelation of Jesus.
Remembering that there is only one point, or one aim of any parable, and that the
characters in a parable are nearly universally fictional, then putting on our
1
st century Jewish minds the storehouse can only be representative of the sum
total knowledge of God that has thus far been revealed to humans (in the context
of the times, Jewish humans). Therefore within that storehouse of knowledge are
new things and old things; things that are being revealed by Yeshua, and things
that have already been revealed in times past (the Torah and the Tanach). Thus
the Torah teachers (Scribes) that have heard, accepted, and understood the
message Christ brings about the new earthly presence of the Kingdom of Heaven
now have new things (new revelations) to add to their storehouse of previously
revealed knowledge of God. Please note that unlike the implication within
Christianity that the new always replaces the old in the Bible, just as with the
parable of the new and old wineskins, there is no implication that the homeowner
of this current parable is disposing of the old and replacing it with the new. Rather
both the old and the new reside together as fully compatible, each having a
continuing purpose.
So the one point of the parable is this: Torah teachers who accept Yeshua's
revelation about the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven and all its implications
have something new to add to what they had been teaching. But the reverse is
also true; those Scribes who do NOT accept the revelation of the Kingdom of
Heaven have only the old things to teach. Thus what they teach is not
necessarily obsolete or wrong; it is just incomplete. And what they are missing in
their personal storehouses of knowledge is of the greatest importance and value.
Verse 53 says that when He finished teaching His disciples (and probably others)
He left for His hometown. Since Yeshua was currently in Capernaum, this can
only mean that He left for Nazareth, which was about a 20 mile journey
southwest. If He went without stopping to do other things, it would have taken
one long day, possibly two. We're told that "there" (Nazareth) He taught in the
local synagogue. Notice how even the modest sized town of Nazareth had a
synagogue. However do not picture a nicely built and dedicated building. Rather
we need to understand the term more in the sense of an assembly of God
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
worshipers. No synagogue building has been unearthed in Nazareth.
Nonetheless the point is that in Nazareth, where His family lived, and where He
grew up as a child, He was given the opportunity to speak, which He did. The
people of the congregation in Nazareth were dumbfounded at the authority, truth,
and wisdom from which He taught. They knew Him and His family well. So much
so that they asked, rhetorically, isn't His mother Miryam, and His brothers
Ya'akov, Yosef, Shim'on and Y'hudah? They also say that they know His sisters
(but don't name any). My point is that Yeshua had several biological brothers and
sisters, all from the womb of His mother Mary. Since there is no mention of His
father, Joseph, then we can reasonably assume that by now he was deceased.
Setting aside the astounding teaching Yeshua gave them, the people were
actually offended by Him. The Gospel of Mark records this same event in nearly
identical words to begin his chapter 6. We should not imagine that Yeshua's topic
deviated from the Kingdom of Heaven. But I think what we must consider is the
reaction of the people; it is more than mere rejection, rather it is open hostility.
Clearly these folks didn't understand what Christ was teaching them, which in
turn teaches us something. Those who are indifferent to the message of the
Kingdom of Heaven automatically find Christ as an irritation to them.
Part of what seems to bother the townsfolk of Nazareth so much is that Jesus is
merely the son of a carpenter (or in Mark's Gospel Jesus is called a carpenter).
Yet they don't seem to question His wisdom or the miracles He is known for. That
is, He is already well known as a miracle working Holy Man. Yet they also know
full well that He has had no formal religious education or some kind of recognition
or ordination from the synagogue system authorities to validate Him as a teacher.
Thus the content and truth of His message are dismissed because Yeshua
doesn't have the proper credentials. And, like the Pharisees who confronted Him
from time to time, the synagogue members of Nazareth question where He
attained His wisdom and the ability to do miracles thus implying they didn't
believe it was from God.
This scenario is a microcosm of the kind of rejection from His own people that
Yeshua constantly faced in His ministry. He responds to the congregation with a
Jewish proverb: the only place people don't respect a prophet is in his hometown
and even in his own house. This implies that Yeshua's brothers and sisters were
skeptical of Him as well.
We must understand that in His day and culture, what a person was born as and
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Lesson 50 - Matthew 13 concl
where they came from determined who that person was and what their destiny
would be. Jesus was, to the members of His hometown and to his own family, a
lowly blue-collar craftsman and little else. He was reaching far beyond the
accepted boundaries of His social status and this was troubling to those who
knew Him best. So when He tried to teach His hometown people something
new... the arrival of God's Kingdom on earth... they took a deep religious offense
because they felt Yeshua had no grounds or status upon which to make such
pronouncements. They simply could not square His known humble beginnings
with the man that stood before them that day, and so they rejected Him and His
message.
The final words of chapter 13 are that Christ did only a few miracles in Nazareth
because of their lack of trust. We can take this as meaning one of two things:
either Yeshua's ability to do miracles was dependent upon the faith of the people
He was dealing with, or He determined to only do miracles for people who
displayed a sufficient level of trust in Him. No doubt we find in these words a
connection between faith and healing. But faith in what? Trusting Jesus
for...what? It was certainly NOT that He was the divine Messiah. Rather it was
that Yeshua was God-sent and God-empowered to speak as He spoke, teach as
He taught, and to heal as He healed.
Few in Nazareth... including among His own family... trusted the connection
between God and Yeshua. But, for those few in Nazareth who did trust, Yeshua
healed them. This had been His method of operating for some time. The myriads
of people He had healed up to now had not seen Him as their Messiah, but rather
as a God-sent Tzadik, a Jewish Holy Man. That is what they trusted in, and for
now that was sufficient because that was as far as the divine revelation given to
them could take them.
We'll begin Matthew chapter 14 next time.
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 51, Chapter 14
The first dozen verses of Matthew chapter 14 bring us back to the subject of John
the Immerser; more specifically it tells us of his death. That he was in prison was
already established back in chapter 11. Now chapter 14 begins by explaining the
circumstances behind his arrest, imprisonment, and execution. As a sort of side
note, something to remember when we read of various New Testament Bible
characters going to jail; it is not that jail itself was the punishment. That is, it was
not usual that someone would be arrested, tried and have a sentence handed
down to spend a certain amount of time in prison as is the norm in the modern
West. The norm then was that a person was arrested and put in jail in order to
await trial or to simply remove that person from society for awhile even if no
crime had been committed. That a person might languish in prison for a year and
more while the wheels of justice spun slowly wasn't unusual. A person accused
and convicted of a capital offense would immediately upon trial and conviction be
killed. A person accused and convicted of a non-capital offense more often
served as someone's slave or was put to hard labor by the government as his
punishment. The point is that once John was arrested and thrown in jail he knew
what his fate would likely be; he just didn't know the exact means of his end or
when it would happen.
Yeshua on the other hand was at this time a free man, although He had become
such a controversial figure among the Synagogue authority that His fate wasn't
hard to predict (He hasn't seemed to have started to cause trouble, yet, with the
Temple authority and its priests). In fact the track He was on would prove to be
quite similar to what happened with John.
Let's read Matthew chapter 14.
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 14 all
This story about John the Baptist's execution is also told in Mark 6:14 - 29. Mark
adds some information not contained in Matthew 14, but at the same time
Matthew's information is, in a couple of instances, slightly different than Mark's. I
think Mark adds enough that before we begin to seriously examine this account
we should read his version first. Open your Bibles to Mark chapter 6.
READ MARK CHAPTER 6:14 - 29
There are several arguments put up by Bible historians against the account of
John's death in Matthew and Mark, which say that while John's execution is
authentic history, the account as found in the Gospels is more than questionable;
it leans more towards myth and legend. But, that's what happens when some
academics don't have the respect they ought to have for the Bible's accuracy,
and instead inject their own personal opinions. They also tend to nit-pick the
wrong things and not allow for common conversational expressions within a
1
st century Jewish cultural setting to be taken for what they are. Verse 1 of
Matthew, which corresponds with verse 14 of Mark 6, presents just such a
tempest in a tea pot.
Matthew refers to Herod as tetrarches (in Greek) while Mark refers to him
as basileus (king). This indeed can cause confusion among readers because
one now must wonder which of the several Herods this is speaking about. King
Herod is a title used for Herod the Great (the one who hosted the star gazers
from Babylon as they searched for the new king of the Jews... the infant Yeshua).
But the Herod in our current story is Herod Antipas, Herod the Great's son, and
he was never a king. So why does Mark call him king? First, the
Greek basileus doesn't have to mean king; it can mean a leader of people or a
commander. It is a rather generic word and doesn't have to be rendered as the
title of an official position or office. Second: Herod Antipas wanted to be called
king, and often insisted upon it, to the irritation of the Roman government. In fact,
he pushed so hard to be given the title of king that Emperor Caligula removed
him from office and banished him. Antipas was a Tetrarch, a ruler over a region.
And his region at the time of our story was Galilee and Perea. Herod the Great
was dead, and Rome divided his territory into 4 regions hence the term tetra.
Thus a Tetrarch was a ruler over one-fourth.
So Herod Antipas was only starting to hear about this Jesus fellow, but it was
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
after the time that he had ordered John the Baptist executed. Herod wondered if
this was some sort of reappearance of the dead John the Baptist but in another
form. And he owed this to the miracle powers that he seems to think John had
that in some way or another got transferred to Christ. While Matthew puts this
thought as being owned by Herod Antipas, Mark makes it that people in general
who had Herod's ear thought this might be the case. These same people also
speculated to Herod that perhaps Yeshua was Elijah or one of the other prophets
of old. It is hard to know for certain what to make of all this. I think that while we
must take this literally in the sense that this is exactly what people were saying
and wondering, we must also realize that Herod and no doubt his closest
advisors held some strange and irrational views about things that were common
in that era. While Herod the Great and therefore his sons claimed to be Jews,
they weren't. And while they claimed to follow the religion of the Jews, they didn't.
These thoughts they had about who Yeshua was and where His powers came
from were mostly superstitions.
I find that Origen, writing in the early 200's A.D., seems to have some real
knowledge about these views that the Jews of the 1
st century held on death,
resurrection, and the condition of the soul. I will quote from his Commentary on
Matthew regarding this issue because we find the connections between John,
Elijah and Jesus to have been rather mysterious and not easy to grasp.
After explaining the different views Jews held on resurrection, Origen explains
the matter of the soul.
l/l/e must now therefore inquire about the opinion regarding the soul, which
was mistakenly held by Herod and some from among the people. It ran
something like this: John, who a little earlier had been slain by him, had
risen from the dead after he had been beheaded. This person who had risen
was the same person under a different name, the one now called Jesus.
Herod imagined that Jesus possessed the same powers that formerly
worked in John. If the powers that worked in John had passed over to
Jesus, Jesus was thought by some to actually be John the Baptist.
The return of Elijah fueled this idea. Here is the line of argument. It was the
spirit and power of Elijah that had returned in John. (Christ said of John)
"this is the Elijah who is to come". The spirit in Elijah possessed the power
to go into John. So Herod thought that the powers John worked in baptism
and teaching had a miraculous effect in Jesus, even though John did not
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
do miracles. It may be said that something of this kind was the underlying
thought of those who said that Elijah had appeared in Jesus or that one of
the old prophets had arisen.
What I find interesting is this implication that Herod and others thought that John
the Baptist was a miracle worker who could heal (and do other things). There is
no biblical record of him ever doing a miracle or having the ability to do so. Yet
according to two Gospel accounts Herod certainly thought of John as a Tzadik...
a Jewish holy man... almost certainly because of rumors and false assumptions
about him that made John seem like a possible threat to Herod's power and
authority. Yeshua was suffering from the same kind of suspicions aimed at John;
only for Christ those suspicions were coming from the Jewish religious leaders
who saw Him as a threat to their religious authority and power. Therefore,
according to Origen, in Herod's mind Yeshua's abilities... knowledge of which
necessarily came to him second hand... made him wary that John may have
risen from the dead; and this prospect thoroughly frightened him. But why did
others think that perhaps Yeshua was Elijah or some other old prophet? It is
because Prophets, and especially Elijah, were so highly revered in Jewish
culture, and this was well known even among the local pagans. The Prophets
were so highly thought of that they were seen as spiritual giants that may well
have possessed special God given power. Elijah was also an especially
mysterious man who was said to have never died but rather he ascended, alive,
up to Heaven in a whirlwind. That of itself made him pretty unique if not bizarre.
And there were well known prophecies that were accepted among the Jews that
said Elijah would return. In fact, in Matthew 11 we hear this thought of Elijah's
return and him inhabiting a person coming from no less than Christ:
CJB Matthew 11:13-14 13 For all the prophets and the Torah prophesied until
Yochanan. 14 Indeed, if you are willing to accept it, he is Eliyahu, whose
coming was predicted.
We need to grasp that even if the Romans and their lackeys didn't necessary
believe these mysterious prophecies about the great Hebrew Prophets of old
(especially Elijah) returning from the dead, they knew that the Jewish people they
ruled over certainly did. And such a return would have given that person a
tremendous following of what would have been Jews filled with a fanatic religious
fervor; and many Jews (mainly the Zealots) were already itching for a rebellion.
This is the last thing Rome or any petty ruler like Antipas wanted. It represented
real trouble. Rome measured the success of their assembly of governors and
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small time rulers within the Roman Empire based upon their ability to keep the lid
on trouble and to maintain the peace in their territory. So arresting and executing
anyone who had the potential to unsettle things, no matter whether the threat
was real or imagined, was standard operating procedure for these many
governors and rulers. John the Immerser seems to have fallen into this potential
trouble-maker category for Herod Antipas.
What finally caused Herod to move against the Baptist was when John publicly
condemned Herod's marriage to Herodias. Most Bible versions have it as John
calling the marriage unlawful. The CJB has John saying that it violates the Torah;
that is the most correct interpretation. While it is true that the Greek term used
is ou exesti, which literally means not lawful, the more important issue is what
law code is it that John is saying Herod is breaking? It certainly wasn't against the
law in the Roman law code and besides, people in high positions like Herod
could do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as it didn't negatively affect
the Empire. John would have had no more interest in the Roman law code than
did Jesus. Rather the law that John was referring to could only have been the
Law of Moses; the Torah. And indeed what Herod did was not lawful according to
the Torah.
CJB Leviticus 20:21 If a man takes his brother's wife, it is uncleanness; he
has disgraced his brother sexually; they will be childless.
It is not so much that Herod Antipas married his brother Philip's wife; it is that this
happened while Philip was still living. According to the Law of Moses, a man
could marry his deceased brother's wife (and in some cases was obligated to do
so). But one also has to wonder whatever possessed John to make such a public
ruckus over it happening. Could he really have thought that such a verbal attack
would go unpunished? There are a few Bible commentators who say that John
was intentionally playing out Christ's words of Matthew 10. There's a short lesson
that emerges from this, so here's what Christ said:
CJB Matthew 10:26-28 26 So do not fear them; for there is nothing covered
that will not be uncovered, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell
you in the dark, speak in the light; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim
on the housetops. 28 "Do not fear those who kill the body but are powerless
to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gei␂Hinnom.
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
I don't know that John ever heard Yeshua mouth those words. But if what he
thought he was doing by drawing attention to the illicit nature of Herod Antipas'
marriage to his living brother's wife was obeying this principle, I think he got it
wrong.
Look: as Believers God has not given it to us as our jobs to stand on the rooftops
and shout whenever we see something happening that we believe is a sin.
Wisdom and temperance are to harness our tongues. There is a time to speak up
but there is also a time to remain silent. There is so much sin swirling around us
every hour of every day in every imaginable form that if we decided we were put
on this earth to point it out and condemn those committing it, people (including
our Believing friends) would tire of us quickly. Few Jews of Yeshua's day thought
of the Herod family as the true Jews they claimed they were; they didn't take
such a notion seriously. They knew the royal family were playing a role in order to
try to legitimize their rule over Jewish people as essentially "one of them".
Certainly, some of the higher-ups within the Temple authority played along with
this fiction because it was to their advantage to do so. But it is well recorded that
the common Jewish society detested Herod the Great and his offspring. So it is
one thing to recognize sin in someone, but it is quite another to publicly
denounce them for it. I cannot help but think that John was a pretty hot tempered
guy who didn't know when to reign in his mouth.
We're told in verse 5 that Herod had been wanting to have John killed, but he
decided he dare not do so because the Immerser was revered by the common
folk. In other words, Herod Antipas made a political calculation. Josephus makes
it clear that Herod didn't want John dead because he was popular enough that it
might foment rebellion. When John went so far as to openly denounce Herod's
marriage, it only proved to Herod that this guy was fearless, willing even to take
on a powerful ruler such as himself, and this made the Baptist all the more
dangerous. So at first, Herod merely had him arrested and held for a long time.
He wanted to kill him but was enough of a politician to know that to do so would
make John a martyr, perhaps making him more of a threat dead than alive. But
something happened to finally force his hand.
It was at a lavish birthday party for Herod Antipas that he asked for the daughter
of his new wife, Herodias, to dance before him and his guests. In those days,
such dancing was usually less about artistry and more about playing to the
sexual lusts of the men. Some might think that it would be far out of bounds for a
ruler to use his daughter in such a lewd way; but she was not his flesh and
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blood... this was his step-daughter and this was the wicked Herod. Herod was so
pleased with what he saw (and no doubt how his guests reacted) that he decided
to show off. He brought her near to him and asked her to name anything she
wanted and he'd give it her... up to half of his kingdom he says. Here is one of
those statements that some academics scoff at and say this can only be myth
and legend because it is absurd to accept that any wealthy ruler would offer to
give a girl half of his entire kingdom just because she danced for him. So
Matthew and Mark must have this wrong by quoting from the same silly Jewish
tradition. Not so fast.
CJB Esther 5:1 On the third day, Ester put on her royal robes and stood in
the inner courtyard of the king's palace, opposite the king's hall. The king
was sitting on his royal throne in the king's hall, across from the entrance
to the hall. 2 When the king saw Ester the queen standing in the courtyard,
she won his favor; so the king extended the gold scepter in his hand
toward Ester. Ester approached and touched the tip of the scepter. 3 "What
is it you want, Queen Ester?" the king asked her. "Whatever your request,
up to half the kingdom, it will be given to you." Does anyone think that the King of Persia was serious about giving this poor
Jewish girl, Esther, half of his kingdom? I haven't heard an academic questioning
that statement that is nearly identical to the one we read coming from the mouth
of Herod in Matthew 14. So are we to perceive Herod's step daughter as such a
deranged blood-thirsty savage that rather than receiving half of the value of
everything Herod possesses that she instead preferred a grotesque severed
head on a plate? The point is this: no doubt this "half the kingdom" is only an
expression and was not meant... nor taken... literally. It was an exaggeration built
into a well known and ancient idiom that merely means that the one offering the
great reward is in a generous mood and super pleased with this person standing
before him. I suspect that should some poor naive soul ever try to take
advantage of such an offer and ask for too much (thus humiliating the king) they
would never live long enough to receive it.
The step daughter responds to Herod's offer by asking for John the Baptist to
immediately be beheaded and his head brought into the festive birthday
gathering. Was this something she desperately wanted? No. It was her mother
that really asked for it, because she was the other half of that marriage that John
had denounced and apparently she felt the sting of it. Herodias merely used her
daughter's young beauty and persuasiveness to get what she wanted. In fact
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
when John's head is brought to the girl, she immediately hands it over to her
mother. But Herod was stuck. He has just publicly offered this girl anything she
wants, even making a vow to follow through, and done it mainly to impress the
many dignitaries who came to honor him. He's in a bind. Regardless of why he
might do it, killing John would be a dicey thing that could have serious
repercussions for him personally. John's followers (and who knew how many
there might be) could erupt in a righteous anger and throw his region into riots
and chaos, which would in turn get him into hot water with Rome. On the other
hand, it would now be too great a humiliation NOT to do it after making such a
rash vow... although we can be certain he had no inkling that John's life would be
the result.
Do not add any religious significance to Herod's vow. He was not at all concerned
with going back on an oath to God; that is, what God might do to him if he didn't
follow through. This was not another Jephthah story of a man sorrowfully carrying
through with a rash vow made before God (that wound up costing his poor,
innocent daughter her young life) so dedicated was he to carry out his vow no
matter what the cost. The issue for Herod was political and social; it was about
saving face before the elite of society and nothing else.
Finally in verse 12 we are informed that after the beheading, some of John's
disciples were told of it and they came for the corpse. Recall that John apparently
had a steady stream of visitors to his prison cell in Machaerus, one of Herod the
Great's several fortress cities. Back in chapter 11 we read of disciples of John
who were with him while he was in jail taking a message on his behalf to Yeshua.
The reality of being in prison in those days was that it was expected that family
and friends would bring food for the prisoner, often daily; otherwise eating
occurred only sporadically and prisoners would regularly just waste away. I
suspect that very likely some of those disciples were there when John was
abruptly taken from his cell and killed. Nonetheless, they took John's body and
buried it (probably the same day, as that was Jewish custom), and then they
went and informed Yeshua of what happened to His cousin. It is important to note
that despite Yeshua's expanding ministry and His growing number of followers,
John the Baptist still had his own separate loyal group of disciples. We read in
the Book of Acts chapter 19 (some decades later during Paul's day) that disciples
of John remained as a separate and identifiable group, some of them still not
understanding entirely who Yeshua was nor did they know of the revelation of the
Holy Spirit for Believers. Sometimes a lot of time has to pass before God's
revelations can be fully embraced within His worshipers, even for those who are
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
diligently and sincerely looking for the truth.
In verse 13, upon hearing of John's death, Yeshua determined He needed a little
time alone and so went out onto the Lake on a boat. We are not to imagine that
he sailed to a desert wilderness as this is so often translated. He was on the Sea
of Galilee; there was no desert anywhere near to where He was. What we are to
understand is that He was trying to get to a deserted place, somewhere on the
rim of the Lake, where there weren't any people. It didn't work. The people found
out where He was going and simply walked en masse around the Lake shore to
join Him. The way Matthew words it clearly Yeshua was wanting some personal
time to grieve over John and to contemplate what this might mean. After all,
Herod Antipas seemed to think that Yeshua may well have been a revivified John
the Baptist (however strange that might seem to us), and this could well present
an immediate danger for Christ.
As Yeshua's reputation swelled so did the numbers seeking after Him, thus the
adjective "huge" is added to the word "crowd". However in verse 14 we must not
spiritualize the reality of the situation. The multitudes were not clamoring after
Him as their Messiah, nor were the seeking Him for salvation. To them He was
still this amazing Tzadik that could heal anyone of anything, and they weren't
about to miss their opportunity that only came along rarely. And, as verse 14
states, when they found Him, despite not wanting to be found, He of course
understood their need and set aside His grieving and trepidations and in
compassion He healed those who were ill of their infirmities. We must not
imagine that everyone in the crowd wanted or needed healing. Rather families
and friends accompanied those weak from illness, the blind, the lame, and no
doubt in the crowd were some fascinated onlookers.
After a day of miracle healings, Christ's disciples show up. It's the evening, and
the disciples ask Yeshua to end His healings, and send the people away from
this deserted area to buy food from the local villages for their supper. This in no
way was a cruel or uncaring request, but rather a practical one. After all, as verse
21 says, the crowd, the multitude that had come for healing, had grown to 5,000
men plus women and children. So despite the title for this event that we'll
traditionally read in commentaries about "the feeding of the 5,000", there were far
more people than that present. I suspect the low end would have been 10,000
and they all needed to eat not because they were starving but rather because it
was mealtime and they were getting hungry.
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But their Master tells the disciples NOT to send the people off to buy food for
themselves, but rather they (the disciples) should feed them. The disciples
respond incredulously; they say that all they have with them is 5 loaves of bread
and a couple of fish. In other words, they brought provision enough for
themselves and no one else (which, again, was not being selfish but rather doing
what was responsible and natural). The signal that a miracle is about to happen
is when Yeshua points to the food items and says: "Bring them here to Me". This
will not be the first time in the Bible that the feeding of a large crowd beyond what
little is available is recorded. In 2Kings chapter 4, we read this:
CJB 2 Kings 4:42-44 42 A man came from Ba'al-Shalishah bringing the man of
God twenty loaves of bread made from the barley firstfruits and fresh ears
of grain in his sack. Elisha said, "Give this to the people to eat." 43 His
servant said, "How am I to serve this to a hundred men?" But he said,
"Give it to the people to eat; for ADONAI says that they will eat and have
some left over."
44 So he served them, and they ate and had some left over,
as ADONAI had said
So the Prophet Elishah got a word from God that the insufficient amount of food
for 100 men would be so miraculously multiplied that they would eat their fill and
still have some left over. And this can probably be attached to the miracle of
more than enough Manna raining down on the 3 million or so Israelites all during
their 40 years in the wilderness.
We are meant to notice the importance of food all throughout the Bible, and
therefore for the divine provision of it. In the Creation story God had food in the
form of plants ready for the moment that He would create the first human, and
then the second. After the law of the 7
th day as a day of rest was established, the
next law God made concerned food. Adam and Eve could eat freely of everything
in the Garden except for the fruit from one particular tree: the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil. Later after the Great Flood, God expanded the permissible
human diet to include certain animals. Later still, at Mt. Sinai, God instructed
Moses about food by giving Him a list of permissible and prohibited things that
people could eat, which also included instruction about keeping these food items
from becoming inedible due to contamination (the laws of clean and unclean).
A few decades ago the Lord impressed upon me the important place that the
human consumption of food holds in His economy. This overriding concern about
food began at Creation and continues to this very day. I was so convicted about
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
my lack of recognition of this unequivocal biblical fact, and that I had for the
majority of my life paid no attention to God's instructions to His worshipers about
the food we eat, that it fell upon me like thunder and I immediately changed to eat
biblically kosher. Institutional Christianity has taken it upon itself to suspend
God's food laws by saying that when Christ came, it was the end of any rules or
of God's divine will concerning food. That is, the doctrine is that God's concern
about what we eat went from paramount to vanished. But I'm here to tell you that
Yeshua has already made it abundantly clear that none of God's laws were
changed or abolished at His advent. And from the Lord's perspective, food laws
were rather useless if there wasn't enough for the people to eat. So what
permissible food for humans is, and the sufficient provision of it, are central to
God's will and His character. All Jesus is doing is demonstrating this reality, yet
again, and perhaps His miracle of feeding the multitudes at the Sea of Galilee
involved an element of both remembrance of past provision and hope for the
future provision for God worshipers as expressed by the Wedding Banquet of the
Lamb.
As we read all the Gospels we see Yeshua always urging folks to feed the
hungry. When He told Peter (and others) to feed His Sheep, He meant it on two
levels. On the P'shat level He meant it quite simply and literally; whenever
people you encounter are hungry, feed them as an extension of what Yeshua
would do if He were there. On the Remez level, He tells us that men don't live on
bread (food) alone but also on every word that comes from the mouth of God. So
feeding His sheep also means to instruct them in God's divine Word as an act of
compassion. Both things are the responsibility, the duty, of Christ's followers.
The Remez did not replace the P'shat.
Therefore in a demonstration His disciples were certain to remember the rest of
their lives, the meager basket of 5 loaves and 2 fish are set before Christ. Verse
15 explains that first the vast crowd of thousands was told to sit down in the
grassy area where they had come to plead for healing. Next Yeshua is said to
have looked up to Heaven and said a blessing. Why is Yeshua looking up to
Heaven? Because He is doing what He always does, and always instructs us to
do: He is glorifying The Father. Yeshua is making what in Hebrew is called
a berakhah. The Greek word used is eulogeo. The Greek lexicons explain that it
means to consecrate a thing with solemn prayers, and to offer praise. When He
breaks the bread during the berakhah it is a rather standard Jewish way at a
meal for praising The Father for the provision of food. It is possible that He
recited a blessing that was (or became) typical and is used to this day. "Blessed
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from
the Earth." I tell you this because it is not that by breaking the bread that Jesus
was beginning the process of preparing smaller portions in order to parcel it out
to the many individuals and families. Rather the berakhah is one of ceremonial
ritual that He no doubt had recited hundreds of times.
Yeshua hands the baskets of food back to the disciples who are then ordered to
distribute it to the hungry crowd. So, when, exactly did the miracle of
multiplication happen? We're not told how it transpired. Just as with the foot
washing and other acts Jesus did with His disciples to teach them important
principles, the disciples should, by now, have realized that their Master was no
mere Prophet or Tzadik. Not only was Christ's divine character on display, but
also it revealed that a disciple's truest job was to serve people on Yeshua's
behalf. Even the food that got multiplied came from them; they were the ones
who brought the loaves and fishes and they were the ones tasked with giving it
out. But now the question becomes: is there any significance, or symbolism, as
regards the 5 loaves and 2 fishes? That is, do the numbers 5 and 2 in Hebrew
gematria play a role? My answer is that I don't know. I also don't think that the
food items of bread and fish are the issue because these were the staple food
items for the people of Galilee; it would have been unexpected if the food
consisted of something else. But when we think of all that Yeshua has taught,
and all that He stands for, one thought that comes to mind is that perhaps the 5
loaves is symbolic of the 5 Books of the Torah. And the 2 represents the 2
greatest commandments of the Torah: To love God with all our mind and strength
and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. Both of these things were
clearly being demonstrated in Christ's actions. I confess that this might just be an
allegorical interpretation, yet it is hard for me to dismiss as something we are
meant to take from the story.
In the end, the people are more than satisfied and there is even much left over.
The message is clear: God has no limits on the abundance He can supply. He
wants to shower His worshipers in abundance. Yet this sort of message only
erupts into daily reality for everyone at the entry into the Messianic Kingdom of
God and the end of the age. Good righteous people will go hungry on this
present earth; an earth that is not presently God's Kingdom but rather it is
Satan's realm. Even so, as Christ's disciples we are to help provide for those who
don't have enough to eat. Always this obligation begins with, and is prioritized for,
God's people and those who have been grafted in. But it certainly doesn't
exclude those who are yet to discover God's truth and His grace.
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Lesson 51 - Matthew 14
We'll continue in Matthew chapter 14 next week.
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 52, Chapter 14 Continued
Keep your Bibles open and handy as we're going to do much reading today.
The beginning of Matthew chapter 14 was covered in the previous lesson. It is
the story of the execution of John the Baptist. The request for his beheading
came during a lavish birthday party for Herod Antipas, at the behest of Herod's
wife Herodias. The marriage of Herodias to Herod was recent, and John spoke
out against it, calling it "unlawful". Or in the Jewish context of the day, the union
was illicit and it broke the Law of Moses. The issue was that Herodias was
actually married to Herod Antipas' brother Herod Philip. But for reasons
unexplained, Antipas stole her away from his brother. Why would Herod or
Herodias care what the strange commoner, John the Baptist, had to say about it?
First it was because Herod pretended to be a Jew who followed the Jewish
religion; neither claim was true. This false claim originated with his father, Herod
the Great, when he ruled and also pretended the same things. So, for John to
publicly denounce Herod as breaking the Torah regarding marriage (and indeed
it did violate the Law of Moses) created an uncomfortable conundrum for Antipas,
and it apparently greatly bothered and angered his wife Herodias.
All throughout Hebrew history it seems that Israel's kings...legitimate or not...
regularly saw themselves as above the Law of Moses. And certainly since the
King sat atop Israel's justice system as the ultimate judge and jury, he would
never indict himself for wrongdoing (just think about all the wrongs David did and
he never faced the Torah justice system). Herod was concerned because John
the Baptist had a substantial following and thus he had influence. Herod feared
an uprising; not so much that he couldn't eventually put it down, but because
Rome made it the number one priority among the many appointed rulers within
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
their empire to keep the peace. If the peace was broken, then the ruler was
usually seen as at fault.
In the end, Herodias used her lovely young daughter to entice Herod into offering
her anything she wanted from him. He vowed before his birthday party guests (all
dignitaries of course) that he would give this young beauty up to half his kingdom
(this was an expression, not something to be taken literally) for pleasing him and
his guests by performing a seductive dance. Her mother told her to ask Antipas
for John's head and not really wanting to, he obliged her because otherwise he
risked losing face before his guests if he didn't. The order was given and carried
out immediately.
Jesus heard about John's death through some of John's followers and He
reacted by departing in a boat to somewhere secluded to have time to mourn,
pray, and contemplate what this might mean for Himself. He was, after all, in the
territory that Herod Antipas controlled and Herod had made a connection
between John the Baptist and Jesus... although it was a rather irrational one. But
the Sea of Galilee isn't all that big so a large crowd saw where Yeshua seemed
to be going and followed on foot around the lake in hopes of catching up with Him
so He would perform His healing miracles on them. Because there were so
many, and it was getting near dark, Yeshua's disciples (who were late arrivals to
the gathering) said that the crowd should be dispersed so they could go to some
local villages to purchase food for their evening meal. Yeshua told them no; the
disciples were to feed them.
The disciples were astonished at this command since about 10,000 men, women
and children were present and the only food the disciples had available was what
they had brought for themselves: 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jesus blessed the
food, and told the disciples to start distributing it. Miraculously, it fed the entire
crowd with baskets left over.
Let's pick up at Matthew 14 verse 22 and find out what happened next.
RE-READ MATTHEW 14:22 - end
The story of Yeshua walking on the water is also told in the Gospels of Mark and
John. While each is similar, each also adds their own flavor, and some might say
there are disparities of a factual nature among them. I want to remind you that
the Matthew who is the author of this Gospel is not Matthew Levi, one of the
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
original 12. This is a different Matthew and so, like the other Gospel writers, he
wasn't present as eyewitness to the events that are being spoken about. John is
the exception as he, indeed, was present to hear Yeshua speak in person. But by
no means does that mean that he was present for everything he recorded in his
Gospel. Rather these Gospel writers took their accounts from a combination of
eyewitnesses and researching earlier recorded accounts that were known.
Modern scholars constantly debate over where these accounts might have come
from, and who originally wrote them. No one knows. All scholars can do is guess,
so we won't go there.
Before we dissect this story, lets read the accounts in both Mark and John to
supplement the one in Matthew.
Turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 6.
READ MARK 6: 45 - 56
Now turn to John chapter 6.
READ JOHN 6:14-27
When we see these accounts side by side by side, we immediately notice the
differences. Some of the variations have to do with what parts of the event each
Gospel writer includes. It's not that one is accurate (or most accurate) and the
others are less accurate. It's for the same reason that honest journalists will
interview several people who witnessed, or have knowledge, of some event
because each will perceive it slightly differently. And each will also recall some
elements of the happening while not remembering them all. Therefore by
stitching the various accounts together a person can obtain a more complete
story.
But we also at times see the conclusions that each Gospel writer drew from
what they learned concerning an event they had investigated, and therefore what
they felt the readers should know. Because each writer wrote his Gospel
anywhere from about 30 years to about 60 years after the events had transpired
then history played out a bit further and they had a little different perspective than
the people who were there. After all; the Gospel writers wrote decades after
Christ's death, burial, and resurrection and the Jesus movement had grown
substantially (something that at the time of these events we're reading about
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
hadn't yet occurred). So how the people that formed the crowds thought about
Jesus and His words and His miracles as they experienced them could be quite
different than how the Gospel writers might have thought about them since the
passage of time gave these writers more information.
So, using Matthew's Gospel as our primary source, we see that at the end of the
day after the multitudes were fed, the disciples got into a boat and headed back
across the Lake to the area they resided while Yeshua stayed behind to dismiss
the crowd. Why it was set up that way logistically that Jesus alone sent the
crowds away we're not told. However Matthew makes it clear that the solitude
Jesus had sought in the first place by coming to this place, and didn't get, He
again pursued. Christ went up into the hills to be alone and pray. Soon night fell
and He was by Himself at the same time the boat with the disciples in it was
slowly moving across the Sea of Galilee. It seems that a storm had erupted
(something that happens with some regularity at the Lake) and the winds were
howling. They were apparently heading into the wind and couldn't make any
progress. The CJB says that the boat was several miles away but that is not the
best translation. Rather the distance measure was recorded in the Roman stadia.
A stadia is about 200 yards. Since the lake wasn't anymore than perhaps 5 miles
across, they were likely not much more than a couple of miles from the shore
they had departed from; however they were stymied and couldn't get across the
body of water because of the strong wind.
The disciples' destination, according to Mark, was Bethsaida. Matthew doesn't
tell us their intended destination so much as where they actually wound up:
Gennesaret (the CJB says Ginosar, but I'll explain that in a minute). John says
they were heading towards Capernaum but not necessarily to Capernaum. Why
don't the destinations agree? It is likely because all these places were pretty near
one another; they were all located at the north and northwest part of the Sea of
Galilee. I suspect that the Gospel writers knew only generalities about where it
was exactly along the western side of the Lake that the disciples were going and
so assumed the village's name according to about where on the Lake it was
located. And they all concluded differently.
The ancient village of Gennesaret is the modern day Ginosar. Today a Kibbutz is
located there along with a wonderful hotel and an interesting museum. I've
billeted a number of tour groups in the Nof Ginosar Hotel. The museum there is
famous for their display of the Jesus Boat (as its called). The boat is a typical
fishing boat from the 1
st century that was discovered in 1986 buried in the mud
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
and exposed due to a drought and the receding shore line. No one claims that
this is the actual boat that Jesus was in, but it is the real deal of what a Galilean
fishing boat looked like in that day. It is remarkably well preserved and well worth
seeing because when we read in the Bible about storms erupting on the Sea of
Galilee (like with our story of Yeshua walking on the water) it is easy to
understand why the occupants of a boat like that would get panicky. Those
vessels are quite small and could be easily swamped or overturned in a storm.
Just above Ginosar along the lakeshore is Capernaum; the northernmost village
mentioned in our story is Bethsaida. The main thing for us to understand is that
the disciples departed from somewhere on the east side of the Sea of Galilee
and were headed toward the west side.
Apparently they were battling against the waves and headwind all night long
because we're told that it was during the 4
th watch that Yeshua took a little walk
across those raging waters towards those exhausted and frightened boat
occupants. The 4
th watch is what we would call 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. How did Jesus
know they were in trouble? Mark says that He saw that they were having trouble
rowing the boat. Matthew doesn't explain it and neither does John. The Greek
word Mark uses for what alerted Yeshua is eido, which is usually translated as
see. However it can mean "see" in the sense of something that is visual and in
our eyesight or in the sense of our knowing something. It is hard to imagine how
Jesus could, in the dark of the night during a violent storm, spot a small fishing
boat bobbing around a mile or two offshore with several very worried and wet
folks aboard. Rather, the true beginning of this miracle is that He knew where the
boat was and that it was floundering and that His disciples needed to be
rescued.
It's the next part of the miracle that has always mesmerized Christians. Yeshua
simply walked on top of the water towards the boat in order to get to them. We're
told that when the disciples saw Him coming they were terrified and screamed
"It's a ghost!". Lots to unpack, here. First: only Matthew and Mark tell us that the
disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. Did they think the apparition they saw
was a ghost of Jesus? Did they think that Christ had died in the last few hours? I
don't think so. In fact, we find Yeshua saying not to worry because "it is I". That
is, they didn't know the identity of this apparition that was walking across the
waves and coming towards them.
In that era, large bodies of water were mystical to the people. It was a common
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
belief that evil spirits and scary creatures lived under those dark waters.
Goodness, even to this day there are cultures in this world that thinks sea
monsters exist. So without doubt they thought that in the midst of the storm an
evil spirit (a ghost) had arisen from the churned up waters and was coming
towards them with bad intent. Water was thought of as the realm of chaos and
evil. So a storm was seen as those creatures living below the surface causing the
chaos and evil above it. Yes, this is superstition, which the Bible certainly does
not teach. But it just goes to show how steeped in pagan societal beliefs that
Israel had become... even the disciples.
This is another of those Bible stories (and especially New Testament stories) that
points out just how important it is to consider the 1st century Jewish context and
background it is told in. The Tanakh (the Old Testament) makes it clear that only
God can walk on water. Job 9 we find this:
CJB Job 9:7-8 7 He commands the sun, and it fails to rise; he shuts up the
stars under his seal. 8 He alone spreads out the sky and walks on the waves
in the sea.
In Psalms we read:
CJB Psalm 77:19-20 19 The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind, the
lightning flashes lit up the world, the earth trembled and shook. 20 Your way
went through the sea, your path through the turbulent waters; but your
footsteps could not be traced.
And how could any of us forget:
CJB Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. 2 The earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the
deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water.
The point is that we are meant to see just what the disciples were meant to see:
the sight of Yeshua walking on the water was an epiphany. What is an epiphany?
It is an unexpected revelation of God that reveals aspects of His nature or
character or attributes. Thus the divine character and nature of Yeshua that has
already been publicly demonstrated in His many miracles, and by His unmatched
Wisdom, is displayed in spectacular fashion before His disciples. I'll say again: it
was well understood within Jewish society on account of the Old Testament
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Scriptures that only God could walk on water; and now here is this Jewish Holy
Man doing it. If you or I were there, how might we have perceived such a thing? I
imagine we would have been just as terrified as they were.
We also can't just flash by the fact that in that era, among Jews, Wisdom (as
virtually a person of God, in a similar way to how Christianity thinks of The Son
and The Holy Spirit as "persons" of God) is said to walk on water in the Book of
Sirach chapter 24. These words I'll quote to you are said to be the person of
divine Wisdom speaking:
5
I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all
creatures: 6 1 made that in the heavens there should rise light that never
faileth, and as a cloud I covered all the earth: 7 1dwelt in the highest places,
and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud. 8 1alone have compassed the circuit
of heaven, and have penetrated into the bottom of the deep, and have
walked in the waves of the sea,
I am certainly not claiming that Wisdom actually spoke these words, or that
Wisdom (per se) is necessarily a "person" of God. The point is that this is how
Jewish society in the 1
st century thought of Wisdom; it is firmly what they
believed. And Matthew has gone to great lengths in his Gospel to paint Yeshua
as the divine embodiment of Wisdom. So Yeshua walking on water, while taking
our breath away as among the most enjoyable and meaningful short stories of
the New Testament, made a deeper and somewhat different impression upon
Christ's Jewish disciples that witnessed it.
Yeshua perfectly well understood that the disciples would be frightened out of
their wits at the sight of Him. So He reassures them first by identifying Himself
and then telling them to chill out; stop being afraid. Afraid of what? No doubt it
was not just of seeing what they thought was a sea demon but also of their dire
predicament in this raging storm.
What comes next is almost a short story unto itself. It tells the story of the disciple
Peter more or less saying: "Well, if He can do it, I can do it" and so determines to
get out of the boat on walk on the waters, himself. I want to pause here to say
that as one might imagine, few Bible academics and scholars give much
credence to the story of Jesus or Peter walking on water. Some say it was a
much later Christian legend that had been developed and then written back into
the Gospel accounts. Others say the petrified disciples were imagining it all as a
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
result of an extreme fear reaction. Some say that indeed it was some kind of
apparition that God conjured up, but it certainly wasn't the flesh and blood Jesus.
There are other rationalizations and denials issued besides these. But again we
are dealing with an intellectual body that must analyze biblical things within the
Scientific Method or they refuse to accept it. That is, the underlying foundation of
this story of miracle is automatically dismissed because miracles cannot be
justified as scientific or rational.
The only Gospel account of this walking-on-water miracle that includes Peter is
Matthew's. He says that once the disciples saw that it was indeed Yeshua,
Peter's response was to ask Yeshua to bid him to come to Him into the water.
Notice that this request is prefaced with "if it is really you". Remember: Yeshua
has already identified Himself so by now surely the disciples must have
recognized Him. It seems that Peter's faith was hardly up to snuff. Nonetheless
Yeshua indulged Peter and led him into the water. Peter, too, walked on the
surface. His excitement overcame his fears; but once the novelty wore off, Peter
remembered the wind and the storm he had been enduring the last several
hours, and the fears came flooding back; he sunk. He yelled out "Lord save me"
and Yeshua reached out His hand, took hold of Peter, and pulled him back to the
surface. He then chastised Peter as having "so little trust". This remark has
always troubled me because unless there was a pretty significant trust (or faith)
involved Peter would never have stepped out of that boat in the first place.
It is common in the world of Bible academics to label this either as a story of an
epiphany or as the story of a sea rescue. Rather I see it is a story that revolves
around both faith and fear. C.E.B. Cranfield in speaking about Mark's version of
Christ walking on water and the disciples' response to the situation, says:
"...if it is as a result of obedience to Christ's command that the Church or
the individual Christian is in a situation of danger or distress, then there is
no need of fear."
I think Peter may be representative of most of us (I am certainly putting myself in
this category). He is the man of great faith that oscillates with little faith. He is the
man that can hear the Lord calling and obey; but also the man that when things
get tough he gets distracted, loses his focus, and his natural fears take over.
Yeshua says in verse 31 that the underlying cause of this maddening oscillation
is doubt. The Greek word is the verb diastazein. It most literally means to be "of
divided mind".
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
Although I wish that once I was saved my life shifted into auto-pilot such that I
could just get up every day and declare "whatever happens is God's will" and
then take whatever the day may bring with it in stride, in a spirit of shalom, and
with a smile on my face, that simply isn't what happens. Even with God's Holy
Spirit living within us, it is a far more natural human behavior to focus on our
fears than it is to focus on Him. How do we overcome this? To stay focused on
God takes concentration. It takes effort. It takes determination. It can be...
exhausting.
Peter was fine for a short time because he saw Jesus and he believed. In one
part of his mind he was excited to take that big step of faith out of the boat and
into the violent Sea. But very quickly the other side of his mind intervened; he lost
his concentration when he took stock of what was actually happening all around
him. The wind; the rain; the turbulent water under him. It all became bigger in his
mind than Yeshua who was standing before him.
As of the moment I am teaching this lesson, it is the year 2020, and it is a world
in chaos. Governments are rising and falling, families are disintegrating, people
have little or no trust in what were, at one time, cherished institutions that
provided stability. The Covid virus still has the world in its grips; and people are
fearful to varying degrees not just because of the devastating effects of this virus,
but more because of this toxic * of calamities and troubles from which
there seems to be no escape. At the core of the message behind the walking-on␂water story is that fear is the opposite of faith. Again and again in the Bible we're
told by God to "fear not". This is because fear sinks down. Faith lifts up. Fear is a
heavy millstone around our necks. Faith is a buoyant life preserver. It is quite
easy to say "don't fear"; it's much harder to practice it. I wish it were that we could
enter our quiet space and fervently pray to the God of Israel, and then turn
around and leave that space and our fears behind. It doesn't usually work that
way because trust and faith isn't more prayer; trust and faith is living out those
prayers.
The good news is that our trust and faith are only part of the story. The other part
is that when we're sinking, for Believers there is the ready hand of our Savior to
rescue us. I'm glad for this because on any given day I don't have a perfect faith.
Peter's faith didn't leave him as he stepped overboard and then noticed the
chaos; Yeshua says it just became "little". King David puts it in a way that
perhaps many of you can identify with.
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
CJB Psalm 69:1 For the leader. Set to "Lilies." By David: 2 Save me, God! For
the water threatens my life. 3 1am sinking down in the mud, and there is no
foothold; I have come into deep water; the flood is sweeping over me. I am
exhausted from crying...
The danger Peter faced when he cried out "Lord! Save me!" was real and not
imagined. The dangers David was facing when He cried out "Save me, God!"
were real and not imagined. The dangers we all face in this worldwide era of
chaos and pandemic, whether or not we are Believers, are real and not imagined.
However, if we are members of Yeshua's flock we can also cry out "Lord save
me" and He will.
I want to encourage you with this: as Christ's devoted followers, a failure of our
faith will almost certainly occur because we are human beings. But it doesn't
mean we have abandoned God or that He has abandoned us. Yeshua didn't
accuse Peter of having lost his faith. We don't have to fear; as strange as it may
seem, many biblical passages make fear over faith as a choice we make. But to
overcome fear, and to replace it with unshakable trust and faith in God, takes
effort and practice; it doesn't come naturally. What better time to start than right
now.
Verse 32 says that Jesus and Peter climbed into the boat and the instant they
did, the storm halted. The disciples were so overcome with awe at all they had
just witnessed that they fell at the feet of Yeshua and exclaimed: "You really are
God's Son". In this moment the disciples discovered something that they just had
not been able to accept. Something that Matthew takes us back to, in order to
close the circle.
CJB Matthew 3:16-17 16 As soon as Yeshua had been immersed, he came up
out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, he saw the Spirit of
God coming down upon him like a dove, 17 and a voice from heaven said,
"This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with him." We shouldn't be judgmental over the disciples saying "you really are" God's Son.
That is, it's something that they had heard, but now they understand the
incredible meaning. God's son and son of God were terms that were common in
Hebrew history and had a certain meaning in Jewish religious society. A son of
God was a biblical term for an ordained king of Israel. The Old Testament refers
to all of Israel's kings as sons of God. Yet, it was of course understood that these
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
sons of God were humans, and certainly not deity.
But here, the disciples finally understood the connection between God and
Yeshua; they were literally father and son; The Father and The Son. All of
Yeshua's implications that He was the divine Son... implications He spoke that
just didn't register in their minds... came together in one of the greatest "Aha!"
moments that the Bible records. And yet, that doesn't mean that Yeshua wasn't
also a king of Israel. In the P'shat sense, the plain sense, Yeshua as the Son of
God indeed meant a visible, human king of Israel. But in the Remez sense, a
hint, a deeper sense of the meaning, He was literally God's divine offspring...
God's Son.
It is interesting to me that many excellent New Testament scholars, even one as
superior as Daniel J. Harrington, go on to comment that "but according to Mark
6:52 their heart was hardened and they failed to understand". That is, the Mark
story of how the disciples responded to the walking-on-water miracle is the
opposite of what Matthew claims.
CJB Mark 6:51-52 51 He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.
They were completely astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the
loaves; on the contrary, their hearts had been made stone-like...
Other Bible translations say it the same way. But what seems to get set aside by
some Bible commentators is that Mark wasn't talking about the walking-on-water
miracle that made their hearts stone-like, but rather it was the miracle of the
fishes and loaves (as the verses so plainly state). This is an example of why it is
so outstanding that we have these 4 ancient Gospel accounts to refer to, in order
that we can check all the Gospel accounts on this story, and then mentally stitch
them together to get a more full picture of what went on. It is that, according to
Mark, the disciples thought it was pretty cool that Yeshua took 2 fish and 5 loaves
of bread and somehow multiplied it to feed around 10,000 men, women and
children. But... they still didn't get who Yeshua really was. And the reason they
couldn't is that their hearts had been made stone-like. Remembering the axiom
that in modern terms we must think of heart as meaning mind (a function of our
brain), then it is that the disciples were still hard headed. They just couldn't open
their minds to the truth of the revelation of God on earth that stood daily in their
presence. However, Yeshua walking on water and quelling the storm finally broke
through those hardened minds such that they could say (and I paraphrase) "just
like John the Baptist had told us of the words that he heard coming out of the sky
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
that this man he was immersing was God's Son, now we get it that this is what
was meant. Yeshua really is the divine seed of The Father".
Verses 34 - 36 sort of summarize what has just happened, and it brings this
chapter to a close. It says they landed at Ginosar. And when the people there
saw who it was (we see just how far and wide Yeshua's reputation and even His
face had become known), they rushed to one another's neighbors so that they
could assemble all those who were ill and with infirmities and take them to
Yeshua. For them Jesus was still only a miracle working Tzadik (a Jewish Holy
Man). And Yeshua, who is always ready to heal and to rescue because that is
His.... and God The Father's... nature, healed all who came to Him that day.
Matthew remarks that many simply wanted Him to allow the sick to touch "the
hem of His garment" or "the fringe of His robe" or some such thing because they
thought His power was that great. These terms are all dutifully avoiding the
obvious. It is that no common Jewish person's garment in that era was hemmed.
Nor was there a fringe or some such decorative thing attached to the bottom of
their outer tunic. Rather this can only be speaking of the thing that Jews in
Christ's day, and long before, wore in obedience to a command of
God: tzitzit; and they were not located down by the ankle.
I've spoken at length about tzitziyot (plural of tzitzit) in my teachings on the
Torah. These are God-ordained tassels made in a very specific way, that are to
be used as memory devices for His people.
CJB Numbers 15:38-41 38 "Speak to the people of Isra'el, instructing them to
make, through all their generations, tzitziyot on the corners of their
garments, and to put with the tzitzit on each corner a blue thread. 39 It is to
be a tzitzit for you to look at and thereby remember all of ADONAl's mitzvot
and obey them, so that you won't go around wherever your own heart and
eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves; 40 but it will help you remember and
obey all my mitzvot and be holy for your God. 41 1 am ADONAI your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt in order to be your God. I am
ADONAI your God."
Matthew concludes that all who touched not Yeshua's person, not His flesh, but
rather merely the tzitzit He wore were healed.
We'll begin Matthew chapter 15 next time.
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Lesson 52 - Matthew 14 cont
13/13

Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 53, Chapter 15
Today we start Matthew chapter 15. The first 20 verses represent perhaps one of
the most controversial segments of any Gospel account. There is a parallel
account of this same incident in Mark 7. We'll look it at as well because it adds
some needed information.
Before we do that, however, we need to recall that Matthew's is easily the most
Jewish of any of the Gospels. He assumes a Jewish reader audience, and some
of the earliest of the Early Church Fathers claim that Matthew was originally
written in Hebrew and only later translated into the Greek. The way Matthew
presents his work, and some of the Jewish idioms that are clearly embedded
(most of which are obscured by their translation into Greek and then to English),
as well as the way he puts matters that seem to require a certain level of inherent
knowledge by his readers of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jewish Law and Jewish
customs, locations of places in the Holy Land, and other things that Jews would
know as common knowledge but gentiles wouldn't, make it highly probable that it
was first written in Hebrew.
Mark on the other hand included some explanations of things that would be
completely superfluous to Jews, but was needed to help provide some
background for Gentiles. It implies that he expected his audience to be mostly
gentiles who were Romans.
There's one other factor that we must consider. The earliest known complete
manuscripts of the Gospels that we have are from about 350 A.D. It is fairly
conclusive that all the Gospel accounts had been written from the middle to the
end of the 1st century. Therefore the earliest New Testament texts that we have
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
are from about 250 years after the originals were written. They had been copied
and re-copied countless times by 350 A.D. so we must never think that what we
possess are the original NT documents just because they are in Greek. What we
have is, except for Matthew, copies in the original language they were written;
but that is all. This also means that it is not proven that what we have is word for
word the way the various authors first penned the many New Testament books.
This is not to say that there is a verifiable difference since we don't have the
originals to compare; so we can't say with certainty whether there are or are not
differences. But it is very nearly inevitable that some small amount of editing and
editorializing (even error) had to occur over 2 1/2 centuries of hand copying done
by scores of different people, and Mark 7 has strong evidence of some
editorializing in a couple of key passages. Even more (and this is perhaps the
most crucial point), the copying occurred within the Gentile Christian Church (the
Jews certainly held no interest during this time period in Jesus or Paul or
Christianity). Even some of the most conservative Bible scholars admit that there
is strong evidence of later Christian influence that was woven into some of the
New Testament accounts.
Do not think that I'm suggesting that the New Testament books that we have
today are flawed. I'm saying that when something (a verse, a comment) within a
book simply doesn't fit, or seems to go against earlier teachings, we need to hold
them suspect that a later Christian editor had a hand in it. At other times it is very
likely a legitimate issue of Gentile Christians misunderstanding Jewish concepts
and words and expressions and so choosing wrong words to translate; because
by the time of 350 A.D. the New Testament documents the Church had and were
copying already had become the province of a Gentiles-only institution that was
openly anti-Semitic in their doctrines.
Before we read Matthew chapter 15 I will also make one more explanation (since
I get regular emails on the subject). It concerns my use of the term doctrines. The
term doctrines is from its dictionary definition, generally speaking, a neutral term;
it is neither a negative nor a positive. A Judeo-Christian doctrine is said to be a
faith principle or rule based on a biblical interpretation. Early in the Holy
Scriptures, the term doctrines was used to describe faith principles sent down
from God through His prophets and through Moses. However today, within the
Christian Church, the term doctrines simply means what committees of men that
belong to specific denominations have created as their Church rules and
principles. When I use the term doctrines, it nearly always means manmade
Christian rules and statements. This doesn't mean that all doctrines are wrong.
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Rather the issue is that over the centuries the Church has significantly veered
away from direct biblical instruction and instead has embraced Christian customs
and rules derived by various groups of men, and imposed upon them on the
members of the few thousand different Christian denominations. So when I use
the word doctrines, I do mean it as something contrived by humans and so it is
mostly a negative term.
Let's read all of Matthew chapter 15.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 15 all
This chapter opens with a confrontation between Yeshua and some Pharisees
and Scribes hailing from Jerusalem. As verse 12 tells us, it must have been a
pretty testy exchange that had the onlookers on edge. Once again we don't see a
meek and mild Christ backing away from a skirmish with self-important Jewish
religious leaders; our Messiah has a backbone. In fact, sometimes He seeks out
a confrontation. Here, however, it was they who sought Him out.
The first thing to visualize is that these are synagogue leaders that are coming to
do theological battle with Yeshua. The second is that they are coming from
Jerusalem, the piety center of the Holy Land. This is a pertinent piece of
information that is included because the religious leaders who lived in Jerusalem
were the most rigid, demanding, and confrontational. Jerusalem was, for
centuries, the religious center of the world for Hebrews and so the most orthodox
lived there and studied there at the several religious academies. Besides it being
the place from which the many Hebrew kings lived and ruled, the Temple and
Priesthood were also located there so there was an extra high sense of
spiritualism for those who chose to live there, especially if they were religious
leaders and teachers.
Notice that it was not the Priests or Levites who regularly come to do battle with
Yeshua nor was it this time. The Temple system seems to have taken little notice
of Him so far. It was the synagogue system and the Pharisees and Scribes that
ran it who saw a real and growing threat to their authority brewing. So in the end,
this is what these confrontations were all about.
Before we go any further, let's read several verses from Mark 7.
READ MARK CHAPTER 7:1- 15
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
So the issue for these synagogue leaders is this: they had been observing
Yeshua and His disciples for some time (because they were aware of this
growing competition from a mere carpenter from the Galilee) and they were put
off that His disciples didn't wash their hands before eating; something these
Jerusalem synagogue leaders held as sacrosanct. This washing they speak of
had little to do with hygiene; it was a ritual ceremonial matter. The ritual was
called n'tilat-yadayim. Matthew 15:2 has these religious leaders saying that the
disciples (and no doubt Yeshua Himself) are breaking the rules of the Traditions
of the Elders. So it is critical that we understand something fundamental to this
entire scene: this had nothing to do with Holy Scripture...the Torah or the Law of
Moses. This was strictly about the Traditions of the Elders.
Traditions of the Elders is also known as Jewish Law, Oral Law, Oral Torah and
Halachah. That is, this is not about biblical laws and instructions as given by God
and found in the written Torah. These are not things told to Moses by God and
recorded in what we now call the Old Testament. Rather these are manmade
commands and laws created by the Jewish religious authorities who meant to
rule over the Jewish religious institutions and the Jews who were connected to
them. Or better yet: this is all about rules for the synagogue. The Temple
authorities... beginning with the High Priest... were not in the business of making
laws and traditions. In fact one of the reasons that the Sadducees and Pharisees
were usually at odds with one another is that the Sadducees did not accept these
Traditions and Jewish Laws as legitimate. While the Priesthood leadership itself
may have been corrupt and illegitimate nonetheless the Sadducees (that was the
political/religious party of the Priesthood) claimed to accept only the authority of
the written biblical Torah. That they didn't practice what they preached is another
matter.
The reason I began today's discussion by explaining what I mean when I say
"doctrines", and the negative sense in which I usually use the term, it is because
it corresponds precisely to the Traditions of the Elders. That is, while Christians
point to their doctrines as their Church rules, Jews point to their Traditions as
their synagogue rules. In both cases these are human contrived rules and
regulations that are invariably taught as though they came from God's mouth. As
we see when we read this passage from Matthew 15, Matthew and Yeshua
absolutely use the term "Traditions of the Elders" as a negative. So to repeat: the
argument that ensues between Christ and the Pharisees has nothing to do with
Holy Scripture. There's nothing for us to learn about the Law of Moses or any of
the Holy Scriptures here, because that isn't the subject.
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Something else that must be noticed. The specific point of debate is ritual hand
washing. Thus, the debate is framed for us as if it were in brackets. The opening
bracket is verse 2 (when the complaint of the Pharisees and Scribes is made),
then the body of the argument is presented, and finally the closing bracket is
verse 20 (when Jesus concludes His teaching against this ritual hand washing
demand). That is, the entire subject being addressed is placed in a kind of self␂standing bubble. The subject is ritual hand washing and nothing else. There is
nothing here about Kosher food; what is permitted to eat and what is not (even
though Christianity centers it's doctrine on the abolition of biblically kosher eating
on this paragraph).
The conservative Bible scholar W.D. Davies in his 2000 page commentary on
Matthew says this:
"Against Meier and others, we do not find in Matthew 15 an abolition of the
OT purity laws. Not only would such an interpretation run afoul of other
Matthean texts, but the decisive statement in Mark 7:19 (that all food are
clean) has been omitted... the evangelist's (Matthew's) concern is not with
the Old Testament but with the Pharisees and their paradosis (this means a
historical tradition)"
So one doesn't have to be a modern day Messianic or Hebrew Roots adherent to
readily see that this section of Matthew has nothing to do with kosher eating or
with the biblical Torah; only with manmade rules and regulations. But when an
1800 year old Christian Church doctrine is that Christians don't have to abide by
anything in the Old Testament, then all New Testament interpretation necessarily
comes to the conclusion that, among other things, all purity laws are gone as well
as all of God's food laws... regardless of what the words of the Bible might say.
CJB Matthew 5:17-20 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven!
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Notice in this profound statement from Matthew 5 not just the familiar denial by
Christ that He came to abolish the Torah and the Prophets, but rather the final
few words that blistered the Scribes and Pharisees where He says that unless a
Jew's righteousness is greater than that of their synagogue religious leaders, no
entry into the Kingdom of Heaven is possible. So now to begin Matthew chapter
15 we see that the Scribes and Pharisees have counted strict adherence to the
Traditions of the Elders... to manmade Jewish Law... as their righteousness. The
circle is closed. What Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5:20 is exactly the
scene that is unfolding in the first 20 verses of Matthew 15. That is, Jews (and all
humanity) are going to be judged by God NOT by the traditions of Judaism (or
Christianity), but rather by God's words... Holy Scripture.
I'll be talking more about the Christian Church soon, but for now I want to speak
directly to Jews (and some gentiles) who identify themselves as Messianic
Believers in Yeshua of Nazareth. I have noticed a troubling trend within some
branches of Messianic Synagogues of wanting to do Talmud study as much or
more than Scripture study. I have noticed an increase in the adoption of rigid
rules and regulations of Orthodox Judaism about many details of life that has the
potential to detract from learning God's Word and following Yeshua's ways.
Maintaining one's Jewishness is admirable, good, and ought to be done. But be
careful; too much focus on Traditions can lead in some cases to giving up God's
words for man's words, which does great damage to our souls and our
relationship with the Lord.
It is one thing to look to ancient Jewish literature to learn about the mindset,
history, and the ways of early Judaism to help us better understand biblical times.
There are even some solid biblical insights buried in those volumes that are quite
profound and profitable for all followers of Jesus; Jews and gentiles. But we need
to be on guard not to be led into thinking that the doing of these Traditions
represents the righteousness that God requires of us. I'm not concerned about
things like the detailed ways that biblical holidays and feasts are celebrated
according to Judaism because mostly those are perfectly fine cultural customs
and preferences. In fact, there is much there to consider and perhaps adopt in
order to flush away centuries of the paganism that has infiltrated Christian
traditions. Rather I'm concerned about what Yeshua says I'm supposed to be
concerned about: manmade doctrines taken as having the equivalent authority as
God's Word.
Quite interestingly, Yeshua wasn't the only one to question, contradict and shun
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
the teachings of manmade traditions in His Jewish culture. The Essenes of the
Dead Sea Scrolls also had their axe to grind. In the document 1QH 4:14 - 15 we
read:
"Teachers of lies and seers of falsehoods have schemed against me in a
devilish scheme, to exchange the law engraved on my heart by Thee for the
smooth things (which they speak) to Thy people".
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the teachers of the smooth things are said to be the
Pharisees. So this is, of course, speaking about Traditions of the Elders as
against the "law engraved on my heart"... The Law of Moses.
In Matthew 15:3 Yeshua does something typical for Him: He answers a question
with a question. After the Pharisees' accusation of His disciples not obeying the
Tradition of the Elders by doing a ritual hand washing before eating, Yeshua asks
them why they break God's commands by adhering so devotedly to their
Traditions. The meaning is plain: their ritual hand washing tradition breaks God's
commandments. Nowhere in the Law of Moses does God require His people (at
least the non-priests) to wash their hands before eating: ceremonially or
otherwise. What is the reason for this Tradition about hand washing? It is meant
to wash off any ritual uncleanness so that it won't be transferred to their food.
Where would this ritual uncleanness have occurred? Mark 7:4 gives us one such
example and reveals the real motivation behind the invention of the hand
washing ritual: the proximity of Jews to gentiles in the marketplace.
The Jews had for a few centuries by Yeshua's day considered gentiles as
inherently unclean people. This principle had become thoroughly embedded in
the Jewish religion. Since the Jews had been under foreign kings for hundreds of
years, and lately that king was the Emperor of Rome, then gentiles overran the
Holy Land. Jerusalem was full of gentiles; even the Temple grounds had curious
gentile onlookers at the religious ceremonies. So were all the
marketplaces...everywhere in the Holy Land... full of gentiles who now lived there
and so shopped there. For Jews, this meant that everything the gentiles touched
was made unclean. Again; this was not at all a biblical principle, it was a Tradition
handed down from the Jewish Elders. But as happens whether in Judaism or in
Christianity, the line eventually blurs between Tradition and Scripture and
invariably Tradition wins out because whether it is to please or to control the
congregation, human rules and doctrines are more naturally accepted than God's
rules and laws.
7/13


Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Mark records in the same verse that in addition to the hand washing, the
Pharisees require a ceremonial washing of cups, pots, bronze vessels, and other
things. This is because in the Torah if a cup or a pot had something unclean in it,
and if the cup or pot was porous (clay, which was the most common type of
material used for cups and pots) and thus would have absorbed some of the
contents, it had to be destroyed. Bronze vessels on the other hand were not
porous and so something unclean in them wouldn't be absorbed and thus with a
quick washing out it could be used again. But the Pharisees had twisted this
command of God such that if a proper ritual washing (as defined and sanctioned
by them) was done for any object, then the uncleanness was cured. Tradition
trumps Scripture.
Yeshua next goes one step further. He brings up another Tradition that
apparently really bothered Him as an example of how perverted the Jewish Law
had become such that it blatantly broke one of the most fundamental of all Laws
of God, as found in the 10 Commandments: Honor your father and your
mother. Jesus reminds these synagogue leaders that the penalty that God
prescribes in the Torah for refusing to honor your mother and father is death.
However it had become a practice... a loophole, really... that in order to look good
and to get favor with the Temple authorities... and probably accompanied with a
false belief that the more you gave to the Temple the more you were in good
stead with God... whatever was needed to care for one's parents could instead
be redirected and given as korban... an offering.... to the Temple. Thus leaving
one's parents in a bad way (there were no pensions or 401K's in that era).
Yeshua says that to honor this terrible Tradition is to make God's law to honor
one's parents null and void... to abolish it.
Folks, as much as we want to, we simply can't have it both ways. We either obey
God's laws or the traditions of men, especially when performing a tradition of men
contradicts a law of God. Let me give you just a few examples pertinent to the
modern Christian Church.
Jesus told us in His Sermon on the Mount that not only has He not abolished the
Torah but that anyone who intentionally disobeys and teaches against the Torah
will be given the status of least in the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. What does the
Church say? It says nonsense; regardless of what He said Jesus DID abolish the
Torah, and that to obey it is sin, and it is a serious offense to the institution of the
Church such that you will likely be kicked out.
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Both Old and New Testaments (including Revelation) rail against homosexuality
as an abomination to God, saying unequivocally that those who would practice it
will be barred from the Kingdom of Heaven, and it makes marriage strictly a
union between a man and a women. What does much of the modern Church
say? They say that since Jesus is love, this abolishes such laws that were
instituted by His harsh and severe Father. * people should be accepted as
they are, with no intent to help them towards repentance because their lifestyle is
no longer considered wrong. And further, marriage can be anything we say it is
including between couples of the same sex long as they love each other.
God ordains in His Word that those who worship Him are to celebrate the Biblical
Feasts in perpetuity. The Church says "no" to this; it is much too Jewish and
instead created a number of non-biblical gentile traditions and celebrations that
demands allegiance to them as the truest validation of our Christianity. Among
these are Easter and Christmas that were from the beginning created by men
(gentile men) as anti-Jewish, heathen appeasing celebrations that adopted a
number of pagan elements.
God says to the keep the Sabbath on the 7
th day. The Church says the Sabbath
is dead and gone so now we celebrate something new called The Lord's Day.
And, that for those that want a Sabbath, any day we choose is fine with God. I've
probably offended sufficiently so I'll move on. Please just consider that what I told
you is the biblical truth... backed up by Scripture, in context, even if it is
uncomfortable to hear... and it is in the same vein as what Yeshua has just told
those Scribes and Pharisees.
"You hypocrites," Yeshua says to them. Then He again invokes the Prophet
Isaiah to further admonish. What we read in verses 8 and 9 most approximates
the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament). However in the Hebrew
Old Testament it reads:
CJB Isaiah 29:13-14 Then Adonai said: "Because these people approach me
with empty words, and the honor they bestow on me is mere lip-service;
while in fact they have distanced their hearts from me, and their Tear of me'
is just a mitzvah of human origin- 14 therefore, I will have to keep shocking
these people with astounding and amazing things, until the 'wisdom' of
their 'wise ones' vanishes, and the 'discernment' of their 'discerning ones'
is hidden away."
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
Clearly what Yeshua is saying by invoking the words of Isaiah is that even though
the Scribes and the Pharisees claim they are worshiping and glorifying God by
creating mounds of manmade rules, in fact it has no efficacy or effect; it's beyond
worthless, it's offensive. This is because whatever intent they have towards God,
it's wrong minded, shallow, insincere and unacceptable to Him. The laws
(the mitzvot) they follow to demonstrate their fear of God are alien to Him; they
are not of Heavenly origin but rather come from human minds. So, the ones that
claim discernment and wisdom (the religious leaders) will eventually be proven
as offering nothing of value and their doctrines will evaporate as surely as steam
does after it rises for a couple of seconds from a boiling pot.
In verse 10 Yeshua shifts His attention to the crowd that is witnessing all this. He
is no longer addressing the Pharisees and Scribes but rather talking around them
so that they can understand what has just transpired. And what He says is a
direct frontal attack on all they hold dear. Picture an astonished crowd and a
shocked group of disciples. He begins with "listen up, and get this through your
heads". He then goes on to say: "What makes a person unclean is not what
goes into his mouth; rather, what comes out of his mouth, that is what
makes him unclean!" Aha! says the Christian Church. Jesus has just abolished
kosher eating. Remember what I told you several minutes ago; none of this
passage is about Holy Scripture or about kosher eating. It's not about food per
se. What is this entire debate about? Purity regulations. Ritual, ceremonial hand
washing before eating as required by a Tradition. So, what Yeshua is saying to
the crowd upholds the Torah and is told to them in a form of a wisdom saying or
perhaps a proverb. There is no requirement from the Law of Moses to ritually
wash hands before eating in order to satisfy purity laws. That the hands of a Jew
touches something that has been in contact with a gentile doesn't affect the purity
(the cleanliness) of the food a Jew may eat at a later time.
But no, say most Christian Bible commentators; Jesus changed the subject
entirely when He turned to talk to the crowds. As we say in America, he changed
horses in mid-stream. He abruptly stopped talking about ritual hand washing and
inexplicably turned to the crowd to abolish God's food laws. This is why I spoke
earlier about thinking of this section as if were contained in brackets, or in a
bubble, so that you are not distracted or deceived by manmade Church
doctrines. The section begins with the question of ritual hand washing in verse 2,
and it ends with the final words Jesus says to the crowd in verse 20 concerning
the same subject: "These are what really makes a person unclean, but eating
without doing n'tilat-yadayim does NOT make a person unclean". And the
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
things that Jesus is referring to when He says "These are what really makes a
person unclean" are a list of sins we find in verse 19, as biblically defined
violations of the Law of Moses.
In verse 13 the horrified disciples turn to their Master and ask Him: "Do you
know that the P'rushim (the Pharisees) were offended by what you
said?" This was a kind of knee-* admonishment to Yeshua. Christ's words
had been strong, unequivocal, and said with full intent of trashing the Jewish Law
about ritual hand washing, and for that matter all Jewish Law (Traditions of the
Elders) that were manmade and ran counter to the Torah (which is why in His
argument He used as an example another sinful tradition of the Pharisees about
using money to support elderly parents for instead giving to the Temple). If a
Pastor said these severe words and his deacons or elders told him that he had
offended the higher-ups and others of his religion, apologies would have
been immediately forthcoming because within modern Christianity we can't ever
hold so strongly to the biblical truth, and forthrightly utter it in defense of God's
written word, that is might upset people. Especially those in leadership along with
us or above us. Where did we ever get such a false notion? When did we turn
into such spiritual cowards? Certainly we don't get this from Yeshua's examples.
His insistence on God's biblical truth as against manmade institutional doctrines
is what led Him to the cruel cross. It was His constant refusals to bow down to
deceived and wrong minded Jewish religious leaders... to not go with the flow of
wrong minded Traditions... that caused both the Temple and synagogue
leadership to gang up on Him and insist that the Roman government arrest and
execute Him.
So, in verse 13, in reply to His startled and worried disciples, He says: "Every
plant my Father in heaven has NOT planted will be pulled up by the
roots". Remember: back in chapter 13 Yeshua had spoken a series of Parables
to explain what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. And in the Parables of the Tares
(the weeds), He said that His disciples should not (generally speaking) pull out
the roots of a weed among the congregation. A weed (a tare) was representative
of seed that Satan had planted...members of Satan's Kingdom. Rather, it was
God that would pull them out at the proper time. Well, God on earth, Christ, says
that these particular Pharisees and Scribes that came to accuse Him and His
followers of not obeying Traditions of the Elders are representative of the seeds
NOT planted by His Father. The only other planter of spiritual seeds is the Devil.
So Yeshua is saying bluntly, but in connection to His Parables, that this
delegation from Jerusalem are plants that have grown from Satan's seed. And
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
following His own wisdom that He gave in the Parable of the Tares, in verse 14
He says: "Let them be. They are blind guides. When a blind man guides
another blind man, both will fall in the pit". That is, He doesn't intend to do
anything against these Pharisees and Scribes. He's not going to march against
them. He's not going to incite people against them. He's not going to try to have
them removed from their positions of authority and power. Rather, in time, God
Himself will handle it. And that time will probably be at the End of the Age, at the
Final Harvest.
Yeshua calls these religious authorities blind guides. What is a guide? A person
who leads, shows the way, and instructs. A guide who is blind walks in random
directions, and will of course eventually walk into a pit since he us unable to see
where he's actually going. The problem is, what happens when others follow this
blind guide? There is a secular parable or proverb that is used in nearly every
language that refers to bone-headed, wrong minded leaders as "the blind leading
the blind". That is, a blind person looks to another blind person to lead them.
Pretty foolish thing to do. The problem becomes acute when the blind person has
no idea he's blind, and doesn't realize that the person he has hired to lead him is
even more blind.
I could probably spend the next several minutes calling out certain leaders of our
faith, both Jewish and gentile, leaders of both Judaism and Christianity, but as
Jesus says in verse 15 after the astonished and now unsettled disciples ask Him
to explain what He just said: "Don't you understand even now?" Please, hear
me: If truly you cannot look at the congregation to which you belong, and the
leadership that lead it...the leadership you look to for truth... and are still unable
to discern whether those leaders are enlightened by God's illumination or are
blinded by the darkness of their manmade thoughts and beliefs, then nothing
more I can say that will help you. I can only imagine the exasperated tone of
Yeshua's words to those men who He personally and privately took under His
divine wing and taught... His very own disciples: "Don't you understand...even
NOW?" But out of His limitless mercy and compassion, He explained to them
using another metaphor and a sort of Parable to try to get them to see the
wrongness of the lens through which they still viewed and judged the veracity of
their Jewish religious leadership, and the rules and regulations... all manmade...
to which they adhered.
We shall begin next time with His explanation.
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Lesson 53 - Matthew 15
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 54, Chapter 15 Continued
We'll continue this week in Matthew 15, one of the more challenging (and
therefore controversial) chapters in the New Testament. At the same it is one of
the most inspirational, instructional, and therefore among the most important for
Believers to get right because it sets the foundation for several fundamental
doctrines.
We stopped last week at verse 16 when, after giving a Parable to explain the
problem about manmade Traditions, Yeshua is asked by Peter to explain it.
Parables were created and spoken as simple literary devices to make a complex
subject easier for regular folks to grasp. So an obviously exasperated Yeshua
says to His disciples: "You don't understand even now?" Let's back up a bit so
that we can reconstitute the all-important context of what, exactly, is transpiring in
this scene and what it is that Jesus is trying to teach.
Yeshua and His disciples have been confronted by some Pharisees and Scribes
(Synagogue leaders) that have come from Jerusalem to the Galilee for just that
purpose. They want to expose Jesus as a heretic; a Jew who doesn't follow the
all-important Jewish Traditions in the observance of His religion and thus
shouldn't have the adoring following that He has gained. The religious leaders
see Yeshua as a man who is painting outside the lines of nominal Jewish faith.
So the issue they use to base their condemnation on has to do with the ritual
purity laws... specifically ritual hand washing, which they say Yeshua's disciples
are not doing. So the most salient point I can make.... and it needs to be made
loud and clear... is that verses 1 - 20 are entirely about ritual hand washing and
whatever spiritual results it provides.
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
Ritual hand washing is not to be found in the Torah; rather it was a Tradition of
the Elders. The only ones among Israel who have certain commandments about
washing are Priests and Levites and only in the performance of their Temple
duties. Thus the basis for the debate is that Jesus sees the Pharisees and
Scribes following, and demanding that others follow, human-contrived Traditions
that in His view effectively override and violate certain laws of Moses handed
down from The Father at Mt. Sinai.
Yeshua refers to these Synagogue leaders who insist on obedience to manmade
Traditions (doctrines) over and above God's biblical rules and regulations as blind
guides. In earlier chapters He called them wolves in sheep's clothing. Clearly He
has little use for them and sees them as a stumbling block to the Jewish people's
relationship with The Father instead of operating as the teachers of God's truth
that they should be. So after publicly correcting these Synagogue leaders from
Jerusalem and pointing out the error of their ways, Christ's disciples are shocked
and worried that their Master would say such harsh and offensive things to these
highly revered men (and in front of a large crowd of onlookers). It should be
sinking in that the religious mindset of the disciples is causing them to do exactly
what most Christians have done and continue to do. The disciples were victims of
the tainted lenses through which they had been taught by the religious elite to
view the world. They assume that if one of their Jewish religious leaders has the
proper credentials, is popular, and is widely accepted as having official authority,
then he automatically deserves not only respect, but to be believed without
question. His position is the only proof needed of his rightness. So for a layman
(like Yeshua is viewed as) to attack these Synagogue leaders' teachings as
incorrect, and even to attack them personally by calling them names like blind
guides, seems wrong even to His own disciples. The Synagogue leaders, due to
their positions, are not asked to provide any proof for the validity of the ritual
hand washing they demand; but Christ is asked to explain Himself for speaking
against it. And as is typical, the religious leadership sees it as an affront to even
be questioned by a layman over what they assert is the proper observance of the
faith.
Let's read Christ's explanation in response to Peter's request.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 15:16-20
Because Mark's Gospel has a parallel account of this incident, we need to read
that as well in order to get added perspective but also to address the main
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
controversy of this story.
READ MARK CHAPTER 7 : 13 - 23
Notice the key words in Mark that ensure that Mark's readers understand the
sensitive issue at hand. This is Christ speaking:
CJB Mark 7:13 13 Thus, with your tradition which you had handed down to
you, you nullify the Word of God! And you do other things like this." Mark 7:13-18 almost precisely mirrors Matthew 15:16-20. However it is the final
words of Mark 7 verse 19 where the crux of the modern day Christian
controversy erupts because those words, and that thought, doesn't appear in
Matthew's Gospel or in any other place in the New Testament. The words are:
"Thus He (Christ) declared all foods ritually clean". We'll circle back to this
statement, but what has to be noted is this: assuming those words were actually
penned by Mark, they were Mark's editorial comment... they were not Christ's
words (nor were they purported to be). That is, those words represent a
conclusion... or perhaps an assumption... reached either by Mark or more likely
by a later Christian editor (which is a widely held suspicion among Bible scholars
because the comment seems out of place). In literature, ancient and modern,
such a thing is rather common and is called a gloss.
Yeshua's explanation to Peter and to the rest of the disciples was to try to reason
with them using what we might call common sense, so He uses a universally
understood metaphor. He says, look, whatever you put in your mouth (whatever
you eat) first goes into your stomach and then later is passed out into a latrine.
What Yeshua has said of course wouldn't have been challenged because it was
a normal human process of which everyone was aware. So, the premise is that
whatever enters into your mouth (what you eat) always has the same result no
matter what that food might be, nor what the ritual purity condition of that food
might be. The food itself may be ritually clean or ritually unclean, but the bodily
process and the end result is always the same.
The next point made is that whether the food is consumed in a ritually clean or
unclean state when it enters one's mouth, the final result of it being deposited in
a latrine means that either way all food, after it's been eaten and then digested,
eventually winds up in an unclean state. And this processing of food through our
bodies and then out has no affect on our hearts (our minds). On the other hand,
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
says Yeshua, what comes out of the mouth (that is, our speech... our words) is
the far more important issue because it reflects the true condition of our heart
(our mind). Stop right here. Notice something interesting: in His explanation of
the Parable, Yeshua at first talks about the physical bodily process of putting
some physical food into our mouth, and then what our physical bodies naturally
do with it, just the way God designed us. But He then turns around and switches
to speaking of an invisible process (words, speech) that does carry enormous
spiritual repercussions. That is, what is in our mind (our heart) will reveal itself by
what comes out of our mouth, and this is what God uses to judge each of us,
personally, as clean or unclean in His eyes.
Understand that especially by Christ's day terms like clean and unclean had
evolved a bit in their meaning within Jewish society; and we regularly see the
evidence of this in the New Testament. Clean and unclean had, by then, become
more broad than technical. As used as a matter of daily conversation... and as
we have just read of what Yeshua said using those terms... it often wasn't meant
as a precise legal term the way it is used in the Law of Moses. Unclean had
become a way of saying that something was no longer desirable; it had been
rendered as bad or perhaps as no longer suitable for use by man or God. The
person that has an unclean mind will, according to Yeshua, outwardly produce
murder, adultery, and other kinds of sexual immorality because our outward
physical behavior results from our inward invisible thoughts. So the terms
unclean and sin started to become synonyms in Jewish society when used in a
general conversational way, even though biblically speaking ritual impurity and
sin are two very different things that are treated in different ways.
Again: what was the subject of this entire discourse? Ritual hand washing, as a
Tradition of the Elders. So Christ is saying that ritual hand washing has no ability
to take unclean food and make it clean, nor could clean food be made ritually
unclean if one didn't perform the ritual hand washing before eating. However
the nearly universal Christian take on this is that Yeshua sort of changed subjects
or melded 2 subjects into 1: ritual hand washing and kosher eating. Thus the
Church doctrine is that Yeshua abolished the food laws as contained in the Law
of Moses. Yet if one is certain that this is what Christ did (according to what we
read in Mark), how can anyone also take seriously what we read in Matthew
5:17-20, that takes place during Christ's Sermon on the Mount?
CJB Matthew 5:17-20 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven!
It doesn't matter which Bible version one chooses, or which ancient Greek
manuscript is used for translation to English, the words of this passage remain
consistently the same. Jesus doesn't make the principle briefly so that it can be
allegorized away. Rather He goes to some length and detail, making the same
point in several ways, to emphasize that no matter how anyone might choose to
spin it, He not only did not abolish the Torah and the Prophets (together what we
today would call the Old Testament) but also not even the tiniest detail of the
Torah would be dropped or changed until the current Universe and Earth no
longer exist. So it just doesn't hang together scripturally that Christ could make
this strong statement in the Sermon on the Mount supporting every aspect of the
Torah and the Law of Moses, and then turn around later and schizophrenically
abolish the Torah food laws, which are central to it. But also notice one other
thing that I've already pointed out. The statement that He did not abolish the
Torah or any part of is a quote from Christ's own mouth. The statement in the
Book of Mark about Christ declaring all foods ritually clean did NOT come from
Christ; rather those words were an editorial assumption coming from the mind of
Mark or from some later Christian editor who added those words to the verse.
I'll take that one step farther. Those words in Mark form the entire basis of
a Christian Tradition of the Elders (a manmade Church doctrine that has been
handed down) that declares that kosher eating has been abolished. This is then
further expanded by the Church to say that if the food laws have been abolished,
then this is the needed proof that the entire Law of Moses has also been
abolished even though this seems to thoroughly contradict the words from the
mouth of God on Earth: Jesus. This is precisely the same issue that Yeshua is
battling with the Pharisees and the Scribes. They are advocating for their Jewish
Tradition of the Elders (a manmade Synagogue doctrine) about ritual hand
washing that according to Yeshua thoroughly contradicts the words of God.
Why am I so confident about what I'm telling you today in the face of centuries of
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
Church doctrines to the contrary? And that this passage is about one thing only:
a tradition of ritual hand washing? It's because the final verse of the passage
confirms it.
CJB Matthew 15:20 20 These are what really make a person unclean, but
eating without doing n'tilat-yadayim does not make a person unclean."
The final thought about this episode with the Synagogue leaders and ritual hand
washing confirm that Yeshua did not create some new sweeping rule or Law of
Jesus to replace the Law of Moses. He didn't make an eleventh commandment
or reduce the number to nine. He didn't institute any changes to the Torah.
Rather He's attacking those particular Jewish Traditions that either contradict the
Word of God (the written Torah) or twist the intended meaning of God's laws and
commands to suit human purposes.
Let's move on to the next part of Matthew 15.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 15:21 - 28
This is another story that creates some doctrinal problems within Christianity, and
challenging these doctrines is long overdue. It centers around the fulcrum of this
portion of the chapter, which is verse 24.
CJB Matthew 15:24 24 He (Christ) said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of
the house of Isra'el."
The story begins with Jesus leaving His encounter with the hostile Jewish
Synagogue leadership and heading north or northwest to what is called Tyre and
Sidon. Some Bible commentators say that Yeshua was fleeing the area for His
own safety. Although He might have been doing that, nothing in the written words
implies it. In the 1
st century the territories of Tyre and Sidon bordered on the
Mediterranean Sea to the west but also extended well eastward, inland into the
interior of the upper Galilee, and to the north as far as Damascus. So it likely was
not that Yeshua ventured into what was considered as the foreign cities of Tyre
and Sidon but rather He went somewhere within their recognized territorial areas
that wasn't very far from where He had been.
This likelihood explains why a gentile woman from Canaan (that is, she was
descended from Canaanites) would even think to approach the Jew, Jesus, for
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
exorcism for her daughter and then to address Him as Son of David. I must say
that it is rather strange to see the ancient term "Canaan" pop up here. Canaan or
Canaanite is an early Old Testament designation that is probably intended by
Matthew to remind his Jewish readers of the animosity between ancient Israel
and her gentile enemies. It may have been that Matthew used the term Canaan
to sort of heighten the tension of the story about Christ and this heathen woman
who approaches Him; otherwise it's hard to imagine why it appears.
Nonetheless the next thing for us to ponder in this story is why she would think to
call Yeshua the Son of David (a term only known and used within the Jewish
religion and culture) or think to approach Him for healing. Actually I don't think the
solution is all that difficult. First, Yeshua was by now known far and wide in the
region for His healing miracles and exorcisms. While it is true that as
a Tzadik Yeshua was a miracle healer within the context of the cultural customs
and social confines of Jews, where this woman lived no doubt was within a
population mix of Jews, gentiles, and some members of the 10 Israelite tribes
that had been exiled many centuries earlier. So His accomplishments and His
identity would not have been unknown or not understood to her. The folks in this
region were quite familiar with each other's cultures due to a long term history of
interaction, and an enormous amount of family intermixing that had occurred over
the centuries.
Next; this is not the first time that we have heard of someone yelling "Son of
David!" at Yeshua. We explored the probable meaning of this uniquely Jewish
label in earlier lessons but very briefly it did NOT have, and could not have had,
the meaning of Savior as is often claimed in Christian circles. I've shown you in
numerous lessons that as of this point in Jesus's ministry He had not revealed
that He was Israel's Messiah and there seemed to be no inkling among the
thousands of Jews He encountered or even among His own disciples of His true
identity and purpose. So to take the expression "Son of David" as meaning
"Messiah" to this gentile woman (or to anyone else up to now) has no basis in
historical or biblical record. Rather it was that the label Son of David was meant
literally; it was referring to Solomon, David's firstborn. It was Jewish Tradition (a
myth, really) that Solomon was a miracle healer and an exorcist par excellence
as well as the supreme fount of Wisdom; all of these were traits they saw
displayed in Yeshua and so wondered if the spirit of Solomon was alive within
this carpenter from Nazareth.
Verses 22 and 23 say that Jesus completely ignored the pleas of this desperate
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
gentile woman for Him to help her precious daughter be rid of demon possession.
Even His disciples found her as not worthy of their or His attention. Why?
Because as Yeshua responds: He came only for the lost sheep of the House of
Israel. My goodness! How are we to understand this? Was He quite forcefully
rejecting this woman only because she was not Jewish? Indeed it begins by
acknowledging a distinct and unmistakable Jew versus gentile hostility present
here that had existed for centuries. It also speaks of the cultural
mindset of Jewish exceptionalism. Let me say this another way: Jesus's
Jewishness and His mission exclusively to His fellow Jews (including the 10 lost
tribes of Israel) is front and center. There is simply no way to dismiss it or to
spiritualize it away. The ICC commentary on Matthew acknowledges this fact and
puts it this way: "Jesus declares unequivocally the absolute priority of Israel
for His mission..." No, says institutional Christianity, Jesus didn't mean what He said. Rather He
meant He only came FIRST to the Jews... not ONLY to the Jews. Every version
of the Greek New Testament ever found, and every credible version of the
English translation of this verse, comes to the same conclusion; the word is
ONLY and not FIRST. After all, says Christianity, we all know that Jesus was all
about gentile priority as the replacement of the Jewish. And herein lies the rub.
Once again, as Yeshua said in our previous story, religious Tradition (doctrine)
should never trump God's Word. The Church uses that principle only to
disparage Jewish use of Jewish Tradition but not Christian use of Christian
Tradition. It is the classic religious hypocrisy of the pot calling the kettle black. We
can do it because God has elevated us, but you can't do it because God no
longer loves you.
We do have to be careful in the Bible to take a verse in isolation. When a half␂dozen words are spoken about a subject, and especially when it seems it is
laying down a new God-principle, and then we never find it spoken of again in the
Scriptures, it is right to be cautious and take it with a grain of salt. For instance,
as we discussed in Mark 7:19 when we find the words (in brackets, no less) that
says that Christ declared all foods as ritually clean, we find this sentiment in no
other place in the New Testament (but even more it runs completely counter to
everything else Yeshua said on the subject of the laws of Moses). So do we find
the concept of Jewish priority for Yeshua somewhere else?
CJB Matthew 10:5-6 5 These twelve Yeshua sent out with the following
instructions: "Don't go into the territory of the Goyim (gentiles), and don't
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
enter any town in Shomron, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Isra'el.
So the principle is firmly established. Not only the disciples, but Yeshua Himself,
has as the mission to take the message of the Good News exclusively to the
House of Israel and NOT to gentiles. I'll have more to say about this, but first: the
gentile woman doesn't take Christ's stone silence to her as the final word. She
falls at His feet and says (according to the CJB) "Sir, help me". Many other Bible
versions say "Lord, help me". Aha! says Christianity. Calling Jesus "Lord"
spiritualizes everything that is happening and so means she somehow knows He
is God incarnate and the Messiah when nobody else seems to. Not so fast. The
Greek word is kurios and it is a generic word of respect used mostly in secular
circles. It speaks of any kind of master or a person of authority. "Sir" is a very
good English translation for understanding the tone and tenor of the meaning for
we 21st century Christ followers. There is nothing wrong with using the term "lord"
as we find it in the KJV, for instance, because "lord" as it was used in the KJV era
is the equivalent of "sir" today. There was no built-in religious concept to it at all;
a concept that Christianity assigns to the term "lord" everywhere it is found in the
Bible. The woman was in no way meaning that Yeshua was God or Savior.
Rather, she was merely showing Him proper respect as He was a well known
leader of a substantial flock of followers. And, as we all know, when we are
requesting something from someone that is reluctant to give it to us, it is better to
show extra respect in hopes of softening him or her up.
To make this story even more difficult for Christians to take, when the woman
continues her plea for help, Christ responds: "It is not right to take the
children's food and toss it to their pet dogs." The early Church Father
Chrysostom says about this scene: "The more urgent she makes her entreaty,
so the more does He also urge His denial". Yeshua's response sounds almost
cruel to a Christian. How can Christ turn His back on her predicament, even put
her down for not being a Jew, if He is such a loving Savior? Looking at His reply,
Israel represents the children, the children's food represents all the benefits
Yeshua brings to them, and the dogs represent all non-Jews. Once again we find
Jewish priority. Interestingly, Mark has a bit different approach to Yeshua's
response. His Gospel says:
CJB Mark 7:27 He said, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take
the children's food and toss it to their pet dogs.
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80 while Matthew has Christ speaking in terms of not only priority but also
exclusivity in favor of the Jews, Mark softens it only to Jewish priority. That is,
there is a sliver of an opening for gentiles to be included, but nonetheless Jews
are the primary aim. There is no better time than now to discuss what this means
for Jews and gentiles as far as our places in a divine pecking order (if there is
one) and what it means within mainstream Christianity that essentially turns what
we read in the New Testament in this regard on its head.
Since the Church long ago veered away from being a body that is predicated on
Christ's teachings and relies more on the words of the Apostle Paul, nonetheless
Paul expresses this same principle of Jewish priority, but not Jewish exclusivity,
in one of his more famous dissertations in Romans 11. Open your Bibles to
Romans chapter 11. READ ROMANS CHAPTER 11:13-27
I have referred you to Romans 11 only to make the point that gentile inclusion,
but Jewish priority, was thoroughly understood by Paul (you can go to my
commentary on Romans at the TorahClass.com website for a more detailed
study of this chapter). Paul used the metaphor of a wild olive tree being grafted
into a cultivated olive tree in the same way and meaning that Christ used the
metaphor of the children's food being tossed to dogs. We can equate the
children's food with the cultivated olive tree, and the dogs with the wild olive tree.
The idea is that the food BELONGS to and was intended for the children, and not
the dogs, in the same way that the cultivated olive tree BELONGS in the orchard
and was intended for the orchard's cultivator, but the wild olive does not. Yet, as
the woman says in Matthew 15:27:
27 She said, "That is true, sir, but even the dogs eat the leftovers that fall
from their master's table."
In other words, the woman acknowledges the priority of the children and their
food, but says that the dogs can also be included and benefit (albeit, it is the
leftovers). Just as Paul acknowledges that the cultivated olive tree is the one that
has the priority and has been given special care and is supported by its rich
roots, even so a wild olive can be grafted onto the cultivated olive tree and
receive the same nourishment (the same blessings). The cultivated olive is the
House of Israel, and the wild olive represents gentiles.
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Yet what we find is that early on the institutional Church reversed the priority.
They say that the children have become gentiles, and the dogs have become
Israel. And that the cultivated olive tree has become the gentiles, while the wild
olive has become Israel. This doctrine has many names, one of which is
Replacement Theology (gentile Christians have replaced Israel and thus now
hold the priority before God). I could spend a lot more time discrediting what is,
sadly, a faith principle upon which the bulk of Western and Eastern Christianity
stands. But if you have the ears to hear, and are willing to take God's Word as
the priority over manmade doctrines, then I think what I've already said is
sufficient and we'll move on.
Yeshua was startled by the woman's response to Him. She may have been
insulted by Yeshua classifying her gentile status as that of dogs, but she refused
to let it deter her. She knew that this Jewish Holy Man was her only hope to heal
her daughter of being possessed by evil spirits. So she submitted to Christ's
categorization of her but at the same time asked for just the crumbs of Yeshua's
mission and abilities and thought those sufficient to heal her daughter. Her faith
and her humility brought out Christ's compassion to detour, just for a moment,
from His purpose and priority and so He healed the little girl without her even
being in His presence.
We must not overlook something important that would not have been on the
fringes of this story when a 1
st century Jew read this, but it is to modern
Believers. It is that the one making the appeal to Jesus was a woman. It is
difficult in the West to understand the male-dominant society of the 1
st century.
Women, in Jewish culture, were not chattel but they were seen as having lesser
value than men. That is not what God says, but it is the ubiquitous Middle
Eastern cultural tradition of that era that prevails to this very day. On top of that,
this is a non-Jewish woman and this is one reason that Yeshua's disciples had
virtually no regard for her at all. There are only 2 non-Jewish women in the New
Testament who are said to have great faith, and this woman is one of them.
Yeshua in no way changed His mind about His mission or His priority to bring the
Good News to the House of Israel, and we'll see this fact played out through the
rest of His life, His death and resurrection, and even post-resurrection actions.
What we ought to take away from this story (besides the priority of Israel to
Jesus) is that great faith in Yeshua by any person of any background will bring
acceptance and the greatest of benefits. And still, for the sake of intellectual
honesty, I must point out that the faith this woman had was not that Yeshua was
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Lesson 54 - Matthew 15 cont
God and Savior, but rather that He was a unique miracle healer. And as a gentile
she wasn't particular where the needed healing came from (even from a Jew);
she was simply glad to receive it.
I ask you all to join me in battling to restore the truth that we have been studying
today. I am sorry to say that the gentile arrogance so dominant within the
Christian Church has resulted in a type of Christianity that would bring nothing
but reprimand if our Savior, Yeshua, stood in person among us today. It is hard to
overstate how a false fundamental faith principle that puts gentiles above Jews
(Israel), and relegating Israel to disinheritance, taints a broad spectrum of Church
doctrines. It is also why so many Believers who have come to recognize this
heresy struggle to apply a simple label to identify who we are. "Christian" has
come to mean a host of things, many of which run counter to the teaching of
Yeshua and all the Bible and therefore many Believers understandably want to
shun that label. I implore you to pray that God will restore the congregation of
Christ to devote ourselves to the goal that Yeshua left us with as He moved into
Heaven waiting for the moment the Father will send Him back for us.
CJB Acts 1:6-9 6 When they were together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at
this time going to restore self-rule to Isra'el?" 7 He answered, "You don't
need to know the dates or the times; the Father has kept these under his
own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Ruach HaKodesh
comes upon you; you will be my witnesses both in Yerushalayim and in all
Y'hudah and Shomron, indeed to the ends of the earth!" 9 After saying this,
he was taken up before their eyes; and a cloud hid him from their sight.
We'll continue in Matthew 15 next week.
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 55, Chapter 15 Conclusion
Before we continue in Matthew 15 today there's a couple of housekeeping issues
I would like to get out of the way because I am regularly asked about it and enjoy
the opportunity to offer an explanation. The first is my characterization over these
past many years of something called "The Church", and second is my less than
flattering view that all too often Bible scholars overreach by either trying to
forensically examine the minds of Bible characters or authors of the Bible books
who lived 2000 years ago and more, or they at times dismiss things clearly
written in the Word because they cannot bring themselves to accept those things
at face value as accurate or true.
First, The Church. One of the most difficult but common things that humans deal
with is labels. The term "The Church" is one such label. That is, we tend to define
people, institutions, historical events, and dozens of other things with very
abbreviated words that we call labels, assuming that someone else will
understand what that label means when we say it or write it or that there is only
one understood definition of that label. Depending on one's viewpoint, this is
either a lazy or an expedient method of communication (the truth of it probably
lies somewhere in the middle). As an example; in the political world if we say
Liberal or Conservative, those are labels that were created, which seek to lump
together a complex and rather long listing of political philosophies and
preferences concerning many social and government issues. But I think I can say
without hesitation that what the detailed description about the simple labels
Liberal and Conservative mean to one, doesn't always mean the same to
another. So the convenience of describing broad swaths of people with a one
word label serves a useful purpose for politicians, but it is hardly intellectually
honest. So it is with the term "The Church". If I called upon several of you,
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
privately and separately, to define "The Church" I promise you I'd get a wide
variation of responses. That would doubly be the case if I then reached out to
several established denominations. So I want to tell you what I mean to
communicate when I use that term, and also to explain that it's organically
connected to the term "Christian".
A thing called "The Church" does not exist in the New Testament but it is read
backwards into it in order to serve a purpose. Rather the term we find is, in
Greek, ekklesia. It is a rather broad term that means assembly or congregation.
Even in English the term church is somewhat broad and can mean a number of
different things. In the Webster Dictionary "church" is defined as a building where
a group of Christians meet. Or it can also refer to a group of religious people of
most any belief system (for instance we've all heard of the church of Satan).
Used in another way it can mean a public worship service. In other circles is used
to mean the official governing body of a denomination of Christians. And yet in
another sense it is a label to describe the entire body of all Christians taken as a
whole. When I use the term I nearly always mean it as the entire body of all
Christians taken as a whole, but sometimes I'll add the word "institutional" before
the word "Church" as then referring to the governing body of a denomination or of
denominations in general. But I want to take this another step further.
Without doubt "The Church", as a label, refers to the body of GENTILE Christians
practicing a GENTILE created religion of one sort or another. The Church
generally does not recognize Messianic Judaism as being part of The Church.
Jewish involvement is rather rare at The Church congregation level and unheard
of in Church government. Such a thing was not contemplated and did not exist in
the New Testament where we predominately find Jews as the leadership of
followers of Christ. Whether it is the Eastern Christian Church branch (such as
the Greek Orthodox and the Coptic) or the Western Christian Church branch
(consisting primarily of Catholic and Protestant) this same label and attributes of
"The Church" applies. Thus, those who consider themselves as members of the
Eastern or Western Church branches are gentiles that label themselves as
Christians, regardless of the widely varying (and even opposing) doctrines and
practices.
Taken as a whole The Church has (since no later than around the 3
rd century)
shunned it's exclusively Hebrew foundation as laid out in the Bible, and gone so
far as to disavow entire sections of the Bible and many of its commands in order
to distance itself from the Hebrew people. The Church intentionally made it
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impossible for Jews to be part of it, and there have been times that Jews were
murdered by the hundreds for having tried to become a part of it. The Church
abolished nearly all biblical practices that were central to Hebrew religious
society (based on the Laws of Moses) and invented new and replacement
practices and celebrations that were acceptable to the pagan gentile religions
that ruled the day. Naturally, since The Church is so large and exists in every
corner of the world what I have said to you about it is a broad generalization; but
generalization that is full of exceptions is the inherent nature of any label used for
any purpose.
Therefore because the underlying, nearly universal, understanding of the
meaning of the term "The Church" is as I just described, I must view it in a less
than favorable light because it does not accurately reflect the religion, beliefs,
and practices of Our Savior Yeshua in particular nor of the Holy Scriptures in
general. A second and associated label, "Christian", carries with it the same
burden. Christian is a label for a person that is first, a gentile, and second, a
member of The Church. The third meaning is a follower of Christ. However as the
centuries have gone by, the formerly automatic meaning of being a member of
The Church and of being a Christ follower in any kind of real sense has waned.
Yet even for the mainstream of members of The Church, the following of Christ is
less based on a historical Jesus, and instead based on a contrived version that
has re-imagined Him as a gentile or perhaps as a universal or generic man.
Further the supposed following of Him is based less on what Jesus said and
more on what Paul said, and both of them had their words twisted and
reformulated to fit a pre-determined agenda or have been interpreted outside
their authentic Jewish 1
st century context, which is the only legitimate and
intellectually honest context that can be considered.
The bottom line is that for myself (and I know for many of you) should I call
myself a Christian I mean it only in the most limited sense: I, and you, are
followers of the historical Yeshua, in His Jewish context, as the divine Lord and
Savior, and as defined by the Bible and NOT as defined by The Church.
Now as concerns the issue of Bible scholars. While before about 200 years ago it
was unthinkable that a Bible scholar would be anything but a learned Jew who
believed in the God of Israel or a gentile Believer in Christ, that has changed. It
would be impossible to give you a percentage, however my best guess based on
anecdotal evidence is that of modern Bible scholars (that is, 20th and 21st century
Bible scholars) perhaps a third or more not only don't believe in Jesus, they don't
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
believe in God. It's only that the Bible is their chosen field of academic study, just
as medicine or archeology might be for others. This is why most Universities that
offer Christian study include it within the Philosophy Department. So while such
scholars can be quite astute at translation of the original languages and at
ancient history, this unbelieving portion of Bible scholars has a tendency to think
that they can not only get into the minds of these 1
st century biblical writers and
explain the motives for why they wrote what they did (in other words, heavenly
inspiration played no part in what they wrote), but also that these writers were
often wrong or intentionally created legend and myth to captivate a hoped-for
audience. Needless to say I have a less than favorable view of some of their
conclusions about the meaning of biblical passages even if they can at times
offer some profound insight into the meaning of the original language words used
in the ancient texts, and in providing some historical contextual background.
Thus when you detect a somewhat negative tone from me towards the generally
accepted mental vision of the label "The Church", and a skepticism towards the
conclusions put forward by some of the noted Bible scholars whom I know to be
non-Believers, that's exactly what I intend. I'll say one last time: I completely
acknowledge that there are exceptions to the rule even though the definitions of
the labels The Church and Christian I have put forward are accurate. And that the
bulk of Bible scholars are excellent, well studied and ARE Believers. So my intent
is not to offend but to challenge long held, but dubious, beliefs, customs, and
doctrines some of which are very harmful to our relationship with God because
they are not the truth. Let's move on.
When we left off last week it was with Yeshua being confronted by a gentile
woman who wanted Him to vanquish a demon that was possessing her daughter.
At first He simply ignored her as if she were invisible. He eventually did speak to
her at the urging of His disciples but only to tell this gentile woman in the
strongest terms that He didn't come for people like her...gentiles... but only "for
the lost sheep of the house of Israel". She wouldn't take "no" for an answer and
kept after Him. So He next responded with an insult. He told her that the food for
the children ( a metaphor for Israel) ought not be given to the dogs (an offensive
metaphor for gentiles). The woman brushed aside the insult and countered that
even the dogs get some of what the children get in the form of crumbs of their
food that fall off the table because the dogs are there to lap them up. Yeshua was
so impressed by this pagan woman agreeing that 1) He was indeed sent not for
gentiles but only for Hebrews, and 2) for accepting where gentiles fit in His
mission and pecking order, and 3) that she was persistent in firmly believing that
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
He could exorcise a demon from her daughter, that He complied. The story ends
abruptly with Jesus leaving the area where He was (somewhere north of the
Galilee) and returning to His current area of residence near The Lake.
Let's pick up by re-reading a portion of Matthew chapter 15.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 15:29 - end
What we have just read is disputed by the preponderance of modern Bible
scholars. The reason is that this group sees the recording of a second miraculous
feeding of several thousand people as unnecessary and redundant, and
therefore it is simply Mathew's mistake. That is, he has accidentally (due to bad
information, or perhaps due to 2 different traditions that were in circulation about
Jesus feeding a crowd of people) created two separate instances of Yeshua
feeding a large group when in fact there was only one. This is one of the reasons
for my introduction today. Notice that these particular scholars that are firmly
convinced of a Scriptural error rely only upon their opinions but with no biblical or
historical evidence to back it up. But since such an expert opinion has become so
shared and accepted on a widespread basis within modern Bible academia, it
now passes as fact.
However in opposition to this widely held opinion, there was very good reason for
Yeshua's second feeding of the crowds by means of a miraculous multiplication
of food; it was a lesson in hopes of teaching the disciples something they clearly
didn't receive the first time. We read in Mark that even after the obvious miracle
of multiplying 5 loaves and 2 fishes into enough to feed around 10,000 people,
and the equally obvious lesson that Yeshua was using to show the disciples that
they were the ones to facilitate the feeding of these "lost sheep of the house of
Israel", the disciples still didn't get it.
When after the first incident of feeding so many with so little the disciples got into
a boat on the Sea of Galilee and began rowing towards home, a storm suddenly
blew up. Yeshua senses the danger they are in and went walking on the water to
calm the disciples and the turbulent waters, and to give them yet another
demonstration of who He was in reality because in the Bible, and in Hebrew
Tradition, only God could walk on water. Mark in commentating in his Gospel on
the reaction of the stupefied and soaked disciples to what just transpired said
this:
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CJB Mark 6:51-52 51 He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.
They were completely astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the
loaves; on the contrary, their hearts had been made stone-like.
Notice that Mark blames their being so unprepared to accept Jesus calming the
storm and walking on the waves is because even after participating in the miracle
of "the loaves", their hearts (their minds) were hardened. That is, they remained
hard headed towards the divine identity of Christ (they were still held hostage by
their Traditions). So what we learn is that the first feeding of the multitudes did
not have the desired effect on the disciples that Yeshua had hoped. Thus, a very
good reason to do it all again (as Matthew and Mark record) is to perhaps try to
achieve a better outcome this next time, especially after the walking-on-water
incident may have finally been the demonstration they needed in order for them
to understand the nature of who their Master was.
Then of course there's this: Yeshua Himself says there were 2 separate feeding
events. In the next chapter of Matthew (16) we read:
CJB Matthew 16:8-10 8 But Yeshua, aware of this, said, "Such little trust you
have! Why are you talking with each other about not having bread? 9 Don't
you understand yet? Don't you remember the five loaves of the five
thousand and how many baskets you filled? 10 Or the seven loaves of the
four thousand and how many baskets you filled?
This new story begins with Yeshua climbing up a hill and sitting down.
Immediately a huge crowd begins to gather. I cannot proceed without noting that
some commentators see this scene of Yeshua climbing a hill to speak and heal
(something He's done before) as Christ acting out something that will come to
pass in the End Times; something prophesied by the Old Testament
Prophets...healing all people and doing it on a mass scale. A second is that other
commentators see His act of feeding the thousands as pointing forward to the
Eucharist: the establishment of the sacrament of Communion (the first of which is
the eating of bread and drinking of wine at Yeshua's final Passover on the eve
before He is executed). I cannot say with certainty that these meanings and
symbolism are not so. However, I am skeptical and see these commentators'
beliefs more likely as based on later Christian traditions and denominational
doctrines being read backward into the story. The most cited reason for seeing
Christ's actions of going up on a hill and healing myriads of people as a symbol
of later fulfillment of End Times prophecy is found in Isaiah 2:1 - 3.
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
CJB Isaiah 2:1 This is the word that Yesha'yahu the son of Amotz saw
concerning Y'hudah and Yerushalayim: 2
in the acharit-hayamim the
mountain of ADONAi's house will be established as the most important
mountain. It will be regarded more highly than the other hills, and all the
Goyim will stream there. 3 Many peoples will go and say, "Come, let's go up
to the mountain of ADONAl, to the house of the God of Ya'akov! He will
teach us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths." For out of Tziyon
will go forth Torah, the word of ADONAl from Yerushalayim.
So the belief of some Bible commentators is that this passage in Isaiah directly
correlates to Yeshua's actions at the Sea of Galilee because He walked up a hill
and then healed people. While that is a lovely thought, and not out of the
question, yet when we compare the two passages we see that about the only
commonality between them is the mention of a hill. In Isaiah, on top of the hill (or
mountain) will be God's house (the Temple). The Temple is not present in
Matthew except if we spiritualize rather extensively and call Yeshua the Temple.
In Isaiah there is no healing, but that is what occurs in Matthew. In Isaiah it is the
Word of God going forth; that is not what happens in Matthew. In Isaiah it is
gentiles streaming to the Temple. In Matthew there is no mention of gentiles
(even though we can assume there must have been a few scattered among the
large crowd of Jews). However because The Church is exclusively gentile
oriented then the thought is to replace the Jews that stand before Jesus in our
Matthew scene with the gentiles of Isaiah.
As for the Matthew event of feeding the crowds as a foretaste of the creation of
the Eucharist: first of all, the Eucharist is a Roman church created sacrament that
is about the taking of Communion. Second, the event that spawned the Christian
tradition of Communion was the breaking of bread and drinking of wine at
Passover, in Jerusalem. Third, the Matthew narrative of the feeding of the
thousands involved bread and fish, not bread and wine and there is no mention
of Yeshua connecting the multiplication of the fishes and the loaves with the
partaking of His own body. So without further evidence I cannot connect Yeshua
sitting on a hill and feeding and healing people with the End Times events of
Isaiah 2 or with Communion.
So Yeshua is sitting on a hill and the crowds are gathering; but for what purpose?
The same it has been throughout Matthew's Gospel account, to this point in
Christ's ministry. They are coming to be healed. They are coming to the Tzadik,
the Jewish miracle-working Holy Man. There is no thought that they are coming
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with a view of Jesus as the Messiah. They are coming for practical reasons; they
have illnesses, lameness, blindness and other infirmities for which only a divine
miracle is the solution. One might say that because they looked to a Holy Man
and His connection to God that it was for spiritual reasons that they came, but
that would be overlooking that in their era there was no separation or
compartmentalization between every day life and the spiritual. It is to our modern
detriment that we do make this distinction, for such separation is the opposite of
what God teaches us in His Word. Our everyday lives and our spiritual lives are
one in the same in His eyes.
Jesus heals all who are brought before Him and the people continue to be
amazed not just at His ability to do miracles but at the huge volume of miracles
that He performed, with never a failure. In verse 31 we're told that the reaction of
the people was that they said a b'rakhah to the God of Israel (that is, they said a
blessing to God). While we find those words in the CJB in almost all other
translations we have "and they glorified the God of Israel". There's a couple of
things to be gleaned from this. First, only Jews would have glorified or said
a b'rakhah to the God of Israel. Gentiles practiced pagan religions and certainly
would have praised their god or gods, and not Israel's God; so these healings
were of Jews. There is nothing wrong with using the term "glorified" to explain the
Jews' reaction. However that is such a broad term because one has to ask how a
Jew might glorify God? The way Jews in that era glorified God was by saying a
blessing to Him. So both translations are correct, it is only that one is more
specific than the other. And what a lesson for us. So the second take-way is one
that may seem obvious but is too often over looked. When we are healed or
rescued from a bad situation, the proper response of any Believer is to
immediately glorify God... not any god... but only the God of the Bible... The God
of Israel. That is how we credit Him and thank Him.
The next verse says that Jesus called His disciples to Him and said that He felt
sorry for these people because they had been there for 3 days and now have
nothing to eat. He was afraid they would collapse from hunger on their journeys
home. So He asked the disciples how much food they had with them. They
replied that they had a few fish and 7 loaves of bread. So let's set the scene.
Whereas in the first occasion of feeding the crowds they were there for one day,
and it was becoming evening and it was time for the people to eat supper, here in
the second occasion the healing session had gone on for 3 days and we don't
know the time of day when this concern about food arose. Even if the people had
come somewhat prepared with their own food, clearly most of them never
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anticipated being there for 3 days! But how important this event was for them.
Being in Yeshua's presence, even if it was only for what He could do for them
that no one else could, was worth whatever discomforts and hunger they might
face. This was the opportunity of a lifetime; one they may or may not ever have
again.
Is there significance in the 3 days (that is, the number 3)? Possibly; but I doubt it
because if the reference is to Yeshua's coming execution, burial and resting in
the tomb the expression is 3 days and 3 nights (the sign of Jonah), not what I see
as merely a statement of fact that the healing sessions went on for 3 days, with
that length of time helping us to understand Christ's concerns over the need of
food for the people before they leave. I'll highlight yet again the Bible's concern
over food. Food is always front and center and very much so with Yeshua. It
goes well beyond merely a hunger issue or a health issue; it is indeed also an
obedience issue and a spiritual issue... if only we'll have the ears to hear. And
because food is central to God's Word such that He has set down important
principles about it, then it is no wonder that food and feeding is used as a
metaphor so often by Jesus and by others in the Bible.
After the meager amount of food is revealed... barely enough for the disciples let
alone for the masses before Him... Yeshua instructs that the crowd should sit
down. Why tell them to sit? Why would Matthew include this bit of information?
Likely because sitting tells the folks that something is coming. It is to create
anticipation. It puts them in a position of getting ready to be served. They may not
have known exactly why they were to sit but they complied. Yeshua has the 7
loaves and the fishes set before Him, gives thanks to God (the CJB says made
a b'rakhah), then broke the bread. It is interesting to note that the Greek work
used this time in regard to Jesus making the blessing before breaking the bread
is eucharisteo... sound familiar? Yes; it's where the Roman church got the word
Eucharist from. The Greek lexicons explain eucharisteo as meaning to give
thanks. It is a generic word that can be used in many situations and only has a
spiritual connotation if used within that context. Thus because the Church
Sacrament of the Eucharist was created long after New Testament times, then
we see how a Bible commentator might want us to read back into this story the
mention of Jesus giving thanks as a forerunner of the Communion ceremony,
simply because the generic Greek word that means to "give thanks" is used. The
problem is, such a giving of thanks to God (a specific prayer blessing) was
standard when Jews ate and not at all relegated to use at some specific or highly
spiritual event.
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Next we see happen the same thing that happened at the first feeding of a large
crowd. Yeshua delegated to the disciples the job of handing out the bounty He
provided. All of them may or may not have finally understood the message;
regardless, it is obvious to us. The one Gospel writer that was likely actually there
when this happened was John. This might be why of the countless things he
could have written about, but only the relatively few that he did, he chose to
include this:
CJB John 21:17 The third time he said to him, "Shim'on Bar-Yochanan, are
you my friend?" Shim'on was hurt that he questioned him a third time: "Are
you my friend?" So he replied, "Lord, you know everything! You know I'm
your friend!" Yeshua said to him, "Feed my sheep!"
"Feed my sheep". It is clear from His several case examples and illustrations that
Christ expects His disciples to feed His sheep on two levels: physically and
spiritually. Christ's followers are to do our best to ensure that those we encounter
do not go hungry for food. But also as His followers we are to give out spiritual
food... Godly compassion to go along with the teaching of God's Word... to those
who are willing to hear it. God provides, we distribute. That's the formula. As
Yeshua's disciples it is not a slogan, but rather our responsibility, to feed His
sheep.
As with the first feeding occasion, every one in the crowd ate their fill with food
leftover. We cannot ignore that the number 7 is used twice in this short story.
First as the number of loaves of bread, and finally as the number of baskets of
food leftover. It is interesting that in the first story of the miraculous multiplication
that the number of baskets filled with leftovers was 12 and the beginning number
of loaves was 5, while the number of fish was 2. I explained at that time that while
I could not be sure, assuming the numbers 5 and 2 were also symbolic, then
perhaps they symbolized the 5 books of Torah with the 2 symbolizing the 2
greatest commandments to love God and love our fellow man. But now that we
see the use of 7 in the second episode of feeding a large crowd, when we couple
it with the 12 baskets of leftovers of the first story, it is hard to get around not
seeing symbolism in those numbers.
Remembering that the Jewish Believer Matthew was writing his Gospel to Jews,
the numbers 12 and 7 would have caught their eyes as well known symbolic
numbers. In the Bible 12 regularly was used to symbolize the 12 Tribes of Israel.
Yeshua has said He came only for the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
(meaning all 12 tribes). So, after the first feeding there were 12 baskets left over;
one for each tribe. Thus Matthew was likely highlighting this inspiring lesson of
Yeshua's mission to feed physically and spiritually the entire house of Israel... all
12 tribes.
As for the number 7 in our second story. 7 is the number of divine completion. It
represents a fullness, a wholeness. Therefore at times the number 7 is given the
label of The Ideal Number. The number 7 is associated with acts of God and of
God's will. I cannot imagine that the first Jews who read Matthew's Gospel would
not have immediately latched on to this understanding, and we should as well. So
in the first feeding the 12 remaining baskets speak of Christ's target audience of
the 12 tribes, and in the second feeding 7 speaks of an act of God's will and the
wholeness and perfection of it. Would the disciples or the people have
understood that at the moment? We're not told. My suspicion is that they would
not because too much was happening to stop and think about it. This is why we
all need Sabbath (the 7
th day) as a time to stop, clear the decks, and have the
time and peace to think upon things that go on in our lives; to put them in proper
perspective, and to give thanks to God as our provider and the One who is
guiding our journey.
Verse 38 says that the number of people who were there, and were fed, were
4,000 men plus women and children. Thus the total number would have been in
the range of 8,000 people. Understand that in biblical terminology, Old or New
Testaments, any type of counting of people (taking a census) was of males only.
This was not to devalue women or children but rather it reflected a male
dominated society and the central place of the family unit in those days. A mature
male was assumed to have a wife, and then further assumed to have some
number of children. The entire economies of ancient times, Jewish and all other,
were based on the existence of family units defined as male husband, female
wife, and then some healthy number of offspring.
The chapter closes with Yeshua dismissing the crowd, walking down to The
Lake, getting into a boat and making His way to Magadan. There are many
theories as to the identification of ancient Magadan. The first 10 verses of Mark
chapter 8 tell the same story nearly word for word. However when Jesus leaves,
Mark lists His destination as a different place than Matthew does.
CJB Mark 8:10 After sending them away, Yeshua got into the boat with his
talmidim and went off to the district of Dalmanuta.
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Lesson 55 - Matthew 15 concl
It is possible that Magadan and Dalmanuta were two names for the same place;
the first the Hebrew name, the second the name the Romans gave it. Or it is that
whatever information Matthew and Mark drew upon came from different sources
that used different names. Some Bible scholars surmise that Magadan was
another name for Magdala, which is itself another name for a town called Migdal.
If this is the place it is located a couple of miles south of Capernaum on the Sea
of Galilee, not very far from Tiberias.
This last verse of chapter 15 basically serves to set up what happens next to
begin chapter 16. Please keep at the forefront of your minds that no such things
as chapter markings for these Gospel accounts (or any biblical account) existed
and wouldn't for another millennium after they were written. So we can get the
impression of a pause between the final verse of one chapter and the first verse
of the next, but that was not the thought of the writer or the structure he wrote it
in. Mentally we need to erase those chapter markings to keep the intended flow
of thought and words.
Next week we'll being Matthew chapter 16.
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 56, Chapter 16
Who is Yeshua? What is Yeshua? This is a question that has yet to be fully
answered to this point in Matthew, and even though most 21st century Christians
think it is an answered and settled matter in The Church, it is far from it. Matthew
chapter 16 adds a new wrinkle into who and what Jesus is. Up to now He has
said and demonstrated that He is a number of things. We'll go fairly deep into this
topic during our study of this chapter mainly because this is the time to do it. The
first thing that must be noticed is that Christ has been presented by the Gospel
writer Matthew as a complexity of attributes and roles and He cannot be defined
by a simplistic faith doctrine. The second thing to notice is that to this point
Yeshua is, to the Jews He has encountered in so many different settings,
primarily a Tzadik; a Jewish Holy Man...even though they had some suspicions
that He was some other things, too. A Tzadik is a remarkable Jew who comes
along only rarely that has the divinely-given ability to do miracle healings. It
seems that Jesus was not the only Jewish miracle healer that had come along by
His day, and after His time there would be others.
Let's begin our study by reading all of Matthew chapter 16.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 16 all
To better understand the scene that unfolds to open this chapter, we have to go
back to the ending of chapter 15. There it reads:
CJB Matthew 15:37-39 37 Everyone ate his fill, and they took seven large
baskets full of the leftover pieces. 38 Those eating numbered four thousand
men, plus women and children. 39 After sending the crowd away, he got in
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
the boat and went off to the region of Magadan.
So after the miraculous feeding of the 4,000, and then sending the crowds away,
Yeshua got into a boat and went to a place called Magadan (there is no settled
conclusion about where exactly that is, except that it is on the western shore of
the Sea of Galilee). Now, still in Magadan, Yeshua is approached by some
Pharisees and Sadducees that have come to ask Him (demand is more like it) to
show them a sign from heaven as some kind of unspecified validation not so
much of who He is, but rather from what source does He get His power. Since
the accusation has been made to Him before that His abilities came from Satan, I
imagine they wanted Him to somehow prove to their liking that these powers
came from above... from God... if He could. As with only the opening verse of this
chapter, there is so much to unpack throughout it that we're going to spend a lot
of time with it because it is here that we see an important milestone occur in
Christ's earthly ministry. And, because this incident of yet another
confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders is also recorded in the Book of
Mark, we're going to take a couple of minutes to read it because it rounds out the
information we have about it.
READ MARK CHAPTER 8:11 - 22
Notice that Mark says some Pharisees came to Yeshua but makes no mention of
Sadducees. It is hard to know why except perhaps Mark didn't think it that
important to mention them. Remembering that Mark's intended audience were
gentile Romans while Matthew's were Jews, the lack of mention of the
Sadducees by Mark might have to do with his gentile readership not really
understanding or needing to know the Jewish cultural nuances between
Pharisees and Sadducees; nuances that every Jew would readily pick up on and
understand the significance of this piece of information. Jews knew that the
Pharisees were the faction who dominated the synagogue system leadership
while the Sadducees were the faction that dominated the Temple system
leadership. That is, while both of these are essentially political/social factions and
are not the name of some kind of religious or political office or position,
nonetheless each faction represented the dominant one within their particular
sphere of influence; the Pharisees were the favored leadership of the synagogue
while the Sadducees were the party favored by the chief priests and the High
Priest. So an ominous corner has been turned. Up to this point Yeshua has been
targeted as a threat only to the synagogue leadership (as we know from His
several testy encounters with them); however that sense of threat has now
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
crossed over to include the Temple authorities and priesthood. In other words,
starting now the entire Jewish religious leadership complex was gunning for Him.
What we see is that the Jewish religious leadership of both the systems were all
too aware of Yeshua's accomplishments and claims but even more how much
the people flocked to Him. These 2 factions that were essentially rivals had little
love for one another but here they are banding together to try to blunt the
trajectory of this rising star of the common people (the enemy of my enemy is my
friend). We learned in Matthew chapter 5 of the tremendous crowd Jesus drew at
His Sermon on the Mount. Then in chapter 14 we read of Him drawing about
10,000 people (people He not only miraculously healed but also miraculously
fed), and in chapter 15 He drew yet another crowd of about 8,000 for whom He
did the same. No one could establish that immense of a following in the Holy
Land and it go unnoticed by a perpetually suspicious religious or political
leadership because it was occurring outside their oversight and their structure,
and therefore outside their control. Jesus was not accepted by the Pharisees or
Sadducees as a fellow servant of God and minister to the people, but rather as
an unwelcome competitor... a pest... that they were afraid would upset the apple
cart and ruin especially the Sadducees' cozy relationship with their Roman
occupiers.
I think it is hard for a Bible student that is paying attention as he or she reads
through Matthew to understand how after the barrel-full of miracles and
exorcisms Christ had done that these men could then demand yet another one.
The reality is that such a request for a sign is absurd on its face and merely
exposes these leaders as the false prophets, blind guides, and wolves in sheep's
clothing that Jesus had openly declared them on numerous occasions. There
was nothing Yeshua could ever do to convince them of His divine position and
authority because they had hardened hearts. They were here to protect their turf
and nothing else.
As for the miraculous sign in heaven that they wanted; this is speaking about a
sign in the sky above the firmament of the ground, and it's not about the spiritual
Heaven where God lives (and in the ancient belief of that day, God's Heaven sat
above the sky). So, exactly what kind of a sign in the sky might they have been
seeking? Making the sun stand still? The moon to come out during the day? It's
not stated and no doubt it doesn't matter because their request for a sign was
sarcastic and not literal and was only meant to try to cast Yeshua as a fraud in
order to discourage His many followers and would-be followers.
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
Yeshua refuses their request and in reply speaks a proverb of sorts that most
people even in the modern West know. To paraphrase: red sky in the morning,
sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight. That is, the red sky is a sign
in heaven (the heaven where the birds fly and the clouds float) that the typical
Jew (and gentile for that matter) would understand its significance. Just like
today, weather mattered for people and they paid attention to signs that would tell
them what to expect. In the red sky proverb the people of course understood that
the time of day that the red sky occurred was decisive because the same sign at
one time of the day was a good omen, but at another time it was a bad omen. So
says Christ, these religious leaders seem to know how to look up into the sky and
see these signs that tells them about the weather, and yet they can't read the
even more important and obvious signs about the era of redemption history they
are in and thus the accompanying events. The implication is heavy that Yeshua
is one of those signs...the chief sign... of the times.
There is a principle that simply oozes out of what we are reading, and yet it is
one that can be easily overlooked. It is that despite the well-worn expression to
the contrary, seeing is NOT necessarily believing. It wasn't only the religious
leaders but also the thousands of common Jews that had personally seen
Yeshua's incomparable acts of compassion and miracles, and heard His many
sermons so full of wisdom and truth, yet that still didn't bring them to a belief that
extended beyond His mysterious ability to heal. Yeshua proved (even though it
frustrated Him deeply) that doing miracle healings for unbelievers is not what
brings them to faith, and this reality is no different in the 21st century. Or as W.D.
Davies puts it: "whereas miracles do not create faith, faith does in fact work
miracles".
In verse 4, giving as the reason for His refusal to produce a sign in the sky
(something He was clearly capable of doing), Jesus says it is because these
religious leaders are representative of those being in league with Satan;
adulterous means to be unfaithful to the God whom they purport to be in union
with and serve. Marriage terms like adultery are used because human marriage
is the illustration that is regularly applied in the Bible to explain the kind of
relationship we are to have with God. Marriage unions consist either of faithful
partners or unfaithful (adulterous) ones. Yeshua's claim against these religious
leaders is deeply offensive to them and quite embarrassing to have happened in
front of an audience of onlookers. Both Matthew and Mark report that Yeshua
abruptly ended the confrontation and left the leaders standing there as He got
into a boat and went back to an undisclosed location on the east side of the Lake.
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
I have little doubt it was to escape being arrested.
The scene now changes to the boat as it is crossing over the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus and His disciples are apparently some distance from the shore when one
of them notices that they had forgotten to bring food... bread... with them.
Bread...lechem in Hebrew... was a term that doubled as one time meaning actual
dough that rose and was baked, but another time as simply meaning food in
general. Bread was the staple food of the times, especially for the common folk. It
was not only part of every meal, it was the primary food eaten... often with
nothing to supplement it. So the disciples were likely a little upset when they
discover they've somehow left their bread behind. Yeshua uses the mistake as
an opportunity to teach.
Mark disagrees with Matthew on one small point; Matthew says they had no
bread while Mark says there was one loaf between them all (hardly enough to go
around). Yeshua uses the important ingredient of leaven in bread-making to
illustrate a point. In verse 6 He says that the disciples need to be very careful and
to guard themselves against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Leaven
is often used biblically as a metaphor for sin. And yet, it was at times (like here)
also used as a metaphor for teaching. Very likely what we have here is a word
play. In Aramaic the word for leaven is hamira and the word for teaching
is amira. Hebrew and Aramaic are cousin languages, and it was common that
both languages were spoken by Holy Land Jews in Yeshua's day. We know for
sure because of His final utterance on the cross that Yeshua could speak
Aramaic. So leaven was known to be used as a term describing teaching that
was neither positive nor negative. It was the context of a conversation that
determined in what light to take the meaning. Here because Yeshua says to
beware, clearly He means the term leaven as a negative. So the idea is that
while the instruction of the Pharisees and Sadducees may not always be wrong,
all too often it is. This wrong instruction can be a corrupting influence that clouds
or even replaces God's truth and leads people astray. We've already seen Christ
excoriate the Pharisees for just this reason.
In the previous chapter of Matthew we read of Yeshua saying this:
CJB Matthew 15:4-6 4 For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and
'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 5 But you
say, 'If anyone says to his father or mother, "I have promised to give to God
what I might have used to help you,"
6
then he is rid of his duty to honor his
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
father or mother.' Thus by your tradition you make null and void the word
of God!
So what Yeshua is saying to His disciples and against the Pharisees has now
been extended to actions and edicts set down by the chief priests and the High
Priest; those who control the Temple and belong to the Sadducee party. While
the leaven metaphor is not a Parable in which only 1 single moral point is being
made, at the same time we should resist the urge to find a flurry of allegorical
uses of the term leaven in this verse that can send us away from the simple
message Christ was establishing. And that message is this: it is the human
tendency to automatically place our trust in our religious leaders, but we should
always do that with a strong sense of caution. Their instruction to us could very
well be in error and have a hidden agenda behind it. It's all too easy to assume
that these leaders are especially holy; and that what they do and what they say
must be biblical in its source and proper before God, because they are the
experts, the religious office holders, and the role models. While Yeshua is of
course referring directly to those particular Pharisees and Sadducees that put
their manmade doctrines above God's Word, it equally applies to all Judeo␂Christian religious leaders in every era, whatever their title might be or office they
hold.
It really is only in recent times that the layperson within Judaism or Christianity
has the means to fact-check what our religious leaders are telling us. Bible
ownership, even after the invention of the printing press, was still something that
only the more well-to-do could afford. Later as the costs went down a Bible was
still so expensive that it was considered a prized family possession that was
usually handed down as an inheritance to the next generation. Today Bibles are
exceptionally cheap, available in scores of languages and translations, and given
away by the hundreds of thousands to people who don't even have a few dollars
to buy one. So the 21st century Believer has the means at our fingertips to see if
what is being taught to us agrees with the Bible. Therefore we are without excuse
when we allow our Rabbis and Pastors to get away with, at times, taking great
liberties with God's Word and teaching manmade doctrines as though it was holy
truth. We don't necessarily have to confront them about it; but we can apply a
filter to our eyes and ears about what they say.
What is truly remarkable is the resources we now have available online. I have
no doubt that this is a fulfillment... or at least part of the fulfillment... of the strange
prophecy from Daniel chapter 12:
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
CJB Daniel 12:4 4 "But you, Dani'el, keep these words secret, and seal up the
book until the time of the end. Many will rush here and there as knowledge
increases."
"As knowledge increases". Little more than 25 years ago the knowledge and
materials that were the sole province of Theological schools were locked up and
available only for those few worthy students that attended and handed out within
whatever doctrinal framework that school adhered to. The average synagogue or
church member had little to no access. But because of the Internet, these
libraries and their scholarly content have become opened to the public, and far
more in depth Bible teaching has become available to the average God
worshiper, for little cost. On the other hand we must understood that in Christ's
era personal access by the common man even to the tiniest portion of Holy
Scripture was not possible. Scripture scrolls were few, and they were held mostly
by the wealthy and the religious authorities. The elite among the Jews (like Paul)
did have an opportunity to go to one of the great religious academies of the day,
if they had the funds and the influence to gain a seat in one of them. Yeshua
knew that indeed those Jews who came to hear Him teach were helpless sheep
before the ravenous wolves of the religious leadership that had their own
personal interests in mind, and not the welfare of God's people.
And yet there is another item in the background of Yeshua's warning to His
disciples to watch out and guard themselves against the teachings (the leaven) of
the Jewish religious leadership. As we have seen, Christ's disciples still held the
Jewish religious leadership in high regard, respected them as pious men, and
believed what they taught. In their minds Yeshua's teachings were a kind of
supplement, but not a challenge to the accepted leadership and customs. So far
they didn't seem to grasp that much of what Jesus taught conflicted with the
Tradition-based teachings that were typical of the synagogue. It's not unlike
warning your child for the hundredth time not to cross the street before looking
both ways for traffic. Crossing a street is not a bad or wrong thing. But the hope
is that someday that child will subordinate his or her instincts to just dart into the
road assuming all is well, and instead approach it with the due caution you have
been telling them to do.
Verse 7 reveals that the disciples thought that when Jesus spoke about
the hametz, the leaven, that He meant it literally because the disciples' focus was
that they had forgotten to bring bread to eat. Their focus and mindset was still
earthbound while Yeshua's teaching was Heavenly and spiritual-based. So once
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
again Yeshua accuses them all, as a group, of having little trust. Not NO trust,
but small trust. Hidden just under the surface is an important principle that is
among the most difficult to communicate and to internalize. It is that trust in Christ
is what opens our minds so that we can learn and act upon what it is that He, and
all of God's Word, is telling us. Without that firm trust (not just in anything...not
faith for the sake of faith... but trust in Him) we will find ourselves exactly as these
disciples are. They have been sitting at the feet of Jesus, receiving personalized
instruction, for several months and yet their trust in Him is still so small that they
can't discern the more profound things He has been trying to teach them. So the
inalterable principle is this: the more we trust in Yeshua, the more we'll
understand His words. The less we trust in Yeshua, the less we'll understand His
words. In some ways the disciples still place Yeshua lower in the religious
pecking order of the Jewish faith than the synagogue and Temple leadership.
Verses 9 and 10 that begin "Don't you understand, yet?" expresses an obvious
level of frustration within Jesus towards the seeming inability of His disciples to
comprehend the meaning of all that has been happening. He blames this inability
on their lack of trust, and then goes on to remind them of the miraculous feeding
of the 5,000 and later the 4,000 for which they were present and were the ones
who distributed the multiplied food, with the idea that such a thing should have
been instructive to them... but it wasn't. The word usually translated into English
as "remember" is not meant to be some passive intellectual activity of merely
recalling the specifics of an event. Rather... because Matthew was a Jew and
wrote his Gospel in Hebrew... no doubt the Hebrew word he was thinking of and
used was zakar. Zakar means to remember in the sense of paying heed to
something; taking further action, or giving something more and deeper thought
because of what is called to mind.
Yeshua goes on in verse 11 to say (and I paraphrase) "how in the world can you
think I was talking about leaven that is used to make bread?" Rather Christ's
disciples are to guard themselves against the hametz, the leaven (the corrupted
teaching) of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We're not told the response of the
disciples but in a few verses we find at least one disciple that had a true spiritual
breakthrough. It is rather mysterious that in Mark's account in chapter 8, verse 15
says that the disciples are to guard themselves against the leaven of the
Pharisees and of Herod. What has Herod got to do with it? I have heard a few
different explanations for this but none of them bear up to scrutiny. For one thing,
which Herod is Mark talking about? Herod the Great or his son Herod Antipas?
And why would any Jew ever look to either of them for spiritual food? Perhaps
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
the closest to an explanation that might work is if this was referring to Herod the
Great because the Priesthood (represented by the Sadducees).... especially the
High Priest... had been in Herod's pocket (although by Christ's adult life Herod
was dead). But other than that, one has to wonder if the addition of "Herod" to
this verse wasn't actually Mark's but rather can be attributed to a later copyist
error (and I think this is what happened).
This episode in Magadan by the Sea of Galilee ends with Matthew telling us that
Yeshua next appeared with His disciples in Caesarea Philippi also known as
Banias home to the worship of the god Pan. This is a fascinating site in Israel that
most times I take a tour group to Israel we try to stop here to take in its beauty, its
history, and to have a Bible lesson. It is located on the southern slope of Mount
Hermon in the north of Israel, and it is one of the sources of water for the Jordan
River. It is here that Christ's mission and the question of who and what Yeshua is
turns a corner. It is here that Yeshua makes the leap in His identity
from Tzadik to Mashiach; from Jewish Holy Man to Israel's Messiah.
In verse 13 Jesus asks His disciples: "Who are people saying the Son of Man
is?" Pandora's Box has just been opened and a question has been asked that
despite what the average Believer might think, has not been fully settled even to
this day. Matthew's Gospel has the disciples saying that some people say He is
John the Baptist, others that He is Elijah, and still others that He is the Prophet
Jeremiah or another of the revered prophets of old. This ought to be sufficient
evidence to prove that Jesus has, to this point, not made a firm mention of who
He is such that people could quote Him or have some kind of definitive
description of Him. I spoke to you in an earlier lesson about how Herod Antipas
was concerned that Jesus might be a resurrected John the Baptist, and that this
idea came to him not from his own mind but from others around him. Such
superstitions had much popularity among the Jewish people in those days.
Yeshua as a reappearance of Elijah had some merit in that Elijah went to Heaven
having never died and He was prophesied to return at the End of Days
(something which many Jews believed they were currently living out). And then
finally there was the thought that Christ could be a reappearance of the Prophet
Jeremiah. Biblically speaking no such thing was contemplated for Israel's
prophets however it was the subject of folklore and Jewish tradition that some of
Israel's ancient prophets would reappear in the Latter Days. The thing is that the
people were guessing about Jesus because they were uncertain just how to label
Him. Interestingly the one thought of the people that never seemed to enter their
minds as a possibility was that Yeshua could be the Messiah. Why might that be?
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
This leads to a subject all its own: in the minds of 1st century Jews what was a
Messiah thought to be and what would He do? This is important because it goes
a long way to explain the challenge Yeshua had in explaining His true and fullest
identity over and against the expectations about a Messiah that had been taught
to the people by the synagogue leadership.
Yeshua's person and purpose were misunderstood by the very people He came
to save. As one example of this we read in the Book of John:
CJB John 6:14-15 14 When the people saw the miracle he had performed,
they said, "This has to be 'the prophet' who is supposed to come into the
world." 15 Yeshua knew that they were on the point of coming and seizing
him, in order to make him king; so he went back to the hills again. This time
he went by himself.
This probably represents the most widely taught and accepted mindset and firm
belief among the Jews of what the hope-for Messiah was to be. He would come
not as a religious leader but rather as a political figure. The Romans seemed to
be quite aware of this belief among the Jews that their Messiah was going to be a
king. They took this as a threat and it took it quite seriously. The Messiah would
be the first Jewish king Israel had had in hundreds of years. And of course this
belief came from a firm biblical foundation.
CJB 2 Sam. 7:4-16 4 But that same night the word of ADONAl came to
Natan: 5
"Go and tell my servant David that this is what ADONAI says: 'You
are going to build me a house to live in? 6 Since the day I brought the
people of Isra'el out of Egypt until today, I never lived in a house; rather, I
traveled in a tent and a tabernacle. 7 Everywhere I traveled with all the
people of Isra'el, did I ever speak a word to any of the tribes of Isra'el,
whom I ordered to shepherd my people Isra'el, asking, "Why haven't you
built me a cedar-wood house?"' 8
"Therefore say this to my servant David
that this is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: 'I took you from the sheep-yards,
from following the sheep, to make you chief over my people, over Isra'el. 91
have been with you wherever you went; I have destroyed all your enemies
ahead of you; and I am making your reputation great, like the reputations of
the greatest people on earth. 10 1will assign a place to my people Isra'el; I
will plant them there, so that they can live in their own place without being
disturbed any more. The wicked will no longer oppress them, as they did at
the beginning, 11 and as they did from the time I ordered judges to be over
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
my people Isra'el; instead, I will give you rest from all your
enemies. '"Moreover, ADONAI tells you that ADONAI will make you a
house. 12 When your days come to an end and you sleep with your
ancestors, I will establish one of your descendants to succeed you, one of
your own flesh and blood; and I will set up his rulership. 13 He will build a
house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. 14 1will be a
father for him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something wrong, I
will punish him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets
punished; 15 nevertheless, my grace will not leave him, as I took it away
from Sha'ul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Thus your house and your
kingdom will be made secure forever before you; your throne will be set up
forever.'
The reality is that Jesus would be executed by the Romans primarily because He
was mistakenly seen as a political revolutionary that challenged Roman rule.
When we read of the sign tacked onto the cross, above Yeshua's head, it said
"King of the Jews". This was intended to publicly mock Him but certainly not in
the spiritual or religious sense. Rather it was a demonstration by Pilate to the
Jewish people with the message that they should abandon any hope that a
Jewish Messiah could ever come along, lead a successful rebellion against
Rome, and install himself as king. Nonetheless, the expectation of the Jewish
people was that the Messiah would be a warrior leader and a king like David and
successfully vanquish their Roman occupiers.
Of course as we have been reading, Yeshua wanted no part of being a political
figure. He had no intention of trying to break the cruel yoke of Rome off the necks
of His fellow countrymen. Despite the broad expectation among the Jewish public
that their Messiah would be a political deliverer, there wasn't anything near to
what we might call a unanimity of thought among the Jewish religious authorities
or people regarding the attributes and works of the expected anointed-one.
It does us well to recall that mashiach means anointed-one and not Savior or
Deliverer. It is a rather broad term that, as used in the Bible, was applied to every
one of Israel's kings. That is, from a purely grammatical and biblical standpoint
every Israelite king was a Messiah... an anointed-one (not metaphorically or
allegorically, but actually). The title of mashiach meant to communicate 2 things:
1) That this person was spiritually anointed by God as His divine choice to lead
His people, and 2) the king was literally ceremonially anointed by having olive oil
poured over his head in an inauguration usually officiated by the High Priest. So
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
the most predominant view of Jesus by the Jewish people, as we find it in the
New Testament, was in a nationalistic tone and not in a religious one. If Jesus
was the Messiah of Israel, it would be as a typical sitting king over a newly re␂established independent nation of Israel. The religious component was
secondary to the political component. And the religious component existed
primarily because there were prophecies that this new king Messiah would arise
and rule, and because secular life and religious life were not separated or
compartmentalized like they are today.
I dare to say that my reading of the Gospels decisively shows that the messianic
expectations of the Jewish people in that era are nothing like the gentile Christian
view. And perhaps that is because the Gospel accounts are based almost
entirely on the recorded history and life of Christ prior to His death and
resurrection. His death, burial, resurrection and ascension are told only in the
final 1 1/2 of the 28 chapters of Matthew. In 1 1/2 of the 16 chapters of Mark. And
in less than 2 of the 24 chapters of Luke. Thus the Christian views of who the
historical Yeshua was and how to understand what His words and actions meant,
are based almost entirely on what happened after His death. By no means am I
suggesting this is wrong. Rather I'm suggesting that when Christianity reads back
into the bulk of the Gospel accounts the things that happened before Yeshua's
execution... interpretations and doctrines that are formed based only in the last
few paragraphs of each Gospel book... this is how "The Church" can
misunderstand so much of what happened in the many acts of Jesus and what it
meant to the minds of the Jewish people of His era. The Jews had been
conditioned through centuries of teaching and Traditions to understand the
expected Jewish Messiah in certain ways; Yeshua didn't fit that mold because
the mold makers were wrong.
One other backdrop matter also tends to escape Christian view... especially
the modern Christian view. It is that within the Jewish culture the expectation of
the arrival of a Messiah coincided with the End Times and the Apocalypse. This
expectation was not lost on Yeshua nor did He ever deny it. He saw His own
advent as a Latter Days event, and all the Apostles who followed Him (including
Paul) were certain they were living in the Latter Days not only because of the
things Yeshua said, but because the culturally accepted notions of the Jews had
it woven in to their thinking.
Jesus, therefore, was not some odd figure who operated outside the cultural
norms and lifestyle of typical Jewish society. He would not have stood out in a
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Lesson 56 - Matthew 16
Jewish crowd from His appearance; rather He would have blended because He
was, indeed, one of them. So it is with this conceptualization of Jesus in the
minds of the Jews among whom He spoke and lived and performed miracles that
we need to understand all that comes next in Christ's life as presented in the
Gospels.
We'll continue next week in Matthew chapter 16.
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 57, Chapter 16 Continued
I began the previous lesson with the rhetorical questions: who is Yeshua? What
is Yeshua? It is such a complex issue that as we go through this chapter I'll
continue to weave-in some needed background about the historical Jesus so that
we can better grasp Him as the very real Jewish person that He was, which of
course was the context from which He acted and taught. And from this we should
be better equipped to extract His intended meaning for what He said, as we
endeavor to apply it to our lives.
As we study Matthew's Gospel what is becoming more fully apparent to us in
retrospect, but only barely apparent to the crowds and even to His own disciples
of His day, is that although Yeshua can be compared to a prophet of old He is
greater than any. Although He bears similar attributes to John the Baptist, He is
far more. What is also slowly beginning to emerge before us (but again almost
not at all noticed, yet, by the Jews of the Holy Land) is that the centuries-old
messianic aspirations so valued and hoped for by the Jewish people, and the
completion of the promises by God to the House of David, are at hand in the
person of Yeshua of Nazareth. However we only get the truest picture of the
Messiah if we chart a course to re-discover the historical Yeshua and not the
popularized version so prevalent within Christianity today and for the last 18
centuries.
I'm neither the first nor the only biblical commentator to try to unpack who the
historical Jesus was. It is interesting that especially from the evangelical side of
Christianity there has been somewhat of a recent backlash against approaching
Him this way. Speaking of the "historical Jesus" can produce a grimace of
disapproval. This comes not so much from the academic side of the church as
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
from the church government side; the side of the church that consists of those
who run entire denominations and the Pastors of their many congregations.
Some seem to think that to try to recover this historical knowledge of Christ
humanizes Him in too great a proportion to His spiritual Godly nature and so it is
inappropriate and it diminishes Him. Others think that it leads to focusing too
much on His Jewishness and thus seeks to advance Judaism and legalism.
As I look back at the more than a half century of Christianity that I have been
given grace to personally witness within several denominational settings, from
the theologically liberal to the conservative, it is my observation that it is
the lack of highlighting Yeshua's humanness that is out of proportion in the
Church's portrayal of Him. This leads to spiritualizing... which is a lofty way of
saying allegorizing... His person and His instruction, which can only lead to
misunderstanding. Yet when we do attempt to recover His humanness, we
inevitably come face-to-face with His obvious Jewishness that is especially front
and center in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. I don't think I have to point out
that in general the Jewish Christ is not something the institutional church wishes
to confront because for 1800 + years there has been a concerted effort to make
Jesus a non-Jewish, only sort-of-human, generic or universal man, who is the
Savior for a gentile Christian faith. This is so much the case that in some
(thankfully only a few) circles there is a serious thought that perhaps the God␂man Jesus that walked on the earth in the Holy Land in the 1st century was more
apparition than actual flesh and blood.
In our last lesson, Yeshua had departed the area of Magadan on the Sea of
Galilee and gone inland and north to a place near Mt. Hermon called Caesarea
Philippi (obviously a Roman place name). There He asks an interesting question
of His disciples (I am assuming that these were some or perhaps all of the
original 12). He asks: "Who are people saying the Son of Man is"? I wonder how
this question struck His disciples? Considering what we know about what seems
to be their rather low level of spiritual understanding and awareness at this time, I
speculate that to them this would have seemed far less of a leading question that
Yeshua hoped might nudge them towards a deeper searching about His true
identity, and instead, by their answer to Him, it seems they took it as a rather
straightforward fact finding question by their Master... an opinion poll about the
people that formed the crowds, if you would. So they respond matter of factly by
saying that some think Jesus might be a revivified John the Baptist, others the
returned Elijah, and still others one of the Prophets from ancient times, mostly
likely Jeremiah.
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
By now we have become used to hearing Yeshua refer to Himself as the Son of
Man; a title He clearly liked. I have explained that in general, this was usually
meant to connect Him to Daniel's "one like a son of man" that comes in the
clouds for the final harvest on Judgment Day. And yet there is no doubt that He
did not always mean to indicate the End Times Son of Man. It seems to have
been a rather favorite phrase He enjoyed using to instruct, to reveal, and to
speak in casual conversation. As I have said, He's a complicated person to
explain, even before you throw the God element into it.
There seems to be 3 different meanings and contexts in which Yeshua speaks of
Himself as the Son of Man. But there are also 3 groups of sayings that we find in
the Gospels (and especially in Matthew) about the Son of Man. First, the 3
groups of sayings. The first group is when there is a reference to a Latter Days
Son of Man...a future Son of Man. The second group envisions and references
the Son of Man's experiences of agony, crucifixion, and resurrection. The third
group points out the Son of Man's works among the Jewish people in the present
tense.
The first of the 3 different meanings of Jesus when His employed the term Son of
Man about Himself is the most prominent one: it is as the End Times cosmic
judge. The divine one who sits in Heaven at the right hand of the Father. In this
use we need to think of the term Son of Man as a proper title that begins with
capital letters. The second meaning is when He is speaking in a sort of 3
rd person
fashion about Himself; so we need to envision son of man less as a title but
rather as a culturally modest way of referring to oneself (and such modesty was a
norm within 1
st century Jewish society). The third is when Yeshua uses son of
man simply as meaning human being. And in fact, human being is the meaning
of the Hebrew ben adam, which no doubt is what is being expressed. Essentially
it is another way of saying "I" or "me". Most times it is fairly easy to discern which
of these 3 meanings or senses of Son of Man that Christ intends; sometimes it's
a little more hazy. While there is no universal consensus about it, in our current
passage (Matthew 16:13) I think it is most likely that Jesus means it in the
3
rd sense; He just means "who are people saying I am". That is, who He is in the
context of His humanness.
One of the things we must never overlook with Yeshua is His solidarity and
camaraderie with His fellow humans (His fellow Jewish humans). This was taken
for granted by the people who only saw Him or interacted with Him as
a Tzadik hailing from Nazareth. He was so human and ordinary in appearance
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
that He was rejected by the residents of His own hometown (who knew Him and
His family well) when He attempted to teach them. Even His suffering on the way
to the cross, and His agony and death upon it, hammer home to us not only His
human vulnerability, but also that He was in no way immune from the severe
hand of Roman punishment just as with the rest of Jewish society.
So in verse 15, after asking His disciples who the people that form the crowds
that He healed thought He was, He now asks His disciples to speak up and say
who they think He is. Let's reread from Matthew 16:15 onward.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 16:15 - end
The effervescent and impulsive disciple Peter is the first to answer. He says you
are the mashiach (the anointed one), the Son of the Living God. Peter got it
right. And yet, the reason that I spoke to you last time about how 1
st century
Jewish people thought about what the person and actions of the expected
Messiah might be, helps to reveal that Peter was no different from them in the
lens through which he viewed the Messiah Yeshua, who is now standing right in
front of him. Because Peter now thought of Yeshua as Messiah, he would have
fully expected Yeshua to form an army, confront Rome, win and install Himself as
the king of an independent and re-born Israel. In fact as Yeshua began
explaining the horrendous things that were going to happen to Him in the coming
months, things that went against everything the Jewish people believed their
Messiah would do, Peter essentially stood up and shouted "NO WAY!".
Understanding for the disciples is still coming in baby steps, and so Yeshua
rebuked Peter for his continued lack of understanding and stubbornness in
hanging on to centuries old traditions about the Messiah.
But before Peter refuses to accept Yeshua's mission and destiny, Yeshua says
something so very important for us to hear. He says:
CJB Matthew 16:17 "Shim'on Bar-Yochanan," Yeshua said to him, "how
blessed you are! For no human being revealed this to you, no, it was my
Father in heaven.
Before we look closely at this, I want to point out that the CJB use of the term
"human being" in this verse is a poor translation. Almost all other English
translations rightly say "flesh and blood", and this is the literal translation of the
Greek. We can argue that flesh and blood means human being, but the reason
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
that human being ought not to be used here is precisely because the term son of
man in Hebrew also MEANS human being. And as much as Christ calls Himself
son of man, that is not the intent here.
So Yeshua says that flesh and blood... persons, people... did not reveal the
identify of Yeshua as Israel's Mashiach...messiah... to Peter. Even more, flesh
and blood stands in opposition to the term divine. That is, flesh and blood meant
in Jewish thought "by and through humans". Or, in more scholarly terms, human
agency. However in a certain sense Christ must be including Himself as among
those flesh and blood (human agents) in the present context because it was His
instruction that the disciples had been receiving for the past several months. So it
is not instruction from Him or from any other human but rather it is the inspiration
from The Father that has revealed this truth to Peter. So we continue to learn,
here, that Yeshua has NOT told anyone to this point that He is the Messiah. The
way Peter learned of it was through spiritual inspiration from Heaven...specifically
from The Father.
One of the great mysteries that Bible scholars wrestle with is why Jesus wasn't
more forthcoming about His status as the Messiah. Even though in Matthew's
Gospel we might call this scene a pronouncement story (a story pronouncing that
He is the Messiah), Jesus really only lauds Peter for Peter's realization of it;
Jesus never directly says about Himself "I am the Messiah". He always seemed
reluctant... even elusive... about the subject. But clearly He threw this question
about His identity out to His disciples as a group to see if any of them had
received this heavenly revelation. And it turns out Peter had. We find a very
abbreviated version of this same story in Mark 8, but in neither version do we
read of any of the other disciples chiming in and agreeing with Peter at this point.
What do we take from this?
First it is that while a human... a person... no doubt spoke the Gospel of salvation
in Christ to us, we only came to believe when God inspired us to believe. In turn,
as Christ's followers we are commanded to evangelize and tell others about
Jesus, even though those we encounter will never understand or internalize the
message of salvation until The Father does a work in them and He Himself
reveals it to them. Not even Yeshua's personal presence with His disciples or
with the crowds had accomplished this.
Second is that God reveals Himself to whomever He will. I cannot fathom how He
chooses; but He does choose. The Bible sometimes uses the term "elects" to
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
label this mysterious divine process of choosing. If it was entirely up to us, then it
wouldn't be an act of God. So if you trust Christ, thank the Father and understand
what a great privilege has been afforded to you because YOU were chosen.
Notice something else: Yeshua does NOT say that it was THE Father in Heaven,
but rather MY Father in Heaven who did the revealing to Peter. This subtle
difference sends a message. Yeshua again implicates His relationship with the
Father as something far greater than for all other humans. In the Lord's Prayer of
Matthew chapter 6, Jesus instructs us to pray to OUR Father. That is, God as the
universal Father of us all by means of a common human connection through the
created Adam and a common spiritual connection because it is the Father who
breathes the breathe of life into us all. But here in Matthew 16:17 Yeshua
expresses a close, unique, singular familial relationship that can only be taken to
mean that He is virtually related to God. It speaks of Yeshua's divine nature. God
confirms this by referring to Yeshua as His only begotten Son. So Yeshua speaks
in terms of "my Father" , which essentially verifies Peter's statement about Him.
And yet, just how deep did this belief take root in Peter? What did it mean to him?
Later we find out that it wasn't enough to keep him from denying Jesus not once,
but 3 times.
Even so Yeshua confers a blessing upon Peter. This is no small thing. There is
no record of Him giving a blessing to another individual disciple. It is just another
confirmation to Peter (and us) that Peter got it right. Then in verse 18, Yeshua
gives Peter a new name. Such renaming is not unheard of in the Bible, but it is
also God that does the renaming because some kind of a spiritual milestone or
status change is occurring with that person. Avram became Avra-ham. Ya'akov
became Israel. Now Shimon becomes Kefa. Kefa is Hebrew for the Greek
Petras. Peter is the English translation of Kefa and Petras. The reason for that
choice of name is that Petras is a form of petra, which means rock or stone. It is
Yeshua who assigns Shimon the new name (again implying His divine authority
to do so). Interestingly, Shimon was not the first to be called "a rock" in the Bible.
CJB Isaiah 51:1 "Listen to me, you pursuers of justice, you who seek
ADONAI: consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which
you were dug- 2 consider Avraham your father and Sarah, who gave birth
to you; in that I called him when he was only one person, then blessed him
and made him many.
So we find that many centuries before Peter, Avraham is seen as a rock from
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
which others will be cut; it is a metaphor for those who will seek God. Peter is put
into a similar category in some respects by Yeshua. That is, Peter is a rock or a
stone in the sense of his new name being used as a metaphor for those who
seek God but also now inclusive of the all-important reality that God's Son has
arrived and He is the Messiah.
While I'll spend very little time with it, I need to mention that the Catholic Church's
claim that Peter (as the rock) was the first Pope is simply without biblical merit. It
is a religious invention. It is also a good way to remove Peter from his Jewish
context and thrust him into a new gentile role because if the Catholic Church truly
regarded Peter as the rock out which their faith would be cut, they have missed it
entirely. Peter was thoroughly a Jew, and there is not a hint of the Jewish faith in
Catholicism. They have... as have virtually all other branches of Christianity...
divorced Peter from his Jewishness and turned him into a Christian (meaning a
gentile) just as they have Jesus and other New Testament Bible characters.
Christianity in general has played fast and loose with these words about Peter
that were uttered by Jesus. He says:
CJB Matthew 16:18 ..."and on this rock I will build my Community, and the
gates of Sh'ol will not overcome it.
While the CJB says "on this rock I will build my Community...", nearly all other
English versions say "on this rock I will build my Church". The Greek word that
the English words community and church are both being translated from
is ekklesia. Every credible Greek lexicon says it is a generic term meaning some
type of assembly or congregation of people. Community may be a better choice
than church, but it still veers away from the straightforward concept of being the
generic, very broad term that it is. Church, as it came to mean only a century or
two after Christ's time, is a new religious organization of, by and for gentiles.
A few lessons ago I delved heavily into the term The Church and explained that it
is a label, and also what that label rapidly came to mean (and still means). It
came to mean an organized institution of gentile Believers that created and hold
to a set of manmade doctrines that dismiss the very same Scriptures from the
Bible that Jesus often used to explain His presence and purpose (the Torah and
the Prophets, the Old Testament). The Church also includes the strong concept
of a special building, built to look a certain way. It requires Jewish exclusion
unless a Jew disavows most elements of his or her Jewishness (and sometimes
Jews are excluded even if they want to convert). It also means an organization
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
whose faith doctrines are built mostly upon the supposed sayings of Paul, and far
less those of Jesus. Therefore, with that understanding of what the word Church
predominately means in our modern English vocabulary, and has meant for
nearly 2 millennia, I reject (and so should you) the notion that we ought to include
it here as properly communicating what Yeshua meant or envisioned by what He
said to Peter. After all, just a few sentences earlier He said He was here only for
the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He did not come to form a new religion for
gentiles.
David Stern, himself a Jewish disciple of Yeshua, puts it this way in his
commentary on Matthew: "Unlike (the term) church, ekklesia never refers either
to an institution or to a building". Exactly. Ekklesia simply means the collection
of people who understand and accept Yeshua for who He is.
When Yeshua says to Peter that the Gates of Hades (She'ol in the CJB, which is
not a correct translation) will not prevail against it ("it" pointing to the ekklesia,
the collection of Christ's followers), it means that Satan and whomever on earth
he manages to convince to come against the followers of Christ will not be
victorious in the end. There is little doubt that being in Caesarea Philippi had
much to do with Yeshua choosing those words because it was a pagan site that
was dedicated to the worship of the Greek god Pan, and it was believed by some
that the mysterious flow of water that came from deep underground in a grotto
there, was coming from the underworld... from Hades. So more in context with
the way Peter and the disciples would have taken Yeshua's words, it was that
pagan religions (such as Pan worship) would not overtake and destroy the
fledging groups of the faithful followers of Yeshua.
In another mini-detour I'd like to add this note about who Yeshua is. He was not
the revolutionary He is regularly painted as (and by the way, neither am I!).
Rather He was a reformer. Yeshua did not come to destroy the ancient Hebrew
faith as practiced by the Jews of His day, and then Stalin-style create out of the
rubble of its destruction a whole new religion that revolved around Him. Rather
He came to rehabilitate and breathe new life into the long existing Jewish faith
such that those Traditions of the Elders that had become such a needless burden
upon the people, and that in many cases had turned the Word of God on its
head, would be removed and replaced with biblical truth as it originally was given
to them. Part of that process included exposing the ruthless, shameful, and
illegitimate High Priest office and its organization that used the all-important
Temple of the God of Israel to make a fine art of fleecing the naive flock for their
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
personal gain.
In the Gospel of Matthew we see the natural tension building between the
Pharisees and Sadducees versus Yeshua for just this reason. They were polar
opposites; there was no middle ground. The Pharisees and Sadducees didn't
fear He would form a new faith; they feared He would ruin their lucrative and
powerful operations that weighed heavy on the common folk. In reality Yeshua
didn't even come to destroy these corrupt Jewish religious institutions; rather His
words and actions were meant to convince the Jewish populace of the Holy Land
that He was the culmination of all they had hoped for that was contained within
their ancient Hebrew faith; a faith that itself was built upon the Covenants God
had made with their Israelite ancestors; covenants that had been steadily pushed
aside. Thus Christ didn't trash the Jewish institutions; He trashed those who ran
them and corrupted them.
In verse 19 Yeshua says:
CJB Matthew 16:19 I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Whatever you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and whatever
you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven."
Jesus is still talking to Peter and states that He will give to Peter the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven. Then He speaks of prohibiting and permitting. First we must
notice that Peter is not receiving the keys TO the Kingdom of Heaven (as though
he is receiving the key to a lock), but rather the keys OF the Kingdom of Heaven.
So it is not that Peter has been given the keys that allow or turn away entrance
into the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather it is that the keys represent a certain level of
power and authority... but to what end? That is what is stated next. It is the power
and authority to prohibit and permit.
To help us understand what this means, recall that Jesus favored quoting from
the Prophet Isaiah. Here is a section of Isaiah 22.
CJB Isaiah 22:15-23 15 Thus says Adonai ELOHIM-Tzva'ot: "Go and find that
steward, Shevna, administrator of the palace, and ask him: 16 'What do you
own here, and who gave you the right to cut yourself a tomb here? Why do
you get such an eminent tomb? Why are you carving a resting-place for
yourself in the rock?"' 17 Look, strong man! ADONAI is about to throw you
out! He will grab you, 18 roll you up, and toss you around like a ball in the
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
open country. There you will die, with your fancy chariots, you disgrace to
your master's palace! 19 "I will remove you from your office, I will snatch
you from your post. 20 When that day comes, I will summon my servant
Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu. 21 1will dress him in your robe, gird him with
your sash of office, and invest him with your authority. He will be a father to
the people living in Yerushalayim and to the house of Y'hudah. 22 I will
place the key of David's house on his shoulder; no one will shut what he
opens; no one will open what he shuts. 23 "I will fasten him firmly in place
like a peg, so that he will become a seat of honor for his clan.
Time doesn't permit me to get into the full context of this Isaiah passage.
However what we learn is that in this prophecy the word "key" represents
authority and power over David's house that is being removed from one person
(Shevna) due to his corruption, and given to another (Elyakim) whom God deems
as His own servant; a righteous man. And with that authority and power no one
will shut what he opens and no one will open what he shuts. The thing is that the
words about opening and shutting is an expression. The expression defines the
absolute nature of the power and authority this righteous man (Elyakim) will have
over David's household as David's house steward such that no one would dare to
try to undo or override Elyakim's decisions.
So using this prophecy as the clearly intended framework for what Yeshua has
just said, Peter can be compared to Elyakim in the sense that Peter is being
given the keys (the power and authority) to God's house (the Kingdom of
Heaven). And since the Kingdom of Heaven is present both in Heaven and only
recently on earth, then we have mention of both locations in what is also a
cultural expression used by Yeshua to define that power and authority. And yet it
is not imaginable that a human disciple of Christ could have such authority that
smacks of the divine; nor that if (as some think) Peter is a symbolic
representative of the entire congregation of Christ followers. That is, that the
entire congregation would be left to wield that same immense power and
authority. When later we explore Matthew 18, we'll find that Yeshua promises the
same thing to His disciples in general, so this is why some Bible scholars think
that Peter represents what is most commonly called "The Church".
So what is the solution to best understand what is being communicated? The
disagreements by theologians over this truly startling claim are so many that I
have read 13 different conclusions (and I imagine there are a few more). I'm not
sure I'm all that confident in picking one as best over any other, but here's one
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
way that we might look at it. As always context and the 30,000 foot view must be
kept in mind when trying to understand the especially difficult sayings in the
Bible.
From the far view all that has been recently happening in Matthew's Gospel, and
that which has led up to Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi, is an ongoing
and intensifying confrontation between Yeshua and various groups of Pharisees,
Scribes, and Sadducees over the matter of the religious authority to teach, and
over whose doctrine is the correct one. This debate will eventually lead Jesus to
the execution stake. Yeshua has publicly called these religious leaders blind
guides for teaching the people wrongly; some of it unintentional in the sense they
don't know any better, and some intentional as a means to propagate their power
and control over the people. The Pharisees and Scribes don't think Yeshua has
the authority to teach or certainly the power to openly challenge them. If we again
look ahead in Matthew, this time to chapter 23, we read about another all-too␂familiar exchange:
CJB Matthew 23:13-17 13 "But woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and
P'rushim! For you are shutting the Kingdom of Heaven in people's faces,
neither entering yourselves nor allowing those who wish to enter to do
so 14* 15 "yyoe to yOU hypocritical Torah-teachers and P'rushim! You go
about over land and sea to make one proselyte; and when you succeed,
you make him twice as fit for Gei-Hinnom as you are! 16 "Woe to you, you
blind guides! You say, 'If someone swears by the Temple, he is not bound
by his oath; but if he swears by the gold in the Temple, he is bound.' 17 You
blind fools! Which is more important? the gold? or the Temple which
makes the gold holy?
Notice how in verse 13 of Matthew 23 the Torah teachers and Pharisees are said
by Jesus to be shutting the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven for the people
because they are leading them in an errant way that takes them away from the
truth; and then Yeshua elaborates further in the next few verses. There is nothing
more important to Yeshua than the Kingdom of Heaven; this is the Good News
that He brings and He was sent by His Father to inaugurate the Kingdom on
earth. So while opening and shutting must on the one hand be taken as a cultural
expression, at the same time there seems to be a literal aspect to it as well. So
what Christ is proposing is a forced transference of power and authority from the
illegitimate though official Jewish religious leadership (the Pharisees and Scribes)
to the new legitimate Jewish religious leadership (meaning Peter and probably
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
His other disciples) as legitimized by Yeshua (as the Father's agent). This new
leadership is to be over the reformed Jewish faith that involves trust in Christ
and a new look at Holy Scripture. Yeshua is claiming that this transference
process is under way to take the keys (the authority) from those who currently
control the Jewish religious institutions, but abuse it with teaching error filled
traditions and manmade doctrines that result in shutting the doors to the Kingdom
of Heaven to so many, and instead handing the keys over to Peter and the
disciples who Jesus trusts to teach the biblical truth, which effectively opens the
doors to the Kingdom of Heaven for God worshippers. I could probably go on a
little longer to defend my best take on what those strange words of Matthew
16:19 mean, but I think this is enough to chew on for now.
Assuming that I'm correct, then we can't breeze by this without noticing the
obvious application. Risking that I may be misconstrued as one who is anti␂Church or thinks that all denominations and Pastors fit but one less-than␂satisfactory mold, clearly in this passage there is a warning of grave danger
lurking around any Judeo-Christian religious leaders that lean towards accepting
and teaching manmade synagogue or Church doctrines to their people; doctrines
that seem to blatantly defy the instructions of God's Word. While those teachings
might not result in the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven being entirely shut to the
Believers they teach, it could well mean that they will fall into the unwanted
category of the eternal "least" in the Kingdom that Jesus warns about in Matthew
5:17-19.
Yeshua lived in an era when after centuries of mismanagement and corruption,
the Jewish leadership of the Temple and the synagogue had led the faithful so far
off the rails that Christ could describe the situation as the blind following the blind.
Or here as the Jewish religious leaders effectively locking-out their people from
entering the Kingdom of Heaven. How can they do that? By teaching manmade
doctrines as though they were God's Word, and the naive people accepting
them. Make no mistake; we live in an alarmingly similar era and of course those
sounding the alarm sometimes get the same treatment Jesus got... minus the
crucifixion of course! Every era and society and religion has its means of dealing
harshly with its (always unwelcome) reformers, and that usually begins with an
attempt to discredit them. When that doesn't work, the next step is to destroy
them. Destroying a reformer in Christ's era often meant execution. In our era
one's life and mission can be destroyed by other means, such as lies and slander
on social media or if one is famous enough, fake news on the large media
outlets. Our government can take away our necessary tax exempt status, or even
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Lesson 57 - Matthew 16 cont
go after us personally by weapon-izing the IRS or other government agencies
against us. There's much happening all around us right now... pretty much
globally... that we mustn't disregard as but noise.
This scene at Philippi concludes with Yeshua telling His disciples that they are
not to tell anyone that He is the Messiah. While the implication is certainly there,
this, to me, in no way indicates that the other 11 disciples have also adopted
Peter's confession as their own. Rather, it is more likely that the notion of their
Master being the Messiah (a thought that doesn't seem to have ever been
entertained by any of them up until that very moment), is not to be discussed
outside their immediate inner circle. This is because not only would such a
suggestion bring down even more trouble upon Jesus by the Jewish religious
leadership, but also because it would immediately raise a huge red flag to Herod
Antipas and to Pontius Pilate. They well understood that the Jewish people
believed that the Messiah would be a political leader and would-be king that
would lead a full-blown military revolution to make Israel once again an
independent kingdom.
We'll continue with Matthew chapter 16 next time.
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 58, Chapter 16 Continued 2
We will continue to carefully work our way through Matthew in this chapter that is
nearly a Gospel within a Gospel. Some of the more elite Bible scholars of the
past make chapter 16 of Matthew among their most extensive studies, so rich is it
in critical information. So I would like you to open your Bibles to Matthew 16,
verse 19. We'll read more in Matthew 16 in a few minutes, but for now I'd like
your attention to be focused only on this one verse. This is going to be a bit long␂winded, but I think if you focus on what I'm about to tell you it will answer a
number of difficult questions you might have wondered about.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 16:19
We spent the bulk of our time last week on the first part of this verse that
explained what it means for Peter to hold the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. I
won't review, but you can go back to that lesson if it helps you. Yet I didn't really
get into those mysterious words that come later in that same verse, which speak
of an authority given to Peter to bind and to loose both on earth and in heaven
(and perhaps this authority is meant to extend to Christ's other 11 disciples as we
will see in chapter 18).
The mysterious nature of binding and loosing is in some ways a mirage. Just as
with trying to understand the meaning of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,
there's many different views about the meaning of binding and loosing. Yet the
words binding and loosing were not at all strange within the context of the Jewish
religious community of the 1
st century. Dr. Lightfoot points out that this phrase
was rather fundamental within Jewish religious academies that were producing
the next generation of Jewish religious leadership for the synagogues. Perhaps
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
the most important aspect for extracting the meaning is that binding and loosing
was applied ONLY to things... and not to people. That is, a religious authority (a
Rabbi) did not "bind and loose" another person. Instead it was a statement
explaining that this religious leader had the official standing to declare things
clean or unclean, lawful or unlawful, sin or not sin, and so on. So that when a
case was brought before him, he would be asked to decide if a certain Jewish
Law applied or not. Or, a Rabbi might create a new Jewish Law that permitted
something or prohibited it.
Perhaps the best way to help you understand the sense of binding and loosing
within Judaism (and this is the context in which it is meant here in this passage of
Matthew) is to give some examples of it as recorded in ancient Jewish writings.
"R. Jochanan said [to those of Tiberias], 'Why have ye brought this elder to
me? Whatsoever I loose, he binds; whatsoever I bind, he looses.'" So the
idea here is that the Rabbi is unhappy with this particular Jewish elder because
whatever rule or verdict that the good Rabbi makes about prohibiting or
permitting something (binding or loosing), this Jewish elder turns around and
says the opposite.
"R. Chaija said, Whatsoever I have bound to you elsewhere, I will loose to
you here." So the Rabbi says that even though in other places or situations or
times he has made a ruling of Jewish Law to prohibit something (to bind it), in this
particular place (or situation or time) he rules that it will be allowed (to loose it).
Getting a bit more specific we have this recorded rabbinic ruling about carrying
vessels or pots on Shabbat. "Concerning the moving of empty vessels [on
the sabbath-day], of the filling of which there is no intention; the school of
Shammai binds it, the school of Hillel looses it." So as concerns a Jew
moving a cooking pot or perhaps a pot used for some kind of work, it seems that
the teachings and rulings taught in the religious academy of Shammai prohibits
(binds) moving such a vessel on the Sabbath... even so far as there is no
intention on using that pot to cook or carry anything in it... however the religious
academy of Hillel has ruled that it is permissible (looses it).
These sorts of religious rulings were a customary part of daily life among the
Jewish synagogue leadership during Yeshua's day, and the common folk such as
Yeshua's disciples would have heard it, and been subject to it, numerous times.
They also had to deal with the reality that one ruling authority might contradict
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
another. For our purposes we need to begin by understanding that to bind and to
loose was a Jewish religious expression used within the realm of the Jewish
religious leadership. It was not something that the common folk would have said
to one another in a conversation, or that a father may have said to a son or a
daughter. So when Jesus employs it here it is because He is assuming the role of
a Jewish religious leader who has authority, and He is issuing a lofty-sounding
ruling (synagogue-style) that we could rightly call Halakhah... Jewish law. And
that is exactly how Peter would have recognized it.
Let's take this one step further. In the Jewish context of the day, a synagogue
leader (a Scribe) could bestow limited authority to another person who sits lower
in the religious hierarchy of the synagogue (say, to an Elder for example) to be
able to bind and loose (that is to make rulings about Jewish Law) within a certain
scope (but not as large a scope as that of the Scribe). And in fact I quoted to you
just such a situation whereby a Rabbi was upset that rulings he made were being
overturned by a mere Elder who, in the Rabbi's view, was overstepping his
limited authority. However (and this is a biggie!)... the Elder, the one of lower
authority who has only limited scope, could NOT create new rules. He could not
create new Halakhah. All he could do is to hear cases and make legal rulings
according to the existing Jewish Laws (existing Halakhah). It's not unlike what a
Judge in the Western justice system is to do. That is, a Judge is not to make new
law, but rather to enforce the laws that exist; and since the cases brought before
him or her are often anything but straightforward, then the Judge has to ponder
exactly how (or if) a certain law applies.
While what I'm telling you may sound rather complicated or full of trivial nuances,
in fact it was understood and a given within 1st century Jewish society. So the
average Jew reading what Matthew says that Christ told Peter about giving him
the authority to bind and loose intrinsically understood that in no way was Peter
being given the same wide scope of authority that his Master held. It was indeed
authority, but it was limited.
So the next question is, exactly what was the extent of authority that Yeshua
gave to Peter? The words used are that whatever the extent, it applied to the
realms of earth and heaven. The authority to bind and loose... to prohibit and to
permit... (to make rulings pertaining to things, not to people) happening on earth
we can understand. But in heaven? The Greek word that is being translated to
heaven in English is ouranos. Just like the Hebrew shammayim that Matthew
would have first written before it got translated into Greek, it is a word that can
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
indicate either the sky where the birds fly and the clouds float, or it can mean the
spiritual place located above the sky; the place where God and the angels live.
The context must tell us which meaning to attach. So the decision we have to
make is if Yeshua just gave Peter the authority to make rulings about things in
the Heaven where God lives. Such a thing is, for me, unimaginable. I see it not
only as illogical if not irrational, but it also violates every biblical principle we've
learned up to now. I would argue that Jesus may not even hold enough authority
over Heaven such that He, on His own, could award some measure of that
authority to a mere, very flawed, human being like Peter. So let me be
unequivocal: Yeshua was extending Peter's authority to include rulings about
things that happen in the sky... not in God's home in the spiritual Heaven.
Therefore it is not that Peter got authority in Heaven, but rather in the
heavens...plural... meaning the sky. But what does that mean? What authority
could Peter hold over the sky?
Let's explore this a little more because it bears such importance regarding church
doctrines and church leadership authority. For example: the Catholic Church
sees Peter as having been given authority in literal Heaven, and therefore since
they deem Peter as the first Pope, so does every Pope to follow him have the
authority to renounce portions of God's Word or to change it as he believes it
should be. And there are other Christian Church beliefs that extend Peter's
authority beyond the earth and the sky and into Heaven (such has having
authority over angels), but not quite to as great an extent as the Pope's. From the
far view, what Jesus is actually giving to Peter (and later to the other disciples) is
the authority to teach, instruct, and thus to make rulings on various situations that
will come up within the body of Believers. No doubt this begins with properly
interpreting scripture. As for how this might include the sky, this likely refers to
what Christ had said just a few verses earlier as He stood on the lakeshore in
Magadan and jousted with some Pharisees and Sadducees, regarding reading
signs in the heavens (red sky in the morning versus red sky at night). So Peter
and the disciples were given authority by Christ to (through proper scriptural
interpretation based upon Yeshua's teachings) answer questions about what
certain signs in the sky might mean, along with what things that happened on
earth (signs) might mean. After all, sooner than His disciples can imagine,
Yeshua will be taken from them and all that will be left of the leadership of the
Jesus movement will be the 12 disciples. So this authority to instruct, lead, and
rule on what we could loosely call religious legal matters among His followers
that Yeshua is bestowing to Peter and to His disciples was in preparation for
what was inevitably coming.
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
Since we will encounter Peter further in Matthew's Gospel, I want to take a little
time to discuss him. There is, as always concerns such a biblically prominent but
distant personality, wide opinions about him. And in this case the bigger question
is about his position or rank among the other 11 disciples. The stance on his rank
and what it means for Christ followers and especially for Church leadership has
resulted in a wide range of Church doctrines and rules. For one strand of Church
doctrine, Peter is the newly announced replacement Master that takes over after
Christ's death. He is the chief over of all the other disciples and thus the supreme
head over the entire emergent congregation of Jesus. The other end of the scale
of opinion sees Peter not as special and set apart, but rather as representative of
every Believer. In between those are several other views, but probably the middle
ground is that while Peter was indeed special among the disciples, He was not
the chief authority over the disciples, but rather one that the others informally
looked to more often than not for guidance and answers regarding the
movement.
There is no mention of Peter holding any office or position of official authority
because the Jesus movement simply wasn't that thoroughly organized just yet.
Even so I don't see how any plain reading of Matthew's and Mark's Gospel
accounts reveals anything other than Peter most certainly being preeminent
above the other disciples, and this was at Yeshua's discretion. The statement by
Christ in Matthew 16:18 (and then the special authority Yeshua seems to, at least
at first, have bestowed upon Peter concerning the Kingdom of Heaven), and
proclaiming that Peter was the Rock out of which the congregation of Yeshua
followers would be cut, by itself sets Peter apart from the others. Not for the
typical Christian reasoning, but rather because such a statement is meant for the
Jews of that era to recall that Abraham was also called a Rock out of which the
Hebrew nation would emerge (with Rock being an expression that wasn't meant
to be overly examined and scrutinized in its every possible nuance... it was
mainly a well understood metaphor). Just as Abraham did not hold an official
office in some newly created religious organizational structure, neither, it seems,
did Peter. Rather purely through force of character, God's will, and an
acceptance by others of these men's high positions before God, Abraham and
Peter were revered and considered as the top leaders. Similarly we also know
that James, Jesus's biological brother, was head of the believing congregation in
Jerusalem and apparently was accepted as such in a similar way as Peter was
(even Paul held a widely accepted high status even though it, too, was
unofficial).
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
While I can't get into all the details today, there is strong evidence that there was
no universal agreement among Believers in the early Jesus movement about
Peter's proper status. But perhaps what is more telling and important for us, 2000
years later, is that whatever his status might have been, Peter was regularly the
center of discussion and he was widely known and respected. We don't read
much about the other disciples (other than for John) after Yeshua's death; but
Peter was always a hot topic. This should be easily understandable for us
because it would be the normal human reaction to question a movement's
leadership, and even for rival leadership factions to form, especially prior to a
movement becoming a formal organization with a clear management structure
and defined hierarchy of authority.
I will go forward in my Matthew lessons under the assumption that Peter is
special, that Yeshua saw him as special, and so He gave Peter a special
(although unofficial) position and status at the top of the Jesus movement as it
existed as of that moment. We don't have any further details to make any greater
assumptions or to draw any more definitive conclusions than these. Let's read
some more of Matthew.
RE-READ MATTHEW 16:21 - end
So after warning His disciples that they were not to tell anyone that He was the
Messiah, in verse 21 Yeshua began to explain to them some of the details about
what would soon happen to Him. He says that He will have to go to Jerusalem
and there He will suffer greatly at the hands of the Elders, the High Priest, and
the Scribes. Those 3 official titles and offices He has put forth essentially define
the broad scope of Jewish religious leadership that includes the full involvement
of both the Temple authorities and the Synagogue authorities. We must be
careful not to lump all Temple authorities and all Synagogue leaders together as
wicked. No doubt there were those individuals that wanted nothing to do with the
horrible and unjust persecutions that their peers and higher-ups would inflict upon
this carpenter from Nazareth.
The really hard part for His disciples to bear must have been Yeshua's shocking
prediction of His own death; but then there is also the even stickier matter of Him
saying He would be raised back to life on the 3
rd day. I think this news had to be
nearly unfathomable for His disciples, from both an intellectual and emotional
standpoint. Mark 8:31 adds that as Christ explained to them what horrors were
going to occur, He did it plainly and openly (that is, openly in the sense of not
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
softening the gory details or holding back any important information). So
Matthew's summation of what Jesus revealed to the disciples is highly
abbreviated. Luke and Mark also include Messiah's words about suffering and
dying. John addresses it too, although the reference is more implication and hint
than the straightforward statements of the 3 synoptic Gospel writers. In each of
these 4 references to His death, the promise of resurrection is also included. No
doubt the way Christ presented it, and the way it was recorded and handed
down, it was meant to echo the Suffering Servant passages of Isaiah 52 and 53.
Turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 53.
READ ISAIAH CHAPTER 53 all
This chapter is probably familiar to many of you. The predictions of what will
happen to the Suffering Servant and what actually happened to Yeshua are so
similar as to be undeniable... at least it is undeniable for those whom God has
blessed with the faith to believe and so are open and teachable. And yet, even if
these verses from Isaiah about the Suffering Servant's torture and death had
been in some way recalled by Yeshua's disciples, there is little here that would
imply Him being raised from the dead. But even more, should one find some
implication of resurrection, what kind of resurrection might this foretell?
In the 1
st century there were numerous viewpoints and doctrines about
resurrection ranging from it not existing at all (which was the Sadducee's
position) to full bodily resurrection. But there was also what we might call a partial
or lesser resurrection that would mean the living-on of the human spirit, but in
some undefined form. And this kind of resurrection did, in some Jewish circles,
lean towards a kind of reincarnation (although it didn't involve the Eastern
mystical concept of Karma whereby whether one returns as another human or as
some kind of animal depending on how one lived their life).
This strand of belief about resurrection has been well in evidence in the last
couple of chapters of Matthew as he records that some Jews thought that
Yeshua might be a revivified John the Baptist. In other Jewish circles resurrection
looked something like one's soul going to a Heaven-like place upon death (that
is, going from being alive on earth to being alive in a set-apart space in Heaven).
The concept of Abraham's Bosom as a pleasant resting place of safety under the
earth for the souls of the righteous dead was still in the mix as well (and Christ
seems to have verified this when He descended before He ascended). We even
have the recent miracle of Yeshua revivifying a young girl after she had died (but
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
before she was buried), and bringing her fully back to life as though her death
had never happened; something His disciples were well aware of. So the matter
of what could happen after death...whether some type of afterlife was possible or
not... or what resurrection might have amounted to... was in no way a settled
doctrine or tradition. Which means that neither was it settled in the minds of
Jesus's disciples (after all, these men had not suddenly become biblical scholars
or spiritual giants). So whatever it was that they each mentally pictured about
what Jesus meant by being raised from the dead on the 3
rd day, likely this bore
no similarity to what would actually happen, as we now know it.
This conclusion is reinforced when in verse 22 Peter is said to have taken Jesus
aside and tells Him that all this that Yeshua has just said about His torture and
death, that is supposedly going to happen, is inconceivable and can't possibly be
so. I think Peter had good reason to feel and react this way; only moments
before, Yeshua told Peter that the gates of She'ol would not prevail against it ("it"
is something that could be taken as meaning Peter's position was going to be
protected or that the movement Christ started would be protected from dying
out). The confusion about this verse is because Christian commentators regularly
equate She'ol with * or Hades; but that is factually incorrect. For
Jews, She'ol was the grave. It was literally a hole in the ground where a corpse
was placed after death and then the body decomposes. It doesn't generally
include any kind of afterlife. The grave did include afterlife, to a degree, in earlier
times but less so by the 1
st century. Early in the Old Testament writings we
regularly hear that so and so died and "went to be with his ancestors". However
* and Hades both are evil netherworlds; underground places of a not-so␂pleasant afterlife for souls. So when Yeshua told Peter that the gates
of She'ol would not prevail, I think it meant that the movement would not die
(metaphorically it would not go to the grave). Therefore since Yeshua was the
head and founder of that movement, living and standing there before him, Peter
had to assume that Yeshua was NOT going to die anytime soon. And yet, just a
few words later, it seems that Yeshua has reversed course and schizophrenically
said that He IS going to the grave (to She'ol) not long from now. This all had to
be terribly confusing and alarming.
We are also intended to notice that it's not just that Yeshua says that these
terrible things are going to happen to Him, but that they MUST happen. It
indicates that He is accepting this as His destiny. "Must happen" means that
these things are necessary as a prerequisite for something more. But why MUST
they happen? Clearly Peter and the others had in no way understood that
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
the Torah and the Prophets leads us to the conclusion that the only way to the
truly redeemed life is through death. Messiah's death. Yeshua responds to Peter
with one of the most famous lines in the Bible; a line that continues to be used to
this day, even in the secular world: "Get behind me Satan !". That, my friends, is
a pretty weird thing for Jesus to blurt out, and is a questionable interpretation that
seems to me to lie outside the context of what has been occurring. While the
majority of Bible scholars assume that Yeshua is literally referring to Satan, many
others do not and I tend to agree with the minority.
Satan, in Hebrew, is actually less a name or title as it is a simple noun that
means adversary. The Greek word that we find here is satanas (obviously taken
from the Hebrew) and it operates the same way. That is, it can be translated as
adversary or opponent, or it can at times be used as a proper name referring to a
specific evil being (Satan). A simple noun is how I lean towards translating this
unless perhaps Jesus is mouthing an otherwise unknown Jewish expression
telling someone that they are speaking evil. Otherwise just moments after
declaring Peter the Rock on which the Jesus movement shall be built, we have
Christ calling Peter the Devil or at least saying that Peter is being co-opted and
used by the Devil (which certainly is not out of the realm of possibility)! Rather it
seems to me that Yeshua is rebuking Peter by saying that Peter is essentially
speaking in opposition to Him even if it was meant innocently. Yeshua then goes
on to say that Peter is behaving as an adversary, and this is because Peter
processes Yeshua's words of His suffering and death through the lens of his
human thought and his adherence to the Traditions of the Elders, as opposed to
the way God sees it and wills it. If Yeshua meant that Peter was representing
Satan it seems to me He would have said that Peter's thinking was coming from
Satan's view (not from the human view).
Nevertheless, it is challenging to put into words the thoughts that must have been
racing through Peter's mind as this surreal scene unfolded; but let me see if I can
paint a picture of what it likely was to help us understand why Peter impulsively
said what he said in response to Yeshua's unwelcome message. To begin with,
the Father had just revealed to him that Jesus was God's Son and Israel's
Messiah, and Jesus had confirmed it. But what kind of a Messiah is going to be
revealed and then immediately say that He's going to be arrested and put to
death? And this would accomplish exactly... what? According to the Jewish
traditions the Messiah was very nearly Jewish Superman; an unstoppable and
charismatic conqueror that brushes aside the opposition. He's King David on
steroids. This was to be the one man that could finally throw off the oppression of
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
Rome and re-establish an independent Jewish State. He would be the first
Israelite King of Israel in hundreds of years; a wise leader and a brilliant and
courageous military man that would usher Israel into a new golden era. Therefore
what Yeshua said made no sense to Peter. Jesus couldn't possibly
be that Messiah and at the same time be destined for a premature death at the
hands of His enemies. Therefore Yeshua could not have been the fulfillment of
what every Jew knew a Messiah was to be and to do if He was only going to
appear and then soon suffer and die. Such a thing would be, for a Jew, anything
but victory; it would be a soul crushing catastrophe. And yet Peter was so sold
out to Yeshua, and had so much faith in Him, that he didn't do what others might
have done; throw his hands in the air in despair and walk away from yet another
in a series of self-proclaimed wannabe Messiahs that never panned out. Perhaps
this is actually the thing that ought to most impress us about Peter, and provide a
great example for us to strive towards. Even though Peter's mind had been
conditioned according to everything he had been taught within the Jewish
religious system... making it seem as though Jesus was not living up to the
expectations of a Messiah... Peter still loved Yeshua and trusted in Him so
deeply and without reservation, that he was willing to continue to follow Him
despite it not making sense to his mind.
Folks, this is how we must trust and follow Our Savior as we rapidly approach
what inevitably comes next in Redemption History: Christ's return, the revealing
of the Anti-Christ, incredible persecution of Believers, Israel being isolated and
decimated, and then The End. We do have somewhat of a biblical roadmap for
how this is going to unfold; but it is vague and incomplete. Peter and his fellow
Jews also had a biblical roadmap available to them in the Torah and the
Prophets about the advent of a Messiah and what He would do and what would
happen to Him. But, it, too was vague and incomplete. The Israelites were meant
to trust in God, wait patiently, and let history play out with enough information to,
perhaps in hindsight, recognize what God was doing so as to have confidence
that God was in control and that His will was being carried out. But the Jews of
Christ's era were victims of centuries of incorrect Traditions taught by their Elders
and Teachers just as Christians are victims of centuries of incorrect Traditions
taught by our Elders and Teachers.
There are several End Times traditions (which certainly don't all agree) and each
insistent that they tell us the true and accurate details of how The End will unfold.
Some insist that if you don't believe their particular tradition, you must not be a
Believer. Entire systems of exactly how the End Times plays out have been
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
concocted that have names like Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib and Post-Trib. Pre-Millennial,
Post-Millennial and Amillennial. There are rigid doctrines about what the Rapture
looks like and amounts to, the exact point in time at which Yeshua returns, who
returns with Him, details of what the Millennial Kingdom will look like, and so
much more that are popularized and each denomination has adopted one or
another of these and brooks no dissent among their ranks. So the problem for a
Christian today is similar as it was for the Jews in the era Matthew is writing
about. Their Traditions were so dominant that when the prophesied events began
to happen, they were oblivious to it or dismissed as irrelevant because the focal
point of those biblical prophecies didn't fit their Traditions of the Elders. This is
what Peter and the disciples are struggling with and it is why Peter was aghast
and confused about Yeshua's prediction of His coming demise. There is a similar
danger within The Church and within Judaism that the foretold signs of the world
having entered the End Times, and prophesied signs of the imminent return of
Messiah, will be missed by God's people because incorrect doctrines and
traditions of men insist on something else entirely. Let those with ears, hear.
Beginning in verse 24, there is a subtle shifting of gears. Yeshua says:
CJB Matthew 16:24-25 24 Then Yeshua told his talmidim, "If anyone wants to
come after me, let him say 'No' to himself, take up his execution-stake, and
keep following me. 25 For whoever wants to save his own life will destroy it,
but whoever destroys his life for my sake will find it.
The subject is the high cost of discipleship. Did that startle you... even a little?
I'm unsure of the last time I heard of a Christian speaker talk on the high and
ongoing cost each Believer must pay to be a true and accepted member of the
Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, it is a rather widespread Church doctrine that Christ
paid the high cost so that we, His followers, don't have to. He suffered so that we
can live lives of ease on our own terms. I've personally heard a number of times
while in Israel of Jews saying to Christians that we embrace a cheap faith. While
that sentiment comes mainly from an underlying animosity, that's not necessary
incorrect. At least not as far as manmade Christian doctrines are constructed
concerning the cost of discipleship and who pays it. But the New Testament tells
a bit different story.
The subject of the cost of discipleship (that is, of following Yeshua) as presented
here in the Gospel of Matthew is not new. In fact it may in a certain sense have
reached a high point a few chapters ago during the Sermon on the Mount as
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
Yeshua says things like:
CJBMatthew 5:21-22 27 "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Do not
murder,1 and that anyone who commits murder will be subject to
judgment. 22But I tell you that anyone who nurses anger against his brother
will be subject to judgment..." And also:
CJBMatthew 5:27-28 27 "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Do not
commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that a man who even looks at a woman
with the purpose of lusting after her has already committed adultery with
her in his heart.
He said more of course but that is sufficient to make my point. Which is harder?
Not to murder someone, or not to hold any anger against someone, even if it
might seem to be justified and yet is never outwardly displayed?
Men, which is harder? Not to cheat on your wife, or not to secretly look at another
woman from a mindset of lust... even if you never act on that lust? But before
Yeshua speaks to the crowd by encouraging a higher standard by which they are
to obey the Laws of Moses... the right standard that God always intended but still
is a standard greater than the ones their ancestors were told by their leaders that
they were to follow... Yeshua sets down this dilly of a principle.
CJBMatthew5:18-20 18Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass
away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until
everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the
least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in
the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be
called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your
righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim,
you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
So, says Jesus, membership in the Kingdom of Heaven requires scrupulous
obedience to the Torah, (the Law of Moses), not only in letter but in spirit, and
now to an even higher standard if one wants to be Yeshua's disciple. In fact, He
says that the traditional standard bearers of righteousness among the Jewish
people... the Torah Teachers and the Pharisees... had not attained the high level
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Lesson 58 - Matthew 16 cont 2
of righteousness that Jesus said is needed to even enter the Kingdom of Heaven,
let alone be placed in its social hierarchy that is based on Christ's standard of the
observance of the Law. This teaching is but one aspect of Yeshua's requirements
for people to be His disciples. Does this sound easy, or like our only obligation is
say the Sinner's Prayer, and then sit back and relax until the Lord calls us to
Heaven? Well, it does get much easier if Christ's teachings on the high cost of
discipleship are ignored and replaced with manmade doctrines. And it is all the
more easy if one simply rips the heart out of the issue of obedience to God (the
Law of Moses) and throws it into a doctrinal trash heap. Strong words? Yes. No
stronger than Jesus's words, though.
We'll finish up chapter 16, next time.
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 59, Chapter 16 and 17
Last week in our study of Matthew chapter 16 we ended with an important topic
Yeshua raised beginning in verse 24, which is the high cost of being His disciple.
Let's immediately go to our Bibles and read from verse 24 to the end of the
chapter.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 16:24 - end
Briefly in review, our discussion revolved around the idea that what Yeshua says
in these 5 verses while new in specifics is not at all new in principle; it has been
highlighted in earlier narratives. Perhaps the most foundational statement
regarding the basic principle of the high cost of discipleship is found in the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, when Jesus explains that not only
are the Torah and the Prophets not abolished or changed, but that our obedience
to them is expected and even will be used to determine our status and place
within the social structure and hierarchy of the Kingdom of Heaven. And since
Yeshua is the king of that Kingdom on earth, then it is a given that obedience to,
and trust in, Him is the core requirement for membership.
So in verse 24 Christ is continuing to define what that core requirement consists
of. He says that to follow after Him requires denying oneself and instead carrying
our own execution stake (or as in nearly all other English translations, carry one's
own cross). This means to put our will in submission to God's will, and this
through the king of God's Kingdom, Yeshua HaMashiach. Luke's Gospel says
something similar.
CJB Luke 14:27 Whoever does not carry his own execution-stake and come
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
after me cannot be my talmid.
So any way one chooses to interpret this foundational principle, it is beyond clear
that there are requirements (not options) for being a Believer in Yeshua in any
kind of meaningful sense; something that is acceptable to God. That is, we can
insist that we are a Christ follower (disciple), but that in no way means that the
Lord has accepted us as His follower. Let me again quote to you what I see as
perhaps one of the most brutally frank, if not terrifying, passages in the New
Testament; one that directly addresses this matter.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
This statement is part of Yeshua explaining that we humans can only know a true
Believer, or display ourselves as a Believer, according to the fruit they and we
bear; that is, choices, actions, and behaviors are the proof of our faith. Doing is
the crux of the matter. So when one is NOT thinking and behaving as a true
Believer, but nonetheless is insistent not only to everyone around them but even
to God that they are, we are faced with the reality that it is God alone who makes
that determination and not us no matter how much we might plead our case with
other humans or with Him. We also can't create our own standards for that
determination. Unfortunately, much of institutional gentile Christianity has done
just that by creating various doctrines that redefines the standards for our choices
and our works and our obedience to God by saying that His written standard (the
Torah) is no longer relevant but even a danger to our faith!
Thus actual God-certification as our being a disciple of His Son goes well beyond
walking an aisle in a Church, or saying the Sinner's Prayer, or holding some
semblance of a belief in our heart (even if we openly profess it). Our inner
decisions and moral choices must change from what has been natural for us, and
those changes must also lead to a change in our outward behavior and actions.
The Bible calls this "repentance". I promise you this involves exertion; real and
actual physical exertion along with mental focus are needed for us to subdue our
own will in order to obey God's will in our lives. This change does not come by
idle waiting for God to do all the work while we stand by for it to magically take
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
hold within us. It is somewhat like going to school. We can sign up for school, pay
the tuition, and get assigned the various courses we want. But that only has
value and meaning if we actually go to the classes, pay attention to the teachers,
and do the work. Come graduation time we can plead all we want that we DID
sign up for school; but the Dean is not going to accept that as sufficient because
we didn't do all that was required of us.
Now for the thorny issue of taking up our "cross" and following Christ. We've
dealt with this before but it bears revisiting. It is only a later Christianity, well after
it had separated itself from its Hebrew foundation, that translated the Greek
word stauros into the word "cross". A stauros is a stake in the ground used for
the purpose of executions. The way it worked in Yeshua's day was that a cross
beam was tied to a condemned prisoner's arms and he was required to carry it
from wherever he was being held to the site of the execution, where
the stauros (the execution stake) was located. Once there, the crossbeam along
with the prisoner was attached to the top of the beam, forming a "T". Hanging
there the prisoner died by suffocation; it was a long gruesome and painful death
(sometimes taking a few days). A major and important point for us to know is that
crucifixion was not used on Roman citizens no matter the crime. In the Holy Land
it was used only on Jews.
Thus despite the common teaching that Christ was essentially referring to His
own death in this passage and that we as His disciples are to vicariously suffer
the same kind of death along with Him, on the same type of death instrument that
He did (in Christian tradition it was a cross), is not what was meant. He was only
using perhaps the most extreme type of judicial death, one all too well known to
Jews, as an emotionally charged way to get across the supreme nature of
devotion to Him that might be required of those who want to be His disciples. The
principle behind our willingness to suffer even this horrible of a death is that the
glorious eternal life that awaits His followers (in the world to come) is greater than
anything we might have to endure during our present life on earth.
Now... remembering that Matthew wrote these words long after Yeshua's
execution, so he had a far more panoramic view of all that happened that we
label as verse 24 (that is, Matthew knew of the beginning and end of Christ's
ministry, as well as the aftermath), then that is probably why this verse is often
taken as implying that Yeshua was foretelling His own death on the cross (and I
don't deny that this is a possibility). Yet even if He meant it that way there is no
reason to think that His disciples would have understood it that way. For them it
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
would have been hyperbole used by Yeshua in order to make the forceful
statement that they must be willing to endure whatever it takes to follow Him as
disciples. The goal of that endurance is to replace natural human thinking and
behavior with Godly thinking and behavior that ultimately results in being an
eternal member of God's Kingdom.
As a gentile, and as a Believer since I was a child, the symbol of the cross was
central to everything that I held dear. And it of course is, and has been for
centuries, the primary symbol of The Church. I realize that at least in modern
times it is not necessarily meant as an intentional offense to Jews (but it most
certainly was meant as offensive to Jews very early on in the formation of a
gentile brand of faith in Christ). However when we can internalize the reality that
crucifixion was a punishment used only on Jews and not on Roman citizens (who
were, for all practical purposes, gentiles), then we can understand why it is nearly
impossible for a Jewish Believer to accept the gentile Christian Cross as a
symbol of their faith. This in no way is a Jewish Believer's denial of Yeshua's
death on a stauros, or of His deity or of His resurrection. This is only about
symbols; and as I taught early in my teaching of the Torah, this is why symbols of
any kind, and especially of the manmade kind, can be so problematic among
humans.
Note that never does the New Testament make the cross as symbolic of faith in
Messiah Yeshua or of the Jesus movement. In fact the earliest known symbol for
Believers as found in the Holy Land is the 3 part symbol so popular in the
Hebrew Roots movement today. I have actually taken people to the exact spot in
Israel where this was first discovered. So the Christian concept of the cross is
something often read back into the New Testament in passages like the one we
are currently dealing with. For those that believe that the using or wearing of a
Christian cross is key to your identity as a Believer, and so not using it or wearing
it is a denial of your Christian faith, just realize that it is only a manmade
traditional symbol and not a divine command nor is it something Jesus asked of
us. You must decide in your own conscience what to do with this reality; I don't
see it as something for another to tell you what you must or must not do in this
regard.
Verse 25 continues with the idea of the high cost of discipleship as an extension
of verse 24 and it concerns our willingness to go to extreme measures if needed
to be a true Believer. Still the fundamental point remains that our ego must be
displaced from being the center of our personal universe. We must be willing to
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
discern God's purpose and direction for our lives and give up, where necessary,
our personal ambitions.
Matthew's Gospel has Yeshua offering us what can only be described as a
paradox. A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement and yet it is true.
So here we have Yeshua offering the divine viewpoint (and reality) that is
completely counter to our natural intuition (which is essentially a mirage that most
don't realize at the time). The idea here is a statement that must be contemplated
on two levels: the P'shat and the Remez. The simple literal and the deeper hint.
The P'shat sense is that being willing to go so far (if need be) as to die for
Yeshua's cause actually gives us a better more meaningful life to live because
instead of living our life for ourselves we're living it for God who gave us this life.
There are novels written and movies made about people who suddenly are struck
and heartbroken at the realization of the abject hollowness of their lives and are
willing to take up a meaningful cause that nearly certainly will lead to their own
death. But a much shortened life of purpose is worth more to them than what
they are currently experiencing (the famous Robert De Niro film "The Mission" is
a well known example, as is a 70's art film with Jack Nicholson called
The Passenger). However on the Remez level this speaks of dying to self,
meaning to give up everything we currently covet (if need be including our own
physical life) in order to follow Christ, because it brings with it the reward of
having a pleasant eternal life. On the flip side, refusing to give up our current life
(mostly meaning the way we live that follows our natural desires and ego)
automatically disqualifies us from being Christ's disciples.
I think the point of Yeshua's words are that the required willingness to die to self
is an either/or, yes/no, the one or the other choice. It is absolute polarization;
there is no middle ground. One way is totally given up for the new way.
Otherwise we become what is commonly called a carnal Christian. Which, if one
accepts the truth of Christ's unequivocal and clear teachings on the matter,
makes the term "carnal Christian" an oxymoron. According to Jesus it is
impossible to be both carnal and a Christian. You either give up carnality for faith
in Yeshua, or you give up faith in Yeshua to continue carnal worldliness. This is
not to say that anyone successfully becomes 100% pure as a disciple, and in
practice it is a journey; but it is a both a measuring stick and a goal of our faith.
Verse 26 again adds on to the subject of the requirements of being a follower of
Yeshua, as He presents a rhetorical question to His disciples. The point is to
emphasize that there is absolutely nothing in this present life, in this present
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
world, worth the price of eternal life in the world to come (the 01am Habah). So,
says Jesus, what good is it to be fully invested in the riches and fleeting rewards
of today, if the price for having it is forfeiture of our eternal life? So again Christ
makes a polarizing demand: it's one or the other. He doesn't mean that a person
can't have wealth and also be a follower, but it does mean that the wealth needs
to be used for the Kingdom, and its acquisition fully secondary to carrying out
God's will.
Remembering who Jesus was and the Jewish culture He lived in, and His
unparalleled knowledge of the Tanach, it's probable that when He said these
words He was thinking of Psalm 49, because as we've discussed before Yeshua
was not introducing a new principle to the Jewish faith, nor was He attempting to
create a new and separate faith. Rather He was trying to reform what existed, so
He regularly called upon the Prophets, the Torah, and the Psalms... all things
familiar to the Jewish culture... to explain what it is that He is instructing. Let's
take the time to read this amazingly sober and yet inspiring Psalm that indeed
fleshes out the idea of this present life not being all there is.
READ PSALM 49 all
Perhaps the most poignant idea behind this Psalm (besides the fact that you
can't take it with you) is that you also can't use your wealth (however little or
much) as payment for eternal life. That is not the currency God deals in. So all
this is nice and ideal and these are good and inspiring words. But what does it
lead to when one comes into agreement with Christ on the matter? That's what
we find in Matthew 16:27.
Yeshua goes back to referring to Himself as the Son of Man. I mentioned in
earlier lessons that His use of this term Son of Man is meant in 3 different ways.
In this case He is referring to the End Times Son of Man from Daniel 7; the one
who acts as the divine judge. This is a revelation of who Yeshua will be, the role
He will play, and what the Father will give Him as a responsibility and authority to
do in the future. In fact, as I've said on numerous occasions, Yeshua always acts
within His Father's glory, and not His own. He does His Father's will, and not His
own. That is precisely what He says in verse 27. But now we come to yet another
Christian dilemma.
Over and over we encounter in the Bible that at the End of history each person
will be divinely judged not only according to what they believe, but according to
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
what they do. Of course both Old and New Testaments explain that in general
what we do is the result of what we believe (just like the fruit tree parable that a
bad fruit tree cannot bear good fruit and vice versa). Too much however with
Church doctrines, believing and doing are separated and compartmentalized.
One is even sometimes seen as antithetical to the other. This is also a good time
to point out that this principle was not new with Yeshua, He was merely revisiting
an old one.
CJB Psalm 62:11-13 11 Don't put your trust in extortion, don't put false hopes
in robbery; even if wealth increases, don't set your heart on it. 12 God has
spoken once, I have heard it twice: strength belongs to God. 13 Also to you,
Adonai, belongs grace; for you reward all as their deeds deserve.
Paul received Jesus's lesson well.
CJB 2 Corinthians 5:8-10 8
l/l/e are confident, then, and would much prefer to
leave our home in the body and come to our home with the
Lord. 9 Therefore, whether at home or away from home, we try our utmost to
please him; 10 for we must all appear before the Messiah's court of
judgment, where everyone will receive the good or bad consequences of
what he did while he was in the body.
Doing. Works. Deeds. This is what our earthly life, lived in full co-operation with
God, is for. While we can say with confidence that trust in Christ is what brings us
to Salvation, that is far too simplistic because Jesus has been laying out in a
number of scenarios the requirement for being His disciple. Salvation certainly
has its genesis in the moment we come to trust in Him; but that simple
acknowledgment is only the shot fired that begins a marathon. That shot is
neither the race itself nor does it determine who finishes successfully. Christ
employs the metaphor of a newborn infant to describe that moment of Salvation;
Paul borrows from it. That is, emerging from the birth canal is but the necessary
first moment of a long journey; but birth is not the journey itself nor does it foretell
the outcome of our life. So, as Paul says, don't just stay as an infant that can only
drink milk, but rather grow to the next stage of trust and discipleship where meat
can be digested.
Thus, says Yeshua in verse 27, in the End He will repay everyone for their
conduct. That is, there are distinct inevitable consequences for doing and for not
doing the will of The Father. This is said in the backdrop of the End Times
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
(something which 1
st century Jews believed they were experiencing). So His
disciples to whom He was speaking would have figured that this
recompense...whether negative or positive... was going to happen soon; within
their lifetimes. To which Jesus follows up with verse 28... a real head scratcher
for us who live 2000 years after He said these words.
CJB Matthew 16:28 Yes! I tell you that there are some people standing here
who will not experience death until they see the Son of Man coming in his
Kingdom!"
A quick glance at this verse, taken in the context of all He as just said, certainly
sounds like He is saying that literally some of His 12 disciples will not die until He
returns in the Son of Man role as the Great Judge. This would have further
confirmed to His disciples that they were living in the Latter Days, and time was
short. To try to make sense of His statement the 2 most popular scholarly
opinions are that this is either referring to the Transfiguration or to the
Resurrection. Nearly all the early Church Fathers saw it as referring to the
Transfiguration. The modern evangelical branch of the Church (that often hangs
it's doctrinal hat on the theology of Calvin) says it is referring to the
Resurrection. There are some ancient Christian writings that seem to think it
points to Pentecost. And some others, past and present, believe that this is proof
that there is no first and second coming of Messiah (there was only the one) and
that the End Times has already happened and lies in our historical past. Frankly,
none of these possibilities satisfies as each requires some pretty severe twisting
of words, and even jettisoning of basic biblical principles, to get there. I'm not
even sure Matthew knew what to make of Christ's words, but rather just passed
along what his sources had written down. So I'll offer you another possibility
without claiming that this must be it.
Going back again to my teaching that Yeshua refers to Himself as Son of Man in
3 different ways and senses, it could be that we are to take the verse 28 use of
the term Son of Man as more as less meaning simply "I" or "Me". He doesn't
make any reference to coming in the clouds that would better connect it to
Daniel's vision. Further the Kingdom of Heaven is already here. So when He
comes a second time, He's not bringing the Kingdom with Him. Rather I think in
verse 28 we have a statement about His first coming (meaning His present 1st
century advent). But in contrast to verse 28, in verse 27 the Son of Man coming
in judgment can only mean a reference to His role as the divine Judge that
comes at the End of Days, and I think this because so many Prophets and
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
Psalms speak of every man being judged according to His deeds, works and
actions, but only at the End of Days. So verse 27 can only be in reference to His
second coming... His return. But verse 28 seems to speak of the here and now of
the 1st century, as He stands before His disciples and prior to His death. He's
already explained numerous times that the Good News He brings, and that His
disciples are to preach, is that the Kingdom of Heaven has just arrived. He's not
bringing the Kingdom of Heaven twice (once at His first advent and again at His
return because that wouldn't make sense). So perhaps He is making a somewhat
veiled reference for His disciples that indeed they are the very fortunate ones that
had not yet died but were living to see Him (Christ) establish His reign over the
Kingdom. To sum it up: verse 27 speaks of His second coming, while verse 28 is
about His first coming.
One other thought that we cannot easily escape but it does make us feel
uncomfortable. If I am correct in what this means, might it almost not have to
indicate that Yeshua is not entirely sure of the timing of everything that must
happen involving Him, whether alive in the flesh on earth or in spirit in Heaven. I
would suggest that, for instance, while He knew He would soon be put to death
He didn't know all the details surrounding it. He didn't know exactly when or what
all the circumstances that would lead up to it would be. He certainly knew His end
would come via crucifixion because that's how the Romans put Jews to death in
nearly every case; so that was hardly a reach or a mysterious premonition that
only He could know. We have proof from His own lips that He was not privy to the
same knowledge His Father had. There were things and times that He didn't
know.
CJB Matthew 24:32-39 32 "Now let the fig tree teach you its lesson: when its
branches begin to sprout and leaves appear, you know that summer is
approaching. 33 In the same way, when you see all these things, you are to
know that the time is near, right at the door. 34 Yes! I tell you that this people
will certainly not pass away before all these things happen. 35 Heaven and
earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. 36 "But when that
day and hour will come, no one knows- not the angels in heaven, not the
Son, only the Father. 37 For the Son of Man's coming will be just as it was in
the days of Noach. 38 Back then, before the Flood, people went on eating
and drinking, taking wives and becoming wives, right up till the day Noach
entered the ark; 39 and they didn't know what was happening until the Flood
came and swept them all away. It will be just like that when the Son of Man
comes.
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
So in a similar way to how it will be for mankind, when Christ is given the signal
to return to earth it will be as much an anticipated surprise to Him just as it will be
to Believers living on earth IF... big word, IF... we have learned the biblical truth.
But to all other humans His return will be a shocking and befuddling surprise.
I think we can encapsulate the overriding message of verses 24 - 28 by saying
that Believers are not given the option of being passive observers or even only
gushing admirers of Jesus. If we try to be, then it couldn't be more strongly stated
that we will not be classified in God's eyes as Believers. We also cannot be
spectators sitting on the sidelines, reading about all the great stuff Jesus said and
did. He's our leader and our example and we are to do to as He did. Nor can we
think that what He says was meant primarily for the 12 Disciples... things for only
His inner circle to do... or perhaps even mostly for the Jewish Believers of the
1
st century. We have obligations and He has been laying them out. Discipleship is
a full contact sport (so to speak), no matter the hardships that might be involved.
No one that calls him or her self a Believer is exempt.
Let's move on to chapter 17.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 17 all
Chapter 17 begins with the proverbial bang; what has become known as The
Transfiguration. With very little lead up other than a notice that Yeshua has taken
3 of His disciples with Him to a high place, and that it happened 6 days after the
final words of Matthew chapter 16, suddenly an amazing thing occurs that
Yeshua must have anticipated. An event that was not only His purpose for
ascending the mountain but also for bringing the 3 trusted witnesses along with
Him.
We may never fully understand the mystery of what occurred; and this is
bothersome enough to many Bible scholars that they deny that it did happen. But
can we understand what it means? I think we can. And it begins with a consistent
background theme that we find from beginning to end in Matthew's Gospel; it is
that Jesus is the second Moses. And so that I'm not misunderstood: Yeshua is
presented as a higher and better Moses because He was and remains the one
thing that Moses could never be: the divine Son of God that saves.
As always we must begin with the historical context and the focus of that context
must be the culture it sprang from: a Jewish culture. Yeshua never does or says
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
things, or uses terms, in a vacuum such that they sit well apart from what the
Jewish culture might understand or expect. If God has taught me anything over
the decades, it is that while He is no respecter of persons, He does respect
cultures and societies such that the miracles He does and the teaching He
inspires takes place within the context of those familiar and particular cultural
elements. He will not operate in a way with African tribal members that is the
same as for people who live in the modern urbanized West because if He did, the
meaning of what He does would not be fathomable. So the first thing we must
look for in the Transfiguration is what about it was deeply Jewish and steeped in
Israelite history and tradition.
CJB Exodus 34:28-35 28 Moshe was there with ADONAI forty days and forty
nights, during which time he neither ate food nor drank water. [ADONAI]
wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words. 29 When
Moshe came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony
in his hand, he didn't realize that the skin of his face was sending out rays
of light as a result of his talking with [ADONAI]. 30 When Aharon and the
people of Isra'el saw Moshe, the skin of his face was shining; and they were
afraid to approach him. 31 But Moshe called to them; then Aharon and all
the community leaders came back to him, and Moshe spoke to
them. 32 Afterwards, all the people of Isra'el came near; and he passed on to
them all the orders that ADONAI had told him on Mount Sinai. 33 Once
Moshe had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But
when he went in before ADONAI for him to speak, he would take the veil off
until he came out; then, when he came out, he would tell the people of
Isra'el what he had been ordered. 35 But when the people of Isra'el saw
Moshe's face, that the skin of Moshe's face shone, he would put the veil
back over his face until he went in again to speak with [ADONAI].
Moses went up to a high place, and Yeshua went up to a high place. At that high
place Moses's face transformed and began shining with rays of light, and at that
high place Yeshua's face transformed and His face shone with light like the sun.
To the 3 Jews Christ took to observe, the Moses connection would have flooded
into their minds. But what if this had taken place in Rome in front of a bunch of
gentiles? They would have been clueless because nothing about it fit Roman
culture.
Notice how Mark writes about this same event.
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
CJB Mark 9:1 Yes!" he went on, "I tell you that there are some people
standing here who will not experience death until they see the Kingdom of
God come in a powerful way!" 2 Six days later, Yeshua took Kefa, Ya'akov
and Yochanan and led them up a high mountain privately. As they watched,
he began to change form, 3 and his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter
than anyone in the world could possibly bleach them. 4 Then they saw
Eliyahu and Moshe speaking with Yeshua.
Did you catch the difference in Mark's Gospel as compared to Matthew's? There
is not a mention of Yeshua's face shining with light. Mark's attention is instead
focused on Jesus's glowing white clothes (something rather common in the
mythological Greco-Roman god system). So while there is a proper sense of awe
in both of these accounts, the connection of Christ to Moses is not made by
Mark. Why? Because the Jewish Matthew was writing for an audience of Jewish
Believers, while Mark was writing for an audience of Roman gentile Believers.
Thus in Mark there is little discernable connection made between Moses and
Jesus, while in Matthew it is front and center. Jewish culture expected the
"prophet like me" that Moses spoke of; Roman culture knew nothing of it. The
glowing faces of Moses and Yeshua had a specific meaning of historical
connection for the Jewish culture; it wouldn't have had any meaning for a Roman
culture. Therefore Matthew emphasized the glowing faces while Mark ignored it.
This in no way disparages Mark nor makes his Gospel inferior to Matthew's. Their
accounts were written for consumption by different cultures.
Verse 3 tells us, without explanation, that Moses and Elijah suddenly appeared
and stood there with Yeshua. One of the first things Bible scholars question
about this event is: how did those 3 disciples know that those men were Moses
and Elijah? One had been gone for 1300 years and the other for perhaps 800
years. So it's not like there were ancient photographs of them. Here's why I think
the disciples knew who they were. Yeshua has been teaching them that He is the
End Times Messiah and Peter was the first to grasp it. I suspect that if not all of
the remaining 11 disciples by now, probably at the least Jacob and his brother
John also finally understood. I admit this is my speculation, but there is little
better to go on as to the rationale for Yeshua choosing those particular 3 to
accompany Him up the mountain not as mere companions but as eyewitnesses
to this astounding event.
Elijah was predicted to come back when the Messiah appeared at the point in
history of the Latter Days. Moses was the central figure of the Israelite religion;
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
even greater than Abraham in some ways. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal
that the Essenes had an expectation of a reappearance of Moses in the Latter
Days (probably commensurate with the appearance of the Messiah) as reported
by the Dead Sea Scrolls researcher John C. Poirier. How prevalent that
expectation was in other parts of Jewish society I do not know. So from a Jewish
standpoint two of the greatest figures in biblical history were present and
because we get such an abbreviated story of this overwhelming event, who
knows if Christ might not have told the 3 disciples what was going to happen and
who to expect to show up.
But the next question for Bible students is: why those 2 particular figures? Far
and away the most universal take within Christianity is the same one that Davies
and Allison conclude in their Commentary on this chapter of Matthew. To quote
them:
"Jesus, it would seem, takes Moses's place and supersedes Him." That is, Yeshua obsoletes and replaces Moses. And if one sends Moses into
obsolescence then so along with Him goes the Law of Moses. Simple. I've
explained on numerous occasions that it flabbergasts me how such elite Bible
scholars who bring so much needed light upon the Holy Scriptures can look at
the evidence they dig up and draw such strange conclusions from it. These are
the same two Bible scholars that were adamant that Jesus was clear in Matthew
chapter 5 that He did NOT abolish the Torah and the Prophets, and then they
turn around here in their commentary on Matthew 17 and essentially say that He
did.
There is only one logical explanation for such conclusions and it is self-evident;
Christian Tradition always trumps the Bible. And of course Christian Tradition is
that Jesus erased everything, every Prophet, and every divine covenant that
came before Him despite the fact that Jesus says the opposite, and nothing in
the New Testament says that. There is also nothing in the words of this passage
of Matthew 17 that would remotely imply that somehow the presence of Moses
and Elijah together with Yeshua indicates that Yeshua has just sent the Torah,
Moses (and, I suppose, Elijah) into Redemption history's dust bin. In fact in the
Gospel accounts there is no meaning given to the Transfiguration at all. It is
merely reported as having happened, who saw it, and nothing more.
We'll continue with the Transfiguration and what we ought to take away from it,
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Lesson 59 - Matthew 16 & 17
next time.
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 60, Chapter 17
We opened Matthew chapter 17 last week, which begins with one of the
landmark occurrences within Yeshua's short ministry on earth: The
Transfiguration. I promised that we'd try to untangle the meaning of it and we'll do
that shortly. This is going to get a little long-winded because there is so much
disagreement and variation in what are the most common Church doctrines
about The Transfiguration, so we have to recalibrate our minds a bit to get a
better understanding. First, however, let's re-read the narrative about it. Open
your Bibles to Matthew 17.
RE-READ MATTHEW 17:1-13
In order to get as much information as is available about this mysterious event,
we need to know what the other Gospel accounts said about it. First, Mark's:
READ MARK 9:2 -13
And now Luke's Gospel account as written from his perspective:
READ LUKE 9:28 -36
Even though we find some differences between the 3 Synoptic Gospels
accounts, I think we can owe those differences to essentially 2 things: first, none
of these Gospel writers were eyewitnesses so they had to get their information
either from one of the three eyewitnesses (Peter or James or James' brother
John) or more likely it came from the written accounts of unnamed others. It also
may be that the written accounts or even the verbal accounts from one or another
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
of the 3 eyewitnesses were slightly different. Second, each of the Gospel writers
has constructed this Transfiguration story based on their personal perspective of
its meaning according to their 1st-century minds, and therefore what details to
include (and also what not to include) that would resonate best with their
particular intended audience.
Mark and Matthew agree, for instance, that The Transfiguration happened 6 days
after the previous events that concluded in chapter 16; while Luke says that it
was "about" 8 days later. So whatever the sources these Gospel writers were
using, Luke's seems to have been different from Mark's and Matthew's, and so
Luke's source even contained a little uncertainty about how many days. The CJB
deals with this uncertainty by saying "about a week", but the Greek specifically
says okto, which is 8. What we must notice in all of these accounts is that there
is no recorded comment made by Yeshua or by any of the 3 disciples who were
present that explains the meaning behind this breathtaking event, nor do any of
the Gospel writers attempt to arrive at a conclusion of their own about it. The
story is, in all 3 accounts, simply told and left hanging, leaving us all to scratch
our heads about just what we are to take from it; and clearly, there had to have
been an intended meaning in it.
Yet, there is one thing embedded in the story that might have something to do
with the explanation for The Transfiguration. It is when The Father speaks from
the cloud that enveloped the 3 men and He says: "This is my Son, whom I love,
with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!" Where have we heard similar words
before?
CJBMatthew 3:13-17 13 Then Yeshua came from the Galil to the Yarden to be
immersed by Yochanan. 14 But Yochanan tried to stop him. "You are
coming to me? I ought to be immersed by you!" 15 However, Yeshua
answered him, "Let it be this way now, because we should do everything
righteousness requires." Then Yochanan let him. 16 As soon as Yeshua had
been immersed, he came up out of the water. At that moment heaven was
opened, he saw the Spirit of God coming down upon him like a dove, 17 and
a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased
with him." So one has to ask what the point might be of God making this pronouncement
again; one He had already made to John the Baptist and to Yeshua and very
probably to several onlookers? The predominant thought among Bible
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commentators is that for some reason The Father wanted those 3 disciples to
personally witness a sort of reenactment of this important pronouncement that
was originally made in the Jordan River several months earlier. However, for me,
that just doesn't satisfy because the disciples already knew of John the Immerser
and all that had happened with him, including especially his reluctant immersing
of Jesus, and therefore no doubt they also knew those words that Yeshua was
God's Son (even if the significance of those words seemed to keep eluding
them). So if that's not what this pronouncement was about, what's the alternative
explanation? And besides, if it was only to repeat it in front of those 3 disciples,
why only 3 and not all 12? But even more, if once again pronouncing Jesus as
God's Son was the point, why did Elijah and Moses have to be there? Could it be
that perhaps it was not so much meant as a pronouncement for the disciples to
witness as it was for the benefit of the 2 men that appeared with Yeshua: Moses
and Elijah. Here's why I think this might make more sense.
In Ephesians 4:8-10 we read Paul saying this in his interpretation of a special act
of Messiah Yeshua not long after His resurrection:
CJB Ephesians 4:8-10 8 This is why it says, "After he went up into the
heights, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to mankind." 9 Now this
phrase, "he went up," what can it mean if not that he first went down into
the lower parts, that is, the earth? 10 The one who went down is himself the
one who also went up, far above all of heaven, in order to fill all things.
A passage from the Book of Acts is usually added to the one I just quoted that
has created the prevalent Church doctrine that Jesus descended into * or
Hades for a time. I'll quote this passage from the NAS Bible version because it is
the most literal translation of the Greek.
NAS Acts 2:27 Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, Nor allow
Thy Holy One to undergo decay.
I have stated in other Bible book studies that these 2 perplexing passages are
not trying to say that Yeshua descended into Hades. It is not possible because
Hades was the mythological Greco-Roman underworld of the dead. Such a
concept as Hades had no place in Jewish culture or in the Bible or therefore in
Christ's thoughts. But, what did exist in the Jewish culture was the concept of
Abraham's Bosom. Abraham's Bosom was said to be a chamber beneath the
earth where the souls of the righteous Hebrew dead went and were held safely in
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a waiting room (so to speak) until Yeshua the Messiah came, died on the cross to
atone for their sins, and then they could be released from their captivity to go to
Heaven. This captivity within the Bosom of Abraham was a more or less pleasant
captivity because it was meant for the safekeeping of their souls, meaning Satan
and his demons had no access to them. Therefore when Yeshua descended it
was to Abraham's Bosom (not Hades) where He appeared in person to
announce Himself and as a result to also announce the end of these captives'
captivity. This, by the way, is not some original idea of mine. There are even
paintings of this event created centuries ago to depict it.
Therefore I wonder if perhaps Yeshua's appearance with Moses and Elijah was
for a similar reason. Elijah for certain had not been living in Abraham's Bosom,
and the death of Moses was very mysterious because Deuteronomy 34 seems to
say that God buried Moses so that no one knows where his grave is. So Moses's
death, burial, and what happened afterward is unique. No matter, both Elijah and
Moses had to have their sins atoned for just as with all humans. Therefore even
though they died under a certain kind of righteousness, they too had to wait for
Messiah to come and die in order for the complete atonement of their sins to
happen. And although Yeshua has yet to die in the order of things, He has made
it known that His death is imminent and so the 3 men appear together whereby
Yeshua makes Himself known to them as their Messiah and Savior, and probably
also explains to Moses and Elijah what is about to transpire. After all, Moses and
Elijah were NOT divine and despite wherever they had been residing or in
whatever form they had assumed over all these centuries, they would not have
had the knowledge of the future that God alone holds.
I think there is also another element to this appearance of Moses and Elijah with
Yeshua (and I want to emphasize that since the Bible makes no effort to explain
the reason for it, my conclusion must fall within the realm of opinion or
speculation). Over and against what Davies and Allison conclude about it (which
is that it is to show that Jesus replaced Moses, and all the ramifications that
comes with it), I see it as nearly the opposite. The common expression used
among Jews (and Yeshua as well) in that day to mean the entire Hebrew Bible
was "The Torah and the Prophets". This was because the 3
rd section of the 3
Hebrew-defined divisions of the Old Testament called The Writings was viewed
as somewhat secondary to the Torah and the Prophets. Moses is the epitome
and primary author of the Torah, while Elijah is the chief of the Prophets (even
though, oddly enough, there is no mention of him having written Scripture as did
other prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah). But of course, what sets Elijah apart is
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
that Elijah went to God's holy mountain (Mt. Sinai) and had direct conversation
with God who was present there just as He was with Moses. And, just as
famously, God brought Elijah to Heaven without him experiencing death.
So in pulling this all together, Moses and Elijah can be said to represent the Old
Testament (the Hebrew Bible) and all that it meant, and Yeshua is the fulfillment
of what the Old Testament portended and all that His advent as God on Earth
meant. The only sliver of an implication of a hierarchy among the 3 within the
story of The Transfiguration is of Yeshua's glowing face and clothing, but nothing
and no one in the event or its aftermath says that. For certain, there is no
implication of the new replacing the old in the narrative of The Transfiguration.
The 3 men simply appeared together and talked, but the topic or what they said
isn't recorded. Therefore because of our 21st-century vantage point of hindsight,
the appearance of the 3 together can only mean that these 3 represent the
various stages of God's plan of redemption and that they each have played the
most prominent of roles in its progress and realization. From God's perspective,
these 3 are intimately connected. Elijah represents the Prophets, Moses the
Torah, and Yeshua their fulfillment. They have worked together in various eras to
come to this glorious moment when all that the Torah and Prophets pointed
towards... redemption of mankind through God's Son... is about to happen by
means of Yeshua's sacrifice on the cross.
Verse 4 has more to it than a casual reading might suggest. In it the always
excitable Peter upon viewing this scene says: I have a great idea! Let's build 3
shelters, one for each of you! The CJB uses the term shelters (which I think is
misleading) while other English Bibles say tabernacles or booths (this is better).
Yet, this is another statement in this story of The Transfiguration in which there is
no explanation for why Peter would suggest such a thing. The nearly universal
take of Christian Bible commentators is that Peter expected that the 3 would stay
there for a time and so erecting temporary shelters for them to stay in sounded
like a good idea. However, that conclusion seems most improbable to me. Rather
I think this points to something else entirely.
Mark 9:6 indicates that Peter's comment had it all wrong. And yet, as you see in
the CJB, this verse is given to us in parentheses as an indicator that this
statement is doubted as authentic by many Bible scholars because it seems to
be more in the form of a gloss added by some later Christian editor rather than
an actual opinion of Mark. This is a little technical but it is important for our
understanding of the Gospels. We must notice that anytime in any of the Gospels
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we run across words that seek to interpret what a recorded scene meant (as
opposed to just explaining what happened, or adding some background facts, or
quoting those who were involved), those words are the Gospel writer's personal
conclusion about it... or in some cases likely some later editor's conclusion. That
is, when we read the New Testament carefully we find that the Gospel writers
were normally very economical and cautious when it came to offering their own
opinions (which is what verse 6 amounts to... an opinion from someone that
wasn't present at the event). So when we see a statement in a Gospel account
that comes not from one of the Bible characters but rather it is self-evident that it
represents a conclusion from the author, and when at times that statement rises
to the level of creating a doctrine, we must proceed with caution. Even when we
assign a level of inspiration to the Gospel writers themselves, nonetheless they
were writing as historians and journalists; they were not spiritual leaders in the
business of creating new doctrines. Therefore we must not take it that way.
Luke puts forth a similar opinion about the matter of building the shelters as does
Mark. Luke says it this way: As the men were leaving Yeshua, Kefa said to
him, not knowing what he was saying, "It's good that we're here, Rabbi!
Let's put up three shelters- one for you, one for Moshe and one for
Eliyahu."
Notice that in response to the building of 3 shelters the statement of "not knowing
what he (Peter) was saying" is Luke's opinion on the matter. Peter isn't rebuked
or corrected by the other disciples or by Jesus; it is Luke that questions Peter's
understanding. Matthew's Gospel, on the other hand, simply lets Peter's
suggestion stand, without Matthew's personal comment, conclusion, or opinion
about it. I'm calling your attention to this because as I said in our last lesson, we
absolutely must consider the beliefs of the Jewish culture of the 1
st century, and
what the Tanakh (the Old Testament) teaches, in order for us to properly
understand what is going on in these New Testament books and how the Jewish
people of that era would have understood it.
The Hebrew Bible strongly hints, and the Jewish culture believed, that the Feast
of Tabernacles (Sukkot, whereby the building of temporary shelters, Sukkahs, is
commanded by God) is directly connected to the End Times. And as I've already
explained in past lessons on Matthew, it was taken for granted that Elijah would
return in the End Times when the Messiah appeared, and among some
substantial segment of Jewish society, it was believed that Moses would return
as well. So according to what Peter, as part of that Jewish culture, thought this
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
astounding appearance of Moses and Elijah along with Yeshua as the Messiah
meant, for him it verified that this was indeed the End Times that was (as
expected) connected with the Feast of Tabernacles. I think Peter was right; it's
only that his understanding of the timing was wrong.
This might be a good opportunity to do a teaching on the prophetic instruction
contained within the 7 Biblical Feasts. However, I'll resist and only explain briefly
as it pertains to The Transfiguration. The 7 Biblical Feasts of the Torah (in
Leviticus) are ordained by God; these are said to be perpetual, and they are not
Traditions of men. And when we look at them, and the order in which they occur,
we find something amazing. Yeshua died on the feast of Passover, was put into
the tomb on the feast of Matza (the Feast of Unleavened Bread), and arose on
the feast of Bikkurim (the Feast of Firstfruits). Even more amazing, the Holy Spirit
came to indwell humans on the feast of Shavuot, which has become translated
into English as Pentecost. These are not 4 coincidences; rather each feast is
prophetic of a milestone of God's plan for redemption.
The next series of these prophetic feasts are Yom Teruah (the feast of trumpets),
then Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and then the final feast is Sukkot. All
these are prophetic of the End Times and the return of Messiah Yeshua to rule
over His Kingdom on earth. So the first 4 feasts have already been fulfilled and
what remains is for the final 3 to be fulfilled; those 3 are ahead of us and concern
the End Times. However since all of Jewish society believed that they were
already in the End Times, then it made sense to Peter that the fulfillment of the
Feast of Sukkot was happening right before his eyes, so quite logically he offered
to build a required Sukkah for each of the figures of The Transfiguration.
The first part of verse 5 speaks of Yeshua, Moses, and Elijah becoming engulfed
in a cloud. There can be little doubt that this cloud represents the Shekinah; the
glory of God. Notice that although the cloud surrounds the 3 figures, there are
really 4 figures involved; the 4
th one is God the Father. And the only one of the 4
figures to speak is God. Whenever God The Father is interacting in a close way
with humans, on earth, it is within some sort of shrouding element. The term
cloud may simply be a means to communicate a mysterious shrouding element
that is sort of like a cloud, but isn't quite a typical cloud that floats about in the
sky. What I'm saying is that we have to be careful with some of these terms
because they are more descriptive and figurative based upon known objects that
humans are familiar with, rather than upon what the actual substance of it might
be. We should also keep in mind that this cloud not only shrouds God from view
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but also acts as a sort of vehicle that carries Him in the same way that Daniel
explains about the one like the son of man riding upon a cloud.
These sorts of vivid God experiences involving clouds are few and far between in
the Bible. Key for us is that it almost always involves Moses and Israel's exodus
from Egypt.
CJB Exodus 16:10-12 10 As Aharon spoke to the whole community of the
people of Isra'el, they looked toward the desert; and there before them the
glory of ADONAl appeared in the cloud; 11 and ADONAl said to Moshe, 12 "I
have heard the grumblings of the people of Isra'el. Say to them: 'At dusk
you will be eating meat, and in the morning you will have your fill of bread.
Then you will realize that I am ADONAl your God.'"
CJB Exodus 19:9 9 ADONAI said to Moshe, "See, I am coming to you in a
thick cloud, so that the people will be able to hear when I speak with you
and also to trust in you forever." Moshe had told ADONAI what the people
had said;
CJB Exodus 24:15-16. 15 Moshe went up onto the mountain, and the cloud
covered the mountain. 16 The glory of ADONAI stayed on Mount Sinai, and
the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day he called to Moshe
out of the cloud.
We find such a relationship between God, the cloud, the Shekinah (the glory),
and Moses in the Apocrypha as well, such as in the Book of Maccabees.
2 Maccabees 2:7-8 7 When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and
declared: "The place shall remain unknown until God gathers his people
together again and shows his mercy. 8 Then the Lord will disclose these
things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were
shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should
be specially consecrated."
The point is that in addition to God coming down to sort of consecrate what is
happening (such as consecrating the Temple that Solomon built), we find that
once again the Jesus-as-a-second-Moses connection is validated and this simply
cannot be emphasized enough. And further, when recalling the Mt. Sinai
incidents (both the burning bush and the giving of The Law) we see that those
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who heard God's voice did, like Moses, fall flat on the ground in fear. And still as
in the Moses/Mt. Sinai incidents Christ uses the words "Don't be afraid". So we
see some interesting nuances among the 3 Gospels of how The Transfiguration
played out... provided we do it within the understanding of the Jewish culture of
that day.
After the 3 disciples falling on their faces in fright and then daring to look up
again, Mark reports that Elijah and Moses were gone, and apparently so was the
cloud. Matthew reports the same. Luke is the most brief of them all, and says that
once Moses and Elijah were gone the disciples left and didn't say a word about
this strange appearance to anyone.
Mark adds an intriguing tidbit in Mark 9:9 that Yeshua told the disciples not to say
anything about what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
However, verse 10 says that they didn't understand what Yeshua meant about
this rising from the dead.
Back to Matthew's Gospel. In verse 10 the disciples ask their Master why it is that
their scribes say that Elijah must come first. In other words, why do their
Synagogue teachers teach a doctrine that has Elijah preceding the coming of the
Messiah and the restoration of all things? That is, Jesus' teaching seems to
contradict that. How can it be that Yeshua is saying He must first die and then be
resurrected before the restoration (and therefore the coming of Elijah) will occur?
For the disciples, Christ's teaching puts the 2 events of the appearance of Elijah
and the appearance of their Messiah out of order. And their Synagogue scribes
aren't necessarily wrong.
CJB Malachi 3:23-24 23 Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before
the coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI. 24 He will turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their
fathers; otherwise I will come and strike the land with complete
destruction." [Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the
coming of the great and terrible Day of ADONAI.]
The great and terrible Day of the Lord (Judgment Day) is concurrent with the
restoration of Israel. And the restoration of Israel is concurrent with the coming of
Messiah. So when we see that essentially Malachi says the same thing the
Synagogue scribes are teaching, one can only imagine the confusion of the
disciples when Yeshua says He must die and be resurrected first before the
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restoration occurs.
To explain why what He is telling them about Elijah and about His own
resurrection is so, He says to the disciples in verses 11 and 12:
CJB Matthew 17:11-12 11 He answered, "On the one hand, Eliyahu is coming
and will restore all things; 12 on the other hand, I tell you that Eliyahu has
come already, and people did not recognize him but did whatever they
pleased to him. In the same way, the Son of Man too is about to suffer at
their hands." So the idea is that Yeshua is telling the disciples a paradox about Elijah. It is that
although Elijah is indeed coming and it will be in concert with the restoration of all
things (primarily meaning the restoration of Israel as a righteous and great
power), yet in another sense, says Yeshua, Elijah has already come. Jesus adds
that the Son of Man is going to suffer at the hands of people in the same way that
the Elijah that has already come did. And then verse 13 says that the disciples
got it that, according to Christ, the Elijah that has already come and suffered at
the hands of the people is John the Baptist.
Now, please follow me carefully. Even though the disciples got it about John the
Immerser, clearly they didn't grasp it all. They accepted that Yeshua associated
Elijah with John the Baptist. But in what sense would the disciples have
understood that association? It was this: John the Baptist, as Elijah, would indeed
precede the Messiah (just as the prophecies and the Synagogue scribes
said). As we saw earlier in Matthew 16:14, the Jews had no problem in believing
that in some undefined way the spirit or essence of a deceased person could live
within another. So it wasn't a major leap for them to accept that the spirit of Elijah
could have returned from Heaven and taken up residence within the body of John
the Baptist in a very real way, even if they couldn't explain it. And they were
starting to accept that Yeshua was the Messiah (the Restorer), but they were
struggling terribly with the possibility that the restoration of Israel that they hoped
was imminent was not going to happen just yet. Clearly, they didn't get it (and
how could they have?) that the restoration would be a centuries-long process that
had only begun in the last few months since Yeshua's immersion. The restoration
process (which is the establishing of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth) was only
in its infancy.
What they also could not see or fathom was that the Elijah paradox automatically
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
meant there must be 2 re-appearances of Elijah as the precursor to the
restoration of Israel. But then that also meant that there would necessarily have
to be 2 appearances of the Restorer (the Restorer is the Messiah). And if there
were to be 2 appearances of Elijah and the Restorer, then there also had to be 2
Latter Days. And yet, the End Times (something which the Jewish community
believed to their core that they were already living in) that was associated with
the Latter Days could only come at the second appearance of Elijah and the
Restorer because if the End Times happened at the first Latter Days (which was
the first appearance of Elijah and the Restorer) it would logically eliminate the
need for a second appearance of the two. Confusing? Challenging to digest? You
bet. But we all have the benefit of 2000 years of hindsight. We know all about
Jesus's 2 appearances. We have the Book of Revelation that provides more
details. But can you imagine the difficulties for these disciples trying to make
heads or tails out of this newest revelation? We have tons of facts and Bible
history that they didn't have because so much was in the future for them and so it
hadn't happened yet.
This is why I advise Believers to not be terribly anxious about what is in the
future, ahead of us, that hasn't happened yet. Almost obsessing over trying to
figure out the timing and details about the End of Days that is coming. We have
relatively little information in the Bible about the End Times and so much of what
we do have seems paradoxical (like Yeshua's Elijah teaching) or it is simply so
full of implications and generalities that are not fleshed out, that it is not fully
comprehensible. But just like any average Believer can, with proper instruction,
understand how the Old Testament prophecies came to pass in Jesus, so you
can understand some of what will happen in the End Times... from the
30,000-foot view... but only so far as the information that is given to us in the
Bible will carry us. Speculation about the terrifying, catastrophic, worldwide
events of the End Times that are foretold in the Bible might be fun and exciting to
talk about, and even make writing and selling books about it profitable. But the
likelihood is slim that much of what we conclude, or what is said in those books,
will turn out to be correct. And like for the Jews of Yeshua's day, speculation and
turning to manmade opinions and doctrines for answers when the Bible offers
little or none, is more likely to cause harm than to do good for God's
congregation.
I'll close out this narrative about The Transfiguration with a couple of
thoughts. First: despite long-held Christian tradition, the location of Mount Tabor
as the place of The Transfiguration is all but impossible. During Yeshua's lifetime,
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Lesson 60 - Matthew 17
Mount Tabor was a fortified Roman military outpost. The Sanhedrin also was
allowed to use this high mountain of Tabor as part of a matrix of hills upon which
they would light signal fires to announce the sighting of the new moon (that is,
this would announce the change to a new month). So Mount Tabor was not
remotely a suitable place for the private, mystical revelation that Christian
tradition calls The Transfiguration. Second; we need to be aware that from this
point forward, Peter and the brothers James and John must be considered as the
best authorities and so likely the spiritual leaders (outside of Yeshua, Himself) of
the Jesus movement as well as the experts concerning Christ's life and His
teachings. It also means that immediately after Yeshua is executed they will
become the best and most trusted sources about His life and His teachings, and
so they will represent the first elders of the Jesus movement whose job it is to
keep the tradition about His life alive and safeguarded.
With that, we'll leave the story of The Transfiguration and the next time we meet
we'll move on to another scene in Matthew chapter 17.
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 61, Chapter 17 Continued
Last week we concluded our study of the opening portion of Matthew chapter 17
that focused on The Transfiguration. Truly this nearly unfathomable event of an
epiphany of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus together is one of the most mysterious in
the entire Bible, and what makes it all the more confounding is that the point of
it... just what it is meant to signify... is not stated. I can only assume that either
the Gospel writers didn't know the point because their sources didn't know; or
that it was assumed to be self-evident to Believers in the 1st century. So within
the Jewish context, what might the disciples have taken from this?
To briefly review: my conclusion is that at least 2 different things were meant to
be taken from The Transfiguration... perhaps even more. One thing for certain:
death was a greatly feared thing because what happened afterward was an
unsettled matter in the Hebrew faith. So the question of the possibility of life after
death was an ongoing debate within the Jewish religious leadership, and
therefore was also an unresolved matter within the minds of Christ's disciples. I
imagine the appearance of the long-ago departed Moses and Elijah would likely
have provided a welcome hope for them that there must be life after death. So
the next question in their minds would have been: how does one attain it?
Without insisting on which view is correct, my own does differ from the traditional
one within Christianity that there is but a single point to this epiphany and it is to
inform the disciples about something concerning Yeshua. The first point of The
Transfiguration, then, is that 2 different groups of people were meant to benefit
from it: the 3 disciples that were present as witnesses, and Moses and Elijah
themselves as participants. The disciples were intended to grasp that Moses as
representative of the Law (or probably the entire Torah), and Elijah as
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
representative of the Prophets, and Yeshua as the God-man Redeemer that
Moses and Elijah pointed towards, were clearly linked and worked together, and
each are necessary milestones and participants in the long journey to redemption
and restoration. And while what Moses and Elijah did and said were prophetic
and (after a long wait) currently being fulfilled in Jesus, yet all remained alive and
well and relevant (something Christ made abundantly clear in the Sermon on the
Mount).
Admittedly this challenges the most predominant view of Christianity whereby the
single point of the event of the 3 figures appearing together was essentially a
passing of the torch. That is, The Transfiguration signified that Jesus was
replacing Moses and Elijah, and therefore He was also superseding the Law of
Moses. I maintain that nothing within this scenario implies or even hints of The
Transfiguration as being a replacement ceremony. Some commentators point to
the fact that Yeshua's face and clothes were glowing as the evidence of Him
replacing Moses and Elijah. I say that of the 3 figures, He is the only one that was
divine; so it is logical that His face and clothes would glow in such a way that
indeed sets Him apart as divine. So in my view this idea of replacement is a
much later Christian Church doctrine that is being read back into the story.
The second point of The Transfiguration comes from Christ's equally puzzling
descent into the earth before He ascended to Heaven. Ephesians chapter 4
speaks of this. I interpret that event as something Yeshua did in association with
Abraham's Bosom; a dwelling place for the departed souls of the righteous dead
who died prior to the advent of the Redeemer. If I've been asked the question
once, I've been asked a hundred times, what happened to the people who died in
the Old Testament era? Well, Jesus descended to announce to these souls that
they were now redeemed to an elevated state of righteousness that gave them
access to Heaven, and so these long-time captives in Abraham's Bosom were
set free. It seems to me that Moses and Elijah also had to be set free. As
elevated as their status was, they were still strictly human beings, born with the
same sin nature as Adam. Where they had been living in spirit, so to speak,
during the many centuries that they had been gone is unclear. They had been set
apart from all other humans by The Father and their departures were in
mysterious circumstances. I suspect that neither resided in Abraham's Bosom,
but of the 2, Moses may have.
Nonetheless, since their eras of activity and of leaving this earth took place long
before the advent of the Redeemer.... Jesus the Messiah... they, just like the
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
captives of Abraham's Bosom, also had to be set free. So God set these 2 great
icons of the Hebrew faith before Yeshua so that He could announce the end of
their captivity as well, or perhaps it was an announcement of their redemption (as
also symbolized by the captives of Abraham's Bosom being released) and so it
was representative of what was soon to happen. Moses and Elijah seem to
be the first of those departed from this earth and physical life to be set free
(redeemed). Only a little later after His death and resurrection will Yeshua do the
same for those thousands or millions of righteous souls that had remained safely
for centuries in God's care in Abraham's Bosom.
Might I have this right? I'll ask Yeshua when He returns.
Let's move on now to the next section of Matthew chapter 17. We'll begin by
reading the next few verses that tell the story.
RE-READ MATTHEW 17:14-21
This story is of the healing of a young man that most Bible scholars insist was not
demon-possessed; rather he had epilepsy. But what it all actually boils down to
this: the matter of miracle healing no longer involves whether Jesus will or is able
to heal anyone of anything... that is now a given. Rather the matter is whether His
disciples can as well. This same story is told in the Gospel of Mark and because
the best information is the most complete information, we'll read Mark to add to
what Matthew says.
READ MARK 9:14 -29
Notice that Mark's account of the healing is virtually twice the length of
Matthew's. The answer to why that might be is an open question. However, some
Bible commentators think Mark's Gospel has been altered and lengthened by
later Christian editors to make the focus of the story something more critical of
Jesus's disciples that also implies a Jewish inferiority upon these "disciples of
little faith" who failed to be able to do what Yeshua seems to indicate they ought
to be able to do by now: heal people and exorcise demons. My response is that I
just don't know if that is the case with Mark or not. There is simply no evidence
for or against; it is just the opinions of a number of Bible scholars. Each Gospel
writer tended to be either more wordy or less wordy about a common event they
all report on, and they also each tended to highlight different aspects of any given
event. Some Gospel writers included things about Yeshua that others chose not
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
to, and vice versa. So I'm inclined not to read too much into the shorter version in
Matthew or in the longer version in Mark. I'll leave it that by combining the
information provided in these two accounts, we get a more complete and well␂rounded record of what occurred.
Having said that, it is hard to dispute that from the far view of the 3 Synoptic
Gospels, my reading is that Mark's is the least Jewish oriented and also the most
harsh in the assessment of Jews and Judaism in general... Believers or
otherwise. Matthew's is the most Jewish oriented of the Gospel accounts and the
least likely to point out the failures of the disciples or to assign too much blame to
common Jews who are naive about their own Hebrew faith, therefore are easily
mislead, and also don't understand Yeshua: who He is or what He is about. Luke
probably falls somewhere in the middle because this gentile Believer went on the
road with the Jewish Apostle Paul to several gentile Roman provinces, visiting
several synagogues, and so no doubt gained insight and understanding of
Jewish culture and Tradition and therefore of the Jewish point of view. So he
displays an obvious level of sympathy and affinity for the Jewish people even
though it is presented from a predominately gentile worldview.
The opening words of yet another story of demon possession indicate that many
of Yeshua's disciples had gone with Him to an area nearby wherever it was that
the Transfiguration experience took place. Having come down from the high
place, they almost immediately encounter a crowd (we find that Jesus has
become so well known that crowds seek Him out or follow Him no matter where
He goes). An unnamed father asks Yeshua to heal his son of something that
resembles epilepsy. We need to notice that the crowds keep coming to Christ for
the same reason they always have: for healing. They still view Yeshua primarily
as a Tzadik (a Jewish miracle-working Holy Man). We must not read the concept
of salvation as we think of it today back into any of these stories of miracle␂working. I point this out because when we read nearly every English Bible
version, we'll find that they have the father saying to Yeshua: "Lord have pity on
my son..." That is, the word lord is capitalized thus making it a title. This
capitalization is used by a translator to indicate when the person speaking that
word means it in the religious/spiritual sense that Jesus is the divine Savior and
Messiah (The Lord). This is simply not the case and there is no evidence in any
of the Gospel accounts to this point in Yeshua's life that the crowds are
approaching Him with this meaning and understanding. Rather the CJB
translation handles this the best when instead of "Lord" it uses "sir'. That is, the
father is showing respect to Jesus, not the least of which reason is that he wants
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
something from Him. He holds Yeshua in high regard but he also wants Jesus to
exorcize the demon from his son.
It is interesting that the father calls his son a lunatic and not demon␂possessed. The Greek word used is solemiazomai and literally, it means moon␂struck; but in modern English moon-struck means lunatic. It was a superstition in
that era that the moon (the Luna) caused mental illnesses and abnormal
behaviors. The father goes on to say that his son's behavior is so crazy that he'll
even fall into fires or bodies of water. That is, he does things that can harm him.
Mark's Gospel starts this story a bit differently. He says that Yeshua and His
disciples came upon a crowd of people who were loudly debating with some
Scribes (synagogue authorities) about something. When the crowd noticed who it
was that was approaching, several of them ran to Yeshua. Yeshua asked no one
in particular what this noisy discussion was all about and a person answered; this
person was the father of a son that was suffering with demon possession. Mark
continues with more or less the same description about what goes on with the
boy that we find in Matthew. However, he also adds that some of Yeshua's
disciples tried healing the boy but couldn't. Back to Matthew.
Yeshua turns to His disciples and strongly rebukes them; at least that is the
rather standard meaning assigned to Yeshua's words. But when we look more
closely, the Greek has Yeshua say apistos kia diastrepho genea. The KJV has
the most literal translation that says "faithless and perverse generation". So
unless He is calling ONLY His disciples a faithless and perverse generation, then
He is using the term "perverse generation" as He has before: it refers in general
to all those Jews living at that time that are blind to the signs of the Latter Days
that John the Baptist showed them and that Yeshua's very presence is proof of.
In other words, this harsh statement is directed at the entire crowd, including the
Scribes and His own disciples... everybody present. He again implies that the
amount of time that He'll be around (alive) to be able to continue to heal and
restore people is limited. So what happens when He's gone? I have little doubt
that similar words have been spoken by every frustrated mother and father to
their children: what are you going to do when I'm not around anymore? The early
Church Father Chrysostom saw it the same way.
After those harsh words, Yeshua says to the distressed father: "Bring him here to
Me". The cure, according to Matthew, was for Yeshua to rebuke the demon in the
boy. He did, the demon left, and the boy was cured. But Mark takes this another
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
direction.
CJB Mark 9:20-27 20 They brought the boy to him; and as soon as the spirit
saw him, it threw the boy into a convulsion. 21 Yeshua asked the boy's
father, "How long has this been happening to him?" "Ever since
childhood," he said; 22 "and it often tries to kill him by throwing him into the
fire or into the water. But if you can do anything, have pity on us and help
us!" 23 Yeshua said to him, "What do you mean, 'if you can'? Everything is
possible to someone who has trust!" 24 Instantly the father of the child
exclaimed, "I do trust- help my lack of trust!" 25 When Yeshua saw that the
crowd was closing in on them, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it,
"You deaf and dumb spirit! I command you: come out of him, and never go
back into him again!" 26 Shrieking and throwing the boy into a violent fit, it
came out. The boy lay there like a corpse, so that most of the people said
he was dead. 27 But Yeshua took him by the hand and raised him to his feet,
and he stood up.
So Mark has Yeshua continuing to rebuke the crowd, including the father of the
boy, and then we see a bit of a battle go on between Yeshua and the evil spirit
that was possessing the boy; it wasn't going to be easily defeated. We even see
doubt in the father that Jesus can do this miracle, and Jesus's turning the tables
about the doubt directed towards Him towards the lack of trust in those who were
asking for the miracle. The tone of Mark's narrative is really quite a different tone
than in Matthew. Matthew has this same man falling to his knees before Jesus
begging Him to cure his son because others of Christ's disciples couldn't. There
is no hint of disbelief or lack of trust in the father. In Mark, the father admits to a
lack of trust and even asks Christ to help him with this problem. Nothing further is
said of it; there is no aha! moment of the father, and no hint that Yeshua helped
the father to have a greater trust. Even so, Yeshua went ahead with the
successful exorcism.
We are again faced with the question of what kind of trust Yeshua is saying
people must have in Him; it is left unsaid. Trust that He is a Tzadik that cannot
fail? It certainly cannot be about trust in Him as the divine Messiah (at least not
now) because He has told His disciples not to whisper a word of it to anyone.
Perhaps it is meant in the sense that the Jewish people are, like Peter, to have
such trust in His person that He is whatever He says He is at any point in time.
And that He can do whatever He says He can do.... in any capacity whatsoever.
And in addition their this trust must be large enough that it never waivers and
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
thus responds properly to whatever He tells them to believe or to do, no matter
the circumstances. I believe that the trust He demands is in the same sense that
He expected of Peter.
Going back to Matthew's much shorter version of the story, in verse 19 the
disciples ask Yeshua the reason that they couldn't heal the boy of his problem.
Yeshua responds as He has on numerous occasions regarding the condition of
His disciples: they have little faith. So while in Mark's Gospel Yeshua is telling the
crowd and the father that is their lack of trust that stymied the disciples from
healing the boy, in Matthew Yeshua is pinning it only on His disciples.
In verse 20 Jesus resurrects His previous use of the mustard seed metaphor and
Parable and tells the disciples that if their faith and trust were even that tiny, they
could move mountains. Folks, this is an expression that is not to be taken
literally. It is also not a Parable so it can have more than one facet to its meaning.
Let's also recall that Yeshua never moved massive geographic features that
we're aware of and so such a thing is not in our future either, no matter our level
of trust in Him. His illustration is a memorable exaggeration that contrasts a
mustard seed that is a tiny physical object, with a mountain that is the largest
physical object. While not a Parable, certainly the idea of moving mountains does
take the form of a proverb. And from that standpoint, the idea of moving a
mountain means to do the unlikely or, from a human view, to do the impossible.
As Davies and Allison say: "A literal interpretation is ludicrous" so we can discard
that as a possibility. Thus no doubt the point is that a small amount of trust can
do big and improbable things; therefore it is inherently implied that a great
amount of trust can do the impossible things... impossible from an apparent or
earthly standpoint. It is simply an encouragement and call to trust Him fully.
Here when we set various English Bible versions side by side we run into an
issue that I think goes well beyond a trivial nuance. It is this: depending on your
Bible version you will see some combination or use of the words trust, faith, and
belief. It seems that these words are meant to denote different things. And yet in
the Greek, they all stem from the same word: pistis (in its various grammatical
forms) and thus also stem from the same concept. I think that the CJB has it
most correctly rendered by choosing the word "trust" to get at what Christ is
saying. Why is that? It is because of what those words trust, faith, and belief
mean in modern English and how they are used. Words have meaning; but it
depends heavily on the era and the culture to define that meaning. In modern
English-speaking cultures of the West there are important differences between
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
the meanings of trust, faith, and belief even if at first glance we haven't really
thought about it. Perhaps a few hundred years ago, in European English␂speaking society, these 3 words meant something different. Even so, whatever
mental picture we draw today with the use of each of those words is what matters
in order to correctly communicate the intended message.
Since the Greek is essentially the same for the 3 words, let's talk about what
each of them means to us in our day, and we'll begin with the word trust. For us
to trust is a positive term that means to firmly depend on something with
conviction and without reservation. Failure or error is not conceivable. Trust,
especially from the biblical standpoint, also revolves around morality. It is a
thought of something that I can depend upon that is true and right regardless of
world conditions, or as history progress, and what I trust in will not fail me. I can
say that I trust, for example, that the sun will rise each day just as it always has.
There is no doubt about it. Yet there is no moral element to it, so this is not so
much trust as belief.
To believe is a conscious, intellectual decision to acknowledge that something is
as we perceive it to be, or merely that it exists. Faith is an overriding hope in
someone or something and it can or cannot include a moral element. So, back to
the top of our list of words. To trust in Yeshua means to depend on Him and the
morality He prescribes, without reservation. Trust cannot incorporate or tolerate
the idea of doubt nor does trust allow for alternatives. Doubt and trust are
(especially as it comes to a spiritual trust) very nearly opposites.
To say one believes in Yeshua means to acknowledge that He existed. Islam
believes that Yeshua existed. Some Muslims I have met have respect for Him
and the lifestyle He preached. But they don't trust in Him; they don't depend on
Him without reservation. In fact, they worship another God and religion and rely
on another and different holy book. Another example: I can believe that a chair
exists, is present, and is something that is designed for me to sit upon. But I don't
put my trust in it on a moral or absolute level... I don't make an intellectual
decision that even adds some involvement of my soul, to depend on that chair
without reservation. We know that it could fail us, even though that might be rare.
But if it did, outside of our surprise, we wouldn't have a loss of belief in the
existence and purpose of chairs.
Faith is a hope that something is so. Faith doesn't have to have an inherent
moral element. But hope (and thus faith) does incorporate and tolerate doubt. I
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
can have hope that it will rain, yet also legitimately harbor an equal amount of
doubt that it won't. Faith is the hope of something as yet unrealized, that may
never be realized. Faith (hope) can also rise above mere intellectual belief or
evidence and often does. I can have faith that mankind is inherently good, even if
the evidence shows otherwise, and that mankind's goodness is the path that will
eventually lead the human race to a better world. I can hope in science as our
deliverer from all of our earth-bound problems that plague us, even though it
certainly hasn't delivered and solved all things thus far and there is no firm
evidence that it ever will. In fact, it was science that brought us the ultra␂destructive atomic bomb. The hope we have in science, or what it currently says
is fact, regularly turns out to be incorrect and must be revised so that we hope in
something else. Faith (hope) allows room that we can switch our hope to
something else if we need to. Trust does not; so trust that fails us is not merely
disappointing, it is soul-destroying.
While you might not agree with all my definitions and examples, the point is that
these are what these words predominately mean in the 21st century in Western
culture. Thus we have to be very careful about what English words a Bible
translator assigns to what Yeshua, or the Gospel writer, meant and therefore
what He requires of us to be His disciples. Therefore when we look at the
Greek pistis and its variations, the best English word to get across the proper
meaning for our time is trust. Yeshua says we are to trust in Him. We are to
depend upon Him without reservation or in regards to our circumstances. This, of
course, is the ideal. "Be ye perfect even as I am perfect" says The Lord. I dare
say no one will ever be perfect or have perfect trust in God. The Book of
Revelation reveals that even many people that will be allowed entry into the
Millennial Kingdom will not have perfect trust and some will fail so badly that they
will not live an eternity with God. This fullness of trust, the ideal trust, will not
come until the arrival of the new earth and heavens. But it is what we are to strive
for, with Yeshua as the object of our trust, and the ideal of what it looks like.
Verse 21 is not present in all the ancient Greek manuscripts and the CJB doesn't
use it even though most English Bibles do. It is therefore thought that because
Matthew didn't use some words that Mark thought important, a later Christian
editor added them.
CJBMark 9:29 29 He said to them "This is the kind of spirit that can be driven
out only by prayer."
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
Whether this was an authentic saying of Christ or not, it is framed as having been
said in response to Yeshua's disciples as a sort of instruction from Him to answer
the question of how one can get rid of this particular kind of evil spirit (the one
that was not willing to go without a fight). However, the way it has been inserted
into Matthew's Gospel, it is framed as a continuing saying of Jesus over the issue
of the volume of trust one must-have. So, it has been slightly modified to fit each
scenario. An original statement by Christ or not isn't a terribly important issue
because, in the end, what it says is true: we can never attain the high level of
trust in Yeshua that we need without prayer and fasting. That is, we must make
an effort, take personal action, and beseech the Father in prayer and not just
passively wait on Him to decide one day to give us greater trust.
Verses 22 and 23 are sometimes said to be misplaced and so must be a later
addition by Christian editors. Let's read it.
READ MATTHEW 17:22 - 23
Perhaps these few words represent the work of a later editor, although I can
easily see how this plays directly into what Yeshua said that is recorded not in
Matthew but in Mark about how Jesus will not always be with them. On the other
hand, Matthew moves the location entirely to the familiar area of the Galilee, so
in Matthew's Gospel, it doesn't seem to be more words about His own demise as
it appears in Mark 9. Rather, in Matthew, it is another scenario altogether. Why
another statement about His impending death, when He has already made it
clear enough that Peter got himself in some hot water by disputing it? Because it
adds an important piece of information; Yeshua's execution will be precipitated
by an element of betrayal. Thus the reason for the disciples' sadness is not only
that He is soon to die, it is also the gut-wrenching circumstance that puts Him into
the hands of those who mean Him harm. What must also be noticed is that the
means of His execution has yet to be mentioned. The disciples certainly could
have thought of stoning because that was often the way the Sanhedrin dealt with
a Jew guilty of a religious matter (even though technically Rome outlawed it). So
crucifixion is still not on the table... although because crucifixion was the usual
method of execution used by the Romans for Jewish criminals, that, too, would
have been easily imaginable by the 12 as the method of Christ's death.
Yeshua of course reminds His disciples that He will rise from the dead after 3
days. This fact doesn't seem to have cheered them up and largely for the
reasons we've discussed before. Resurrection had a number of meanings in the
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
1st century, and which one their Master was predicting for Himself was quite
unclear. But no matter which it might be, first He had to die. And from every angle
a common Jew would think about it, the prophesied Messiah should NOT be
dying... He should be killing others and freeing His countrymen. They were going
to have to rethink this entire Messiah thing, and what Jesus's resurrection
promise meant.
Let's move on to the final story of Matthew 17.
READ MATTHEW 17:24 - 27
This story is about the Temple tax and whether or not the disciples should pay it.
This means that it likely took place in March (the Hebrew month of Adar), not
long before Passover. That is because this was the traditional time that the
Temple tax of 2 Roman drachmas was paid according to Josephus, and Philo
more or less backs that up and adds that all adult Jews over the age of 20 were
to pay it. The Temple tax story appears only in Matthew. Likely because Matthew
was himself a Jew, and so the issue of paying the Temple tax was important to
him. He was also a Believer, so what Yeshua had to say about the matter would
have been his guide and the one he thinks all Jews ought to follow.
Yeshua and His disciples are now back in Capernaum where Jesus was
staying... probably with Peter's family. There the representatives of the Temple
come to the disciples and ask why their Master doesn't pay the Temple tax.
Peter, as always, jumps into the fray and says: "Of course He does". One would
have to ask why the tax collectors would even ask such a question? It is known
that Galileans were none too keen to pay that tax because they considered those
who ran the Temple as illegitimate and corrupt (and they were). The bulk of the
money given simply found its way into the pockets of the High Priest and his
family. Notice that the words of verse 25 say that when Peter got home, Yeshua
spoke first (more or less cementing that Yeshua was still residing with Peter).
And Jesus opens up what is essentially a discussion... in Jewish parlance
a midrash, about who, among the Jews, ought to (and ought not to) pay that
Temple tax. The first person He addresses is the one who spoke for Jesus and
had said about Him paying the tax "of course He does". Yeshua frames His
question this way:
CJB Matthew 17:25 The kings of the earth- from whom do they collect duties
and taxes? From their sons or from others?"
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Lesson 61 - Matthew 17 cont
Peter responds: "from others". So, says, Yeshua, then the sons are exempt.
Please notice that I said this is about the Temple tax; but that is actually an
assumption. The words "Temple tax" that we find in the CJB and many other
English Bibles are not actually there in the Greek; that too is an assumption on
the part of the translators. The predominance of Bible commentators assume it is
the Temple tax that is in question, but there are others that do not and think this
is about some kind of Roman taxation. There have been quite a number of points
put forward to bolster each position; none of them conclusive in my opinion. Part
of the reason I lean towards this being a Temple tax is that historians say that 2
Roman drachmas were the equivalent of 1/2 shekel; and 1/2 shekel was the
annual contribution all Jews were expected to make to support the Temple. The
coincidence is too large to overlook.
We'll stop here, and finish up this story next week that has a number of
ramifications for us.
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 62, Chapter 17 and 18
Last week we began to delve into the interesting story that ends Matthew chapter
17 about a certain tax collector coming to Capernaum where Yeshua was
residing with Peter, and the tax collector asks the question " doesn't your Master
pay the tax?". Peter is the one who answers the question in an unequivocal way:
"Of course He does". Yeshua doesn't dispute Peter's response in any way, so a
reasonable assumption is that Jesus does pay the tax voluntarily.
An additional assumption made by Bible interpreters throughout the ages is that
this is the Temple tax that is being referred to and not some Roman taxation. The
words "Temple tax" are not in the original Greek manuscripts. However, the
amount of the tax (even though stated in Roman drachmas) is equal to the
Hebrew 1/2 shekel. And 1/2 shekel was the annual Temple tax due. So it seems
most likely that this was the Temple tax and not something else.
Let's pause to re-read this short section at the end of Matthew 17.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 17:24 - 27
Interestingly, the Temple tax was not mandatory for the Jewish people. The
people were certainly pressured to pay it, but not paying did not bring on a
penalty. So this explains why a discussion on the matter of this tax led by Jesus
was even appropriate. That is, it is fair to read into the action and words of the
story that if it was legally required to pay the tax that Christ would not have
balked at paying it. Peter's statement that Yeshua does pay the Temple tax
needs to be taken as accurate; there's no reason to see it otherwise. So Yeshua
certainly does not see paying this legal, but non-mandatory, tax even to a
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hopelessly perverted Temple authority as spiritually wrong or immoral.
When Yeshua speaks of "the kings of the earth" in His discussion with His
disciples this is to be understood as in contrast to "the king of the Kingdom of
Heaven". And essentially it is this contrast of kings and kingdoms that plays out
the rest of the way in this short story. So the question Christ asks (in order to
make a point) could be re-phrased in this way: "Ok. If the sons of earthly kings
are not obligated to pay taxes for the privilege of being a member of that king's
kingdom (the way all the other people in that kingdom have to) then should the
sons of the king of the Kingdom of Heaven have to pay taxes for the privilege of
being members of the Kingdom of Heaven? Or, as in both cases, is it only non␂family members who pay? The disciples answer that it is of course that no king's
son pays a tax.
When we understand from Yeshua's perspective that all God worshippers... all
members of the Kingdom of Heaven... are considered as sons...as family... then
He is saying that there is no legal monetary cost per se to become a member of
God's Kingdom or to maintain that membership. God doesn't collect taxes... God
doesn't require tribute (like an earthly king does) on those who are part of the
Kingdom of Heaven, because they...we... have a very special relationship with
the king. Another way to say it is that since there is no required fee to be paid in
order to be part of God's Kingdom then even the poorest of the poor don't have to
ever be concerned about affordability or being thrown out of the kingdom
because they didn't have the funds to pay a tax. I do want to point out that in
other statements from Christ (and from the Law) contributions in the form of
charity donations are expected but only when it comes sincerely from the heart.
But in one form or another, these charitable donations are for the purpose of
helping to provide for their fellow man as opposed to going into the pocket of the
Heavenly King.
The other thing that was embedded in Yeshua's question is something that all
Jews of that era knew without it having to be said: the High Priest attempted to
frame the paying of the Temple tax as a sort of validation that a Jew was
indicating his allegiance to the Temple system as the earthly and visible
representation of God's Kingdom. So to not pay it was to put oneself outside the
Temple system and its benefits, and therefore outside of God's Kingdom. In other
words, paying the Temple tax was the way of showing a continuing membership
in the kingdom. To which Jesus replies that sons (worshipers of God, the king of
the Kingdom of Heaven) are exempt from having to do this.
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If the story ended here we could probably breathe a sigh of relief and be satisfied
with Christ's statement as to why His disciples (and all Jews for that matter) had,
in God's eyes, no obligation to pay a tax to the Temple... to the religious
authority. But then Yeshua throws us a curveball. He says... BUT... HOWEVER...
meaning "on the other hand". So He is about to modify the proverb He has just
made. And just to be clear: a proverb is not a law or a commandment. A proverb
is a wisdom saying that by nature is a generality. In modern English, we might
call it a divine rule of thumb.
In one of the more famous Bible stories, Yeshua tells the fisherman Peter to go to
the Lake, throw in a line, and he will catch a fish. In that fish's mouth will be a one
shekel coin and Peter is to use that coin to pay the Temple tax for both Peter and
Yeshua. Why pay the tax when they don't have to? To avoid offending "them".
"Them" who? The High Priest organization that runs the Temple. The religious
leadership of the Jewish people who even Christ has spoken against as being
corrupt.
How, exactly, we are to understand the matter of the miracle of the fish and the
coin in its mouth is not clear. Obviously, we must begin with the miraculous
nature of it. It seems to me that we need to understand that it is God providing
the coin to pay to the Temple. Therefore God is clearly saying not only "you
should pay the tax" but also that He is providing the means (in this case, a
miraculous means). All this for the sake of not offending the religious authorities.
Folks, for me this is one of the most important, practical lessons for Believers in
the entire New Testament. Basically, it is a blow against hard-headed idealism
and a call for reasonableness. It is a call to avoid mechanical obedience to laws
and rules. Unfortunately, a goodly number of people who follow the Hebraic
Heritage way of understanding Holy Scripture and in obeying God's laws and
commands can fall into a mindset that very much mimics the Ultra-Orthodox
Jewish mindset that follows rules and laws to the letter such that the spirit of that
rule or law falls by the wayside. It can come off not only as unreasonable but
even as mean. Which means that it is counterproductive to the Good News of the
Kingdom of Heaven.
It is interesting that the institutional Church often takes the meaning of this
proverb to the opposite extreme. That is, our personal freedom to decide
however we want to on most things in life has no limits. So even though the rule
is that Believers (as sons) don't have to pay the Temple tax, we can (if we want
to) pay it anyway. It is regularly seen as being an anti-Law of Moses statement.
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
This short little narrative and proverb about the Temple tax and the fish has a
number of important facets to it and we'll cover only a few. First: this proverb is
essentially about the relationship between God and the Jewish people. Or better,
between God and Israel. God sees Israelites (Jews) as sons. It is interesting how
Christianity has re-interpreted this statement to mean that the Church (meaning
gentile Christians) are the sons of the king in this story. In one sense this is true.
But by what possible means can this be true since clearly gentiles had no
involvement whatsoever in this debate about paying the tax? How did it happen
that gentile Believers became "sons of the king"? And does this mean that
sonship was later removed from Israel and transferred to the gentile Church?
Most of the Church since around the 4th century says that it does. This belief
goes by the label of Replacement Theology. It is a false, but widespread, doctrine
that has greatly harmed the relationship between gentile Believers and Jews, and
has put up a nearly impenetrable barrier to Jews to know their own Messiah...
Yeshua of Nazareth.
Paul addressed this specific issue in Romans 11 of not only how gentiles can
legitimately become sons of God, but also how it is that gentiles
are joining God's already existing sons (Israel) and not replacing them. He
employed the illustration of Israel as the Olive tree and used the cultivation
method of grafting as a metaphor for how gentiles can be joined with Israel and
their covenants in order to become sons. You can go to my lessons on the Book
of Romans on TorahClass.com for an extensive examination of this chapter.
Second; Christ told His disciples that they should pay the Temple tax not
because it was required but because by not doing so they would cause an
unneeded offense to their religious authorities. Thus the ways we carry out the
Laws of Moses or even the wisdom of the many proverbs, must be done with
consideration about how it might affect others. We must at times rein in our
personal freedoms for a greater good. In the example that is used herein
Matthew 17, it was understood within Jewish society that paying the Temple tax
was a visible display of being counted as an observant Jew. The consequence of
NOT paying was a mostly social one; that is, other Jews would take that refusal
as meaning the non-payer had forsaken an important element of his Jewishness.
Naturally this was the human perspective and not God's. Yet, to Christ, the
human perspective does matter. Appearances DO matter and we must never
forget it.
So what is the proper application for us in modern times? Does this mean that
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
whenever it pleases our religious authorities or our civil government or even our
society that we can (or should) break God's laws and commands in order to
placate others and not offend them? That as Believers we are to go with the flow
of our society, no matter what that might be so as not to upset people? No! This
freedom that we have does not give us license to do what is morally wrong in
God's eyes. Without doubt Paul struggled within himself of how to carry this
concept through, and even more how to explain it to others. In 1Corinthians Paul
speaks directly to this issue. I'm going to use the CJB wording (in academic
language the CJB is called a dynamic translation) because I think it hits the nail
on the head in a very understandable way, and avoids the pitfalls of
misunderstanding that most other Bible versions stumble into.
CJB 1Corinthians 9:19-23 19 For although I am a free man, not bound to do
anyone's bidding, I have made myself a slave to all in order to win as many
people as possible. 20 That is, with Jews, what I did was put myself in the
position of a Jew, in order to win Jews. With people in subjection to a
legalistic perversion of the Torah, I put myself in the position of someone
under such legalism, in order to win those under this legalism, even though
I myself am not in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah. 21 With
those who live outside the framework of Torah, I put myself in the position
of someone outside the Torah in order to win those outside the Torah␂although I myself am not outside the framework of God's Torah but within
the framework of Torah as upheld by the Messiah. 22 With the "weak" I
became "weak," in order to win the "weak." With all kinds of people I have
become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might
save at least some of them. 23 But I do it all because of the rewards
promised by the Good News, so that I may share in them along with the
others who come to trust.
Appearances didn't stop mattering when we became followers of Yeshua.
Adapting ourselves to the culture we find ourselves in, in order to not create
stumbling blocks to people in that culture from finding Jesus, is critical. We can
create barriers for people that don't need to be there. Again, as Paul explains,
never does this mean we give up or disobey the Torah. It means that we regard
ourselves less, even doing things that are not necessarily comfortable for us if it
opens a way to penetrate a culture or even opens up an individual's mind to hear
God's Word of truth and salvation. Every case, every circumstance, is different so
we must seek Heavenly wisdom to know what is right.
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
The third facet of this proverb is this: as Believers, we belong (at least in the
present) to a number of realms. We belong to families, communities, nations,
congregations, and to God's kingdom. Therefore we must always weigh the
broader consequences of our choices and actions. How what we do affects each
of these realms. And yes, as the world grows smaller and more integrated, those
choices and consequences become more complicated. Nearly every choice we
make is going to please some and offend others. Nonetheless the bottom line is
as Paul says in Romans 14:
CJB Romans 14:7 7For none of us lives only in relation to himself, and none
of us dies only in relation to himself;
Let's move on to Matthew chapter 18.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 18 all
This chapter deals with more wisdom sayings... proverbs. When I say proverbs I
don't mean those 800 or so listed in the Bible Book of Proverbs; rather I mean it
from the literary sense. Any wisdom saying could legitimately be considered a
proverb. "Don't cry over spilled milk". "Two wrongs don't make a right". "A
watched pot never boils". "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link". Although
modern, these are all proverbs... wisdom sayings... rules of thumb. Yeshua
spoke many of them; most were actually already known proverbs in Jewish
culture.
While we might be able to call verses 1-7 a proverb, it is probably better to see it
as a moral teaching and not to label it because proverbs tend to be a little more
concise. The main subject and point of this moral teaching is that one of the
prime virtues of any Believer must be humility. In fact, Yeshua questions whether
a person that doesn't display humility is even suited for a place in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
The question asked by the disciples is apparently the result of a debate they had
been having among themselves. The Gospel of Mark fleshes out this aspect of
the moral teaching a bit more.
CJB Mark 9:33-37 33 They arrived at K'far-Nachum. When Yeshua was inside
the house, he asked them, "What were you discussing as we were
traveling?" 34 But they kept quiet; because on the way, they had been
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
arguing with each other about who was the greatest. 35 He sat down,
summoned the Twelve and said to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he
must make himself last of all and servant of all." 36 He took a child and
stood him among them. Then he put his arms around him and said to
them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and
whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the One who sent me." Although the reasons for this argument to have erupted aren't stated, I suspect it
may have had something to do with Yeshua clearly setting Peter apart from and
above the others (back in Matthew 16). While this setting apart seems to have
been as much spiritually based as it was about leadership of the Jesus
movement, in the disciples' minds such preeminence was directly connected to
the Kingdom of Heaven. Now we have a question we must answer. When the
Kingdom of Heaven is brought up were the disciples thinking in the same terms
that most modern Christians do? That is, most Christians think of the Kingdom of
Heaven as something that is not physical but rather invisible. Something that is
entirely spiritual and not tangible. But were the 12 disciples thinking in terms of
the future, at the End of Days, or perhaps when they are disembodied souls living
in Heaven? I think not. I tend to think that they took Jesus at His word that the
Kingdom of Heaven had already arrived on earth. It was here, now, and they
were part of it in a real and tangible way. After all, that exact thing was the Good
News that Christ had sent them out to preach.
I bring this up because for the disciples this question about leadership in the
Kingdom of Heaven wasn't some arcane theological debate such as how many
angels can dance on the head of a pin. They were concerned with the here and
now, and so were thinking in terms of how Christ is currently placing each of His
12 in a leadership pecking order. And thus to be the greatest among them meant
to be the #1 disciple that was at the top of the Kingdom of Heaven leadership
structure. This would have been especially important to them because Christ had
just recently told them that He was soon going to die and not be with them any
longer, so the natural concern was who does Yeshua want to take over as the
next leader? Therefore in response to their question, Yeshua makes it personal.
"Yes", He says; "Until YOU change and become like little children YOU won't
even enter the Kingdom of Heaven".
The point here is that the very fact that the debate about who was greatest was
occurring and the question was openly asked says that the disciples have their
priorities all wrong. They aren't thinking or operating in the right attitude. Who is
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
the greatest ought not even be on the agenda IF they were like these little
children. Remembering they were at Peter's home in Capernaum it is natural that
literal little children would be hanging around. So the children provided a ready
object lesson for Jesus to put across an important point to the disciples. I also
want to note that this was an in-house issue (so to speak) that was being dealt
with. This concerned Yeshua's inner circle of the 12. So, to be clear: the matter is
focused on leadership of the movement.
So what is it about children that Yeshua is highlighting as a quality that the
greatest in the Kingdom hierarchy must exhibit? Obviously, a child was not to be
seen as a religious model for adult followers of Jesus. He is not suggesting that
mature adults need to enter a second childhood or (as we see too often in the
West) that Jesus has somehow elevated the worth and place of children onto an
equal footing with their parents, or that their welfare belongs as the chief concern
of society in general. It's not that in Hebrew society children had no worth; but
they did have less worth than an adult from a very practical sense. An adult could
produce more children and could produce more work. Rather the quality present
in children that Yeshua wants to see in His disciple is revealed in verse 4.
CJB Matthew 18:4 4 So the greatest in the Kingdom is whoever makes
himself as humble as this child.
So the idea is not for anyone to become childish; nor that a child is the ideal
disciple. It is that in Jesus's eyes a child is inherently humble. And since in my
opinion the topic of interest in this debate about who is greatest is all about the
leadership hierarchy (especially after Jesus's prediction of His own death is
fulfilled), then it can be said in general that little children never even think about
such things as who among them is the greatest or who will be in charge of the
others. So it is not just an inner attitude of humility that Yeshua seeks but also it
is something that must be reflected in their behavior and in ours.
So let's be clear; this childlike quality Christ wants of His future leaders has
nothing to do with possessing an innocence, or a joyful impulsiveness, or being
simple-minded, or even not being seen as sinful or wicked. Rather it is about not
seeking position, advantage, or status among the believing brethren. It is about
reversing the typical human societal tendency to see how we can become
powerful by moving up in the pecking order of whatever realm we're in. It's about
not thinking too much of oneself because we find ourselves in a leadership
position. And yet humility is also not adopting a low self-worth. If anything,
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
humility is about knowingly having the strength to do things others can't, but
using that strength to help others by serving them. That is the essence of the
meaning of the term "a servant leader".
Verse 3 describes this becoming like little children as a needed "change". In
Greek it is strepho, and literally strepho means to turn. "To turn" captures the
Hebrew sense of the concept of repentance. Repentance is not an attitude of
sorrow. Repentance is an actual change in physical behavior. It is to turn from
the things we've been doing to something else. So Yeshua is telling the disciples
that their behavior has to become something else, and that something else is
humble.
Judaism incorporates the idea that one who changes and adopts Judaism
(presumably a gentile) embarks on a do-over of their spiritual life. In the
Talmud, Y'bamoth 48b, we read that the Jewish convert is likened to a new-born
child. That is, life has begun afresh. And this may well be what Christ has in
mind as He uses a small child to make His point. The change is not merely in
change in direction, but it is a total renewal. In fact, in one of Yeshua's more
famous sayings, He says this as recorded in the Gospel of John:
CJB John 3:3 "Yes, indeed," Yeshua answered him, "I tell you that unless a
person is born again from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
I suspect that this expression of being born again in order to enter the Kingdom
and Yeshua telling His disciples to adopt a child-like humility to enter the
Kingdom are fully connected in meaning.
In Matthew 18:5, Yeshua moves from using children for the purpose of illustration
and metaphor, into their being the objects of one's actions. What I mean is that
the literal receiving of a child is an actual thing that is to occur, but it also doubles
as an example of an adult Believer's life of humility in action. Commonly,
Christian commentators see this verse as an allegory. That is, in their view little
children doesn't really refer to actual little children; rather it is symbolic of all
those who are new to the faith (young or old). I find that rigid position at odds with
the words that come later in the verse that speaks of "little ones". In Mark 9
Yeshua actually embraces a small child and says "whoever welcomes one such
child welcomes Me". So child, or little child, or little one is a direct reference to
children... not to new Believers.
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
So what does it mean to receive a child in Christ's name? And that it is the same
as receiving Christ? We find a similar sentiment and instruction later on in
Matthew in chapter 25. It is always important in Bible study to find these
connections as when we see them both in use, one helps to explain the other.
Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 25.
READ MATTHEW 25:31 - end
To receive a child in Yeshua's name means to accept him or her in the manner
that Yeshua would. In the Bible, Old and New Testaments, a name is not merely
a personal identifier as it mostly means is our day. Rather a name reflects certain
attributes. So to receive a child in Christ's name also means to approach them
based upon Christ's attributes. Please notice that this statement is not about
merely being nice to the young, the weak, the needy, and those who have no
power. It is also not about us having an option to do or not to do. So from the
negative sense, NOT receiving or NOT providing for the helpless and needy bars
the door to the Kingdom of Heaven to the one who refuses to do what is right by
serving them. So the idea also includes the concept that when we look upon that
child, or that poor person, or the one who has no food and is hungry, we should
behave as though we were encountering Jesus Himself. Not in the sense that
those people are necessarily Christ-like, or are even Believers; but rather that
always in Yeshua's ministry He identifies Himself and His purpose with the
powerless, the poor, the hungry, and the child. These are those He came to help,
to heal, to save, and to provide for. We, as His disciples, are to recognize this,
and realize that when we pursued our forgiveness and salvation in Him, we also
signed up for being His hands and feet on earth... doing these things in His stead
as we wait for His return. Now I'd like to issue a caution; we are not to spiritualize
this commandment or to turn it into merely a range of emotions or warm fuzzy
feelings towards the needy. Yeshua has essentially created a kind of personal
union with the downtrodden... with those who need real and actual practical help
with the daily needs of life. And we are to act accordingly without much regard to
the exact nature of the cause of their circumstances.
Now that Yeshua has explained what Believers should do, He issues a warning
to those who might act to hinder or take advantage of the powerless; especially
of a child. But there is an important change about the children that we mustn't
overlook. The warning shifts from children in general to children who trust in Him.
And for the children who have come to trust in Christ, anyone that would
"ensnare" them it would be better for them to simply die by drowning. And yet I
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
need to remind you that in that era the realm of the deep sea was seen nearly
universally as wicked and terrifying. It was believed that evil spirits lived in the
deep. And so to be dragged down to the depths of the sea by means of a heavy
millstone around one's neck was perhaps one of the worst possible ways to die.
To finish the thought, Yeshua says woe to the world because of the snares that
have been set, and woe to the person who sets that snare. Let's work through
this statement.
Yeshua's tone suddenly shifts from assurance and encouragement, to a warning
and a not-so-veiled threat, still using children as the illustration but also in a
totally literal way. In the literal sense, Yeshua is issuing a warning against anyone
who would lead a child astray who is trusting in Him. It seems to me more directly
that this is probably about convincing a trusting child to give up that trust. Or to
do things to that child that so harms them or makes them so fearful that trusting
anyone or anything becomes a near impossibility.
When Yeshua says woe to the world because of snares, we find it worded a
number of different ways in the many English Bible versions. The King James
says "Woe to the world because of offences". The NAB says "Woe to the world
because of things that cause sin". The NAS says "Woe to the world because
of its stumbling blocks". The YLT says "Woe to the world from the stumbling
blocks". So the issue is this: is Christ saying that the world is the cause of the
snares, or that the world suffers from the people who set the snares? The Gospel
of Luke says something very similar.
CJB Luke 17:1 Yeshua said to his talmidim, "It is impossible that snares will
not be set. But woe to the person who sets them!
It seems to me that what is meant is that the world is, and will continue to, suffer
woes because various people will set snares that cause others to stumble. But
more importantly, what do the snares prevent people of the world from doing
such that Christ is so concerned about it? It is that these snares, these wicked
traps, stop people from seeking the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore of having
any opportunity to entering in.
The Greek word that is translated as snares or offenses or stumbling blocks
is skandalon from which we get the English word scandal. A skandalon is
actually the name for the stick that holds up the edge of a trap used to ensnare
small animals. The idea is that the prey is unaware that a trap has been set. The
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Lesson 62 - Matthew 17 & 18
person who springs the trap on the unsuspecting prey behaves as that small
stick. So the warning Christ is giving to the world serves the same function as an
air raid siren. That is, Christ is not threatening the world but rather is saying the
world is going to suffer woes because of these snares... so look out! Seek
shelter! However, He is threatening the wicked individuals who set the traps and
behave as the skandalon stick. No doubt the woe to the individual that sets
these traps is the great judgment at the End of Days that will declare those
individuals guilty, and they will be burned up as chaff.
We'll discuss this a little more and move into verse 9 next week.
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 63, Chapter 18
We began chapter 18 last week and immediately the topic became humility. It is
that humility is to be perhaps the chief virtue for anyone hoping to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Verses 1-14 are essentially an examination of Godly qualities that the Lord
expects to exist within the body of Believers. Some are expressed positively;
some negatively. That is, just as with the Law of Moses, there are some do's and
some don'ts. And at first there is explanation with encouragement, but in verse 6
it quickly turns to a warning with a penalty. When we back away and see this
from the far view, we can discern that if we adopt the mindset that Yeshua is
prescribing, then we will avoid the inner urge to judge others too harshly or too
quickly. Thus when we get to verse 10 we learn that ironically one of the most
loving and charitable things we, as Believers, can do for the brother or sister that
has sinned against us is to confront them with their sin, but also to treat he or
she in a way that acknowledges their continuing value to God. And this part of
the teaching of Christ prepares us for what comes next starting in verse 15,
which is about how we are to deal with a member of our Believing community
that has sinned, and failed, and to do so justly, forthrightly, and in the manner
God would have us.
Perhaps an at-times overlooked background of Matthew chapter 18 is that it is
really about how a community, a congregation, of Jesus followers is to think and
to behave. The idea is that no man is an island unto himself. If we, as individuals,
trust in Yeshua then we automatically belong to multiple levels of community
beginning with our local fellowship and extending to the entire worldwide body of
Believers. So never are we to isolate ourselves from the world or from fellowship,
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
but rather we are to engage both. We are simply not allowed to flee from our
relationships, our obligations as members of the Kingdom of Heaven, nor from
our sins and transgressions. And all this is to be driven by the quality of sincere
humility that makes the good of the many above what is good for us individually.
So to carry out Yeshua's command to love our fellow man as much as we love
ourselves (as taken from Leviticus 19:18), then we must humble ourselves as is
natural for a little child, but not so much for an adult. What does this look like as it
plays out? It looks like Christ's life. We are to be in imitation of this, and knowing
what this looks like represents one of the primary reasons for the Father sending
Yeshua to us. Talking about emulating the invisible God in Heaven is great in
theory; but how does this transpire on a human level among people living on a
deeply flawed planet earth? The Law of Moses sets down a few hundred case
examples; Yeshua fleshes it out as our model.
Let's re-read a portion of Matthew chapter 18.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 18:1 - 14
Yeshua begins a discourse that is in response to a wholly inappropriate question
from His disciples. Which of the 12 disciples was the one to speak it, we're not
told. But the idea is that this a was a broad discussion that had been ongoing for
some time (Mark 9 characterizes the discussion as an argument). And the
question involved rank and status; that is, which of the 12 disciples was the
highest in rank and therefore greatest in status. Although I can't prove it, it seems
to follow that this argument was precipitated by Jesus singling Peter out as the
Rock out which the assembly of Believers shall be cut.
Thus it was a concern among the disciples about who would be considered the
greatest in leadership rank in the Kingdom of Heaven and so Yeshua pointed to
some little children nearby as an answer by means of an object lesson. He even
embraces one of the children and says that the disciples should become like
them in the sense of being humble as opposed to focusing on issues of personal
status. I want to emphasize: it is the noticeable humble quality of a child (a small
child) that is to be emulated... nothing else. The disciples were not commanded
to become naive or childish. Nor were they to discard their adult roles and put
little children on the same level of authority. Nor were little children thought to be
founts of wisdom or spiritual knowledge.
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
Thus says Yeshua the greatest in the society of the Kingdom of Heaven will be
those who display the greatest amount of humility (as seen in small children).
Now it is important especially in the modern Western world to think of the small
children in Yeshua's illustration in terms of how they were viewed in the
1
st century in Jewish society or all context for understanding our proper response
to this instruction is lost. In that era little children were to be seen and not heard.
They had very little status even within their own families (and of this they were
acutely aware). It is not that they were disposable, or that they weren't loved or
cared for or seen as of less worth to God. But... they definitely were seen as
having less practical value to the economy of the family. They produced far less
work than their older siblings or their parents, and they had no wisdom to offer.
Families then were not designed to cater to every need and whim of the small
children. Still little children were vulnerable and easily led and so needed
protection. Needless to say that is somewhat different than children are viewed in
the West today, where children are often see as having equal importance and
value as adults. In fact, haven't we all heard the constant refrain in our time that
children are so valuable that we must put them above all other concerns and give
them the best we have to offer and so in many ways they rule the roost.
Whatever they want is to be given to them (at times before they even know they
want it) or we may harm their precious little psyches forever. Little children today,
therefore, don't necessarily reflect the quality of selfless humility of 1
st century
Jewish children as Yeshua is using to teach the disciples.
At first, Jesus is talking about literal little children. But as He often does, He
begins to morph the object of a lesson into something deeper than what is
immediately apparent. The Jewish religious leaders especially did so regularly
and such a procedure later gained some labels for just how far the object lesson
might transform into something deeper or even become mysterious. So
the P'shat level Jesus was speaking (the simplest most literal level of His
message) was to say that God loves and values little children both from their
physical human aspect and from their spiritual aspect. And whomever would
think to harm these innocent little ones from either aspect would be judged for it.
But as His discourse continues, the Remez level of His teaching (the hint of
something deeper) emerges. Yeshua says:
CJB Matthew 18:5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes
me;
Clearly the identification of the child with Jesus becomes part of the equation as
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
does the Believing person that welcomes even a small child into the fold. So now
we have to be alert that the term "little one" or "little child" takes on a deeper
meaning as a person of any age that is new to trust in Christ, as well as at the
same time keeping the meaning of literal little children. This concept is very
difficult for most Christian Bible commentators (and perhaps most Bible students)
to process because they see such matters from an either/or perspective. That is,
Yeshua's statement can only mean literal little children or it can only mean all
new Believers. But when we put on the mindset of 1
st century Jews (this would
have been Yeshua's mindset) then such a stark choice disappears. Meanings of
profound, even inspired, words can be comfortably taken on multiple levels.
So what this amounts to is that little children that are drawn to Jesus can be seen
as His legitimate followers just as much as adults of the age of accountability
can. But for new Believers of all ages, just like little children, they have such little
knowledge and experience that they can be misled rather easily. Or they can
have their hopes and trust dashed either accidentally or on purpose nearly
effortlessly. Thus great care must be taken of new Believers (sometimes in
Christian-eze called Baby Christians) especially by the leadership. New Believers
must... again like small children... be protected but also educated. One of the
reasons in the West that it is a legal requirement for all children to go to school is
the overriding need for education so that they can mature and operate
successfully in a complex society. If they should not be educated (or they are
improperly educated) then they will not mature or thrive as they should. It
operates exactly the same for a new Believer. A new Believer needs to
immediately begin an education program. The most basic trust in Yeshua that
may amount to little more than being attracted to Him might be sufficient to get
one's toe in the door to the Kingdom of Heaven. But maturation is expected. Or
as the author of the Book of Hebrews puts it:
CJB Hebrews 5:12 For although by this time you ought to be teachers, you
need someone to teach you the very first principles of God's Word all over
again! You need milk, not solid food!
All to say that this is the context for interpreting this passage of Matthew 18. So
what comes next is all important. In verse 6 it is not just that new Believers and
little children who are drawn to Christ are to be treated humbly and with care, but
Yeshua uses very strong language to warn those who would, for whatever their
motivation, cause these vulnerable ones to stumble. He then declares "woe" to
the one who sets a snare to cause that stumble. To emphasize His point, He
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
urges that anyone who seems to see these "little ones" (again, literal children or
new Believers) as easy prey to lord over in an unhealthy way, take whatever
drastic action is needed to avoid it.
Yeshua then turns the tables by saying that those who are thinking to set snares
for the "little ones" are actually setting snares for themselves. Thus if what a
snare setter sees with his eyes is the impetus for determining to set a snare for
the little ones, better to rid oneself of the eye that causes it. The same holds for
the foot, because the foot represents no longer just the thought but now the
action itself. Let me be clear: this is an expression. By no means is Jesus
suggesting that anyone mutilate themselves so that they are not snare setters. It
is simply strong language to make His point because the penalty for failing to
heed this warning is so severe:
CJBMatthew 18:8 ...Better that you should be maimed or crippled and obtain
eternal life than keep both hands or both feet and be thrown into
everlasting fire!
From the far view, this is about those who would cause scandals to the Believing
community, especially if those scandals are taking advantage of people of only
small faith, or immature faith, who are naive and unguarded...and of children who
are too innocent and helpless to protect themselves.
The punishment for doing something that Christ regards as despicable and as
therefore disqualifying one from the Kingdom of Heaven, is for that snare setter
to be thrown into Gei Hinnom. Gei-Hinnom is the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem
that was used as the city garbage dump. Fires burned there 24 hours a day 7
days a week. Animal carcasses, even body parts of humans, were thrown into it.
Everything that nobody wanted anymore wound up in Gei-Hinnom. The fires
stunk so bad that sulfur was thrown onto it to try and somewhat mask the
wretched odors. So the image is of what Christianity would call *. There could
be no worse fate than to be thrown into that burning trash heap.
The warning of the most gruesome punishment imaginable is followed up with:
CJB Matthew 18:10 10 See that you never despise one of these little ones, for
I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually seeing the face of my
Father in heaven.
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
This is a really intriguing statement. Yeshua seems to be saying that these "little
ones" have Guardian Angels in Heaven. And in fact the majority of Christianity
has taken it to mean just that and made it part of Church doctrine concerning
angels. I find that hard to argue against. Further, some ancient Jewish sources
indicate more or less the same belief about angels that goes so far as to say that
each person gets a personal angel. Psalm 91 says:
CJB Psalm 91:10-11 10 No disaster will happen to you, no calamity will come
near your tent; 11 for he will order his angels to care for you and guard you
wherever you go.
The Targum of Jacob 2:5 says: "I am the angel who has been walking with you
and guarding you from your infancy". Philo comments as much. The Book of
Jubilees 35:17, the Targum of Job 43:10 and a number of other extra-biblical
Jewish works confirm the Jewish belief that either there are many Guardian
Angels that help people as needed, or that each person is assigned their own
individual angel (I'll let you be the judge about just how to take the meaning).
However unless what Yeshua uttered about little ones and their angels is merely
an allegorical expression (unlikely) then God on earth confirms that as Believers
we indeed have angels watching over us because that's the full time job of this
particular group of angels! But even more they are allowed to be in God's very
presence (when a Jew speaks of the face of God or the face of a person it means
God's or that person's presence). I want to repeat: as Believers we have angels
watching over us. Yeshua's words seem to be saying that EVEN the little ones
(children and new Believers) are no exception and they, too, have been given
Guardian Angels. So it's not like at some point, after a time, a Believer finally
earns a Guardian angel. A Believer at any point in our walk with Jesus is
assigned an angel, so no one should have any pride about having an angel look
out for them; we all do. Yet is Jesus saying that God worshipping Jews who do
NOT trust in Christ do NOT have a guardian angel? In full disclosure in absolute
certainty I can tell you... I don't know.
After this statement some ancient Greek manuscripts add a verse 11, while
others don't. Verse 11 (when included) says:
KJV Matthew 18:11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
We find that same sentence, word for word, in all Greek manuscripts of Luke
19:10. So it is pretty clear that some later Christian editor thought that adding it to
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
Matthew 18 brought some needed point of clarification or maybe a more smooth
segue from verse 10 to verse 12. It certainly doesn't change the meaning of the
passage in any way.
Christ's question to open verse 12..."What do you think"... is used to get His
disciples to pause and reflect. He asks a question that on the surface is simply
rhetorical; that is, He expects full agreement with His premise. He must have
determined that by now, because of all that the disciples have been taught by
Him, and watched Him in action, that it was time for them to begin to use that
reservoir of knowledge and experience to draw some conclusions on their own.
It's a question from Yeshua that most folks who have been Believers for any
length of time have heard and it is that if a person owned 100 sheep and one
wandered away and got lost, would you leave the other 99 and go to find it? A
modern person in the risk averse West of the 21st century might say (if they were
honest): goodness NO! Why would I put 99 sheep at risk for the sake of one who
certainly didn't wander away by accident; it meant to. What we have to do is to
keep in sight the core of the matter: it is still all about the "little ones". So we have
to keep as our context that the issue is what happens to a little one...a child or a
new Believer... who strays. Thus the stray sheep is a metaphor for a little one.
This also means that we have to read this statement as inferring that the 99
sheep were mature enough and sufficiently wise NOT to stray and so it enables
the Shepherd that watches over them to leave them for a short time, and to go off
and find that one immature and unwise sheep. So even though often this story is
thought to include the element of risking the well being of the other 99 to go
rescue the 1, we soon find out that this is not the point at all (nor is risk to the 99
even contemplated).
Verse 13 says:
CJB Matthew 18:13 And if he happens to find it? Yes! I tell you he is happier
over it than over the ninety-nine that never strayed!
The point is the joy over the one that was recovered, and not about risk for the 99
who were stable. Think of it this way: you and your wife and perhaps another
adult couple bring your 5 year old nephew to Disney World. As you are walking
and talking and taking in the sights, you suddenly realize that the child is missing.
What would you do? You'd leave the adults who were mature and wise enough
to care for themselves and go to find that child. After searching for nearly an
hour, you finally find him afraid and crying, but safe and sound. Your relief and
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
joy is overwhelming, and there was no thought of risk to the 3 you left behind as
you searched to find the 1. This illustration and comparison of sheep to God's people, and of shepherds to
the leadership of the people, which Christ used wasn't invented by Him from thin
air. In fact Yeshua must have had Ezekiel in mind especially because Ezekiel
was one of the Prophets that spoke extensively about the Latter Days and the
End Times. And Yeshua was quite self-aware of who He was and that His advent
signaled the time of the first of two Latter Days. I want to pause here for just a
moment to remind us all that Jesus was a human being and His mind operated
like a human being... the perfect, ideal human being. Therefore He regularly
spoke using well-worn Jewish cultural expressions, He employed the literary
norms for His day such as Parables, He used illustrations of daily life and their
familiar surroundings to help explain spiritual matters (and especially what the
Kingdom of Heaven is like). He had unparalleled knowledge of the Holy
Scriptures (what Christianity calls the Old Testament). He used all these things in
His earthly ministry, so it should come as no surprise that He would mimic the
words that His Father gave to His Prophet Ezekiel. Words that many, if not most,
Jews had heard at one time in their lives. So let's take a few minutes to hear
Ezekiel to help put Yeshua's words into an even greater context.
READ EZEKIEL CHAPTER 34 all
Hopefully you can see now where Christ is coming from in this matter of going
after the 1 while leaving the more responsible 99. It is fascinating to me that the
final words of Ezekiel chapter 34 are:
CJB Ezekiel 34:31 'You, my sheep, the sheep in my pasture, are human
beings; and I am your God,' says Adonai ELOHIM." Did you catch it? The sheep and shepherd illustrations throughout these inspiring
words are plainly said to be "human beings"; so there is no doubt as to the
meaning. But also notice in Ezekiel that God is disgusted with the shepherds (the
leadership) for NOT going after those who strayed and wandered from the
flock. This doesn't necessarily mean that the strays are those who have
renounced God. Rather it more means those who are immature, unwise (even
foolish) and wandered away without realizing the negative impact and the
dangerous consequences of their actions. At the same time, God says He lays
the earthly responsibility on the leadership to try to rescue those who strayed. But
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
should the leadership fail, God still doesn't abandon the wandering sheep. Thus
back in Matthew 18 verse 14 we read:
CJB Matthew 18:14 Thus your Father in heaven does not want even one of
these little ones to be lost.
Folks, between Ezekiel and Yeshua we have been given a manual for how the
Believing community is to handle the matter of those members who have sinned
and fallen away. But the manual continues in verse 15.
Ben Witherington III astutely characterizes verses 15 -20 as a trouble-shooting
handbook for recovering a fellow Believer or for disciplining a follower of Christ.
So let's read this short section.
RE-READ MATTHEW 18:15-20
None of the other Gospel accounts contains this narrative; only Matthew. No
doubt this is because of its uniquely Jewish cultural worldview. It is important that
we set the context for what this passage is and is not talking about. This is NOT
talking about criminal activity. The offenses are not only between humans, mostly
they fall into the category of shaming someone or violating the unwritten Jewish
etiquette or fairness code of the day. It is quite difficult for modern Westerners to
wrap our minds around the matter of shame and honor. We have only in recent
times gained a rather horrifying glimpse into a societal structure of shame and
honor as the rise of extremist Islam has taken the cover off of the most negative
consequences of such a system that is the norm for the Middle East, as we hear
of honor killings, blood libels, beheadings, and so on. I don't have time to go into
the several aspects of such a societal system but you can go the
TorahClass.com lesson 19 of 1Kings for an overview of it and of the other 2 basic
societal structures that exist.
In the West we operate in a system of guilt and innocence that necessarily
revolves around a stable system of legislated and written rights and wrongs and
what happens when someone is found guilty of committing a wrong. We call this
codified system of rights and wrongs "laws". So when someone steals another's
car, or commits a battery, lies in court, or murders we don't think in terms of
someone committing a trespass against us, or offending us, or sinning against
us. Rather they have broken the law and in such a system there is a perpetrator
and a victim. But the shame and honor system operates differently. In that
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
system there is an unwritten, but thoroughly understood, system of behaviors and
etiquette that rides in parallel with that system's criminal law code. That is, the
offense has nothing to do with right and wrong but rather one person doing
something to another that brings shame upon that other. A person who has been
shamed will do nearly anything to recover his honor because shame and honor
represent a fundamental social status.
Ever since Mt. Sinai, God has been moving Israel away from a shame and honor
system and into a guilt and innocence societal system. The Law of Moses is that
God-given code of right and wrong, and just as importantly it specifies what is to
be done to the person that is found guilty of committing the wrong. And the heart
of that determination is what is known in the West as Lex Talionis: proportional
justice. Therefore a person found guilty of stealing can't have his hand cut off or
lose his life as a punishment. But a person who takes a life can, proportionally,
lose theirs. And much in between. Yet in the 1
st century, Jews still had remnants
of shame and honor embedded not in their laws but in their culture. And most of
the cultures that surrounded them were either shame and honor systems or, like
the Jews, it had some elements of shame and honor in them.
So what we find in this passage is shame and honor terms being used, and the
offenses spoken of between people are generally shame and honor-like
(although not exclusively); it's a kind of mix. More specifically, this passage deals
with things that the community of Believers ought not do to one another or to a
display a wrong behavior that is not criminally illegal per se, but ought not be
done anyway because they violate The Father's holiness code as well as
bringing shame on a brother. Thus it's not that what is being prescribed by Christ
is necessarily meant to bypass the criminal justice system of the Jews (or of the
Romans for that matter), but rather these are the types of offenses that God finds
wrong or inappropriate and so need to be handled within the community of Christ␂worshipers. Thus because these offenses rise to a level of not achieving spiritual
ideals, then they involve discipline that can rise to being banned from
membership in the group, or being removed from a leadership position (but not
necessarily from the community), or even (in a shame and honor manner) being
shunned because they refuse to confess and to conform.
So with that understanding, look at verse 15. It begins: "Moreover if your brother
commits a sin against you..." Instead of using the word sin as is done in the CJB,
other Bible versions might use the term trespass or offense. Again, we must think
of this as the breaking of community rules, which are to be based on God's
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
holiness code (as found in the Law of Moses), but not as acts of criminality. At
the same time we must not take the cases that are used as examples as
hypothetical matters. These things must have been quite real and were
happening, and so were causing Yeshua concern. So the trouble-shooting
handbook Jesus speaks to His disciples sets down a system for dealing with
these offenses, and it begins by quietly, privately, confronting the offending party.
It really is a one-on-one situation in hopes that it can be dealt with without
causing humiliation or shame but also remedying the matter.
This necessarily means that the offender either doesn't realize what he or she
has done, or they feel justified in their action, or have yet to confess it and repent.
So both parties sit down and talk about it, and the offended party explains why he
believes he has been offended. At least so far in this passage the matter seems
to be something that happened between 2 individuals as opposed to a member
of the Believing community who displayed a wrong attitude or behavior but didn't
necessarily harm a particular person or bring shame to them. The hope of this
private confrontation is stated in the final words of verse 15: "If he listens to you,
you have won your brother back". That's the hope of this protocol of trying to
recover a brother. The goal is reconciliation and not discipline or punishment.
We must not try to remove this narrative from the context of the sheep and the
shepherds, or from the "little ones". They are organically connected. So, the
brother who feels offended is to deal with this matter privately in imitation of the
shepherd and is to find and recover the offender... the sheep (the little one) that
has wandered away. Hopefully no further action is needed. Let me add that
depending on one's personality and temperament, this is not a terribly hard thing
for the offended to do... or it seems impossibly hard. There are those of us who
can confront rather easily, and others that would rather chew their own arm off
than confront another person over an unpleasant matter. The challenge is that
there really is no room given within the Believing community for anyone of any
temperament to avoid such a private confrontation. I think part of the reason for
this disregard of personality traits is that the person who won't confront doesn't
just move on as it seems from the outside they have. Rather they tend to harbor
a building resentment that no one else may know about it. This resentment can
suddenly explode and lead to that person becoming an offender, him or her self,
as he can no longer contain it. So it is always best to handle matters of personal
offense immediately and forthrightly.
Verse 16 now goes to step 2. If step 1 (a private confrontation) doesn't work, then
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Lesson 63 - Matthew 18
the offended is to take 1 or 2 other brothers with him and (still in private) attempt
to get the offending brother to confess his offense. In other words, gentle
persuasion has failed and now the matter becomes more public. This system of
dealing with personal offenses is, again, not something exclusive that Christ is
bringing to the table. In the Talmud, Yoma 45c, we find these words:
"Samuel said: Whoever sins against his brother, he must say to him, I have
sinned against you. If he hears, it is well; if not, let him bring others, and let
him appease him before them".
So Judaism has always seemed to contain this fundamental system of handling
offenses between people that revolves around private confrontation in hopes of
reconciliation, but then steps it up to bringing some witnesses to bolster the case
against the offender in hopes he will finally give in and confess.
We'll stop here for today and continue next time with unpacking this very
important passage that still has such pertinence among the body of Believers
even in the 21st century.
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Lesson 64 - Matthew 18 concl
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 64, Chapter 18 Conclusion
We began to study Matthew 18:15 - 20 last week and shortly we'll re-read that
section. Before we do that we need to set the context. This is necessarily going
to involve some amount of sermonizing to go along with the teaching.
The opening of verse 15 says (in most English Bibles) "Moreover, if your brother
commits a sin against you". The term "your brother" as used here has to be taken
to mean a person who shares your faith. Nearly all Bible commentaries on this
matter say that this means something that happens between "Christian
brothers". This is, I think, a bit of reading something into the passage that is too
narrow. No doubt this has to include Jews in general, but it also involves some
element of trusting in Christ; that is, this instruction is general on the one hand
but on the other is also more targeted at one that is among His flock of followers.
But at this point in the Book of Matthew (or in any of the Gospels for that matter)
we learn that up to now Yeshua has revealed that He is the Messiah ONLY to His
12 and that they are NOT to tell anyone outside that closed inner circle.
Remember that the overall context of this section of Matthew is that at the
moment Christ is speaking only to that inner circle. Since these men represent
the leadership of the Jesus movement, then it seems that what we are getting
from Yeshua is what we can rightly call community rules that will be needed
when the anticipated community of Believers starts to mature and expand
beyond only the 12. So it is improbable that these rules apply only to the 12,
however it is likely that Yeshua is stating something that, ideally, all Jews ought
to already be doing because they have the Law of Moses to refer to. Even so,
this instruction applies doubly to those that claim allegiance to Him.
The use of the word "sin" here can be a bit off-putting (if you commit a sin against
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Lesson 64 - Matthew 18 concl
your brother). Typically modern Western Believers think of sin as something that
is committed against God and not another person; so to speak of one person
sinning against another person doesn't feel quite right to us. The Greek
is hamartano and it is a broadly used word that can define the commission of an
offense both from the secular sense and the religious sense. It can mean
breaking a legal law but also severely upsetting another. So we have to be
careful not to spiritualize the matter in this regard. Even more complicating is that
only some of the ancient Greek New Testament manuscripts include the words
"against you" in that opening sentence fragment. That is, some of the
manuscripts say only "Moreover if your brother commits a sin" and leaves out
"against you". So in the one case it is an issue between two people; someone
has offended someone else. In the second case it is that someone within the
Believing community has committed a sin (presumably against God) and so the
question is: what does the community do about such a sinner? I strongly favor
the first case because of the context of how the matter is handled. But I can't
dismiss the possibility that it is the second case.
Since I am rather confident that this is about an issue between 2 people, then we
must also approach this matter as the offense not rising to the level of a crime as
we think of it. That is, it is not something that has occurred that under normal
circumstances would be taken before a criminal court system such that a level of
judicial punishment might be involved. It may not even have been a situation
where a Law of Moses was broken such that a Temple sacrifice was required. I
want to emphasize this. Verses 15-20 are mostly about someone doing
something that substantially upset another or has caused them shame. This
passage has sometimes been misconstrued to say that Christians should not
involve the local criminal legal system when someone has committed a crime
within the Christian community, but rather it should be treated as an internal
matter. Let me give you a real life example of what I mean.
I am aware of a Church that had hundreds of thousands of dollars embezzled
over a several years period by that Church's financial officer. Once discovered,
the Pastor and some others did not want to report the matter to the police, but
rather they thought that Christ taught that instead the Christian community should
handle it themselves and avoid the local legal system. Thus perhaps using what
is outlined here in Matthew 18 the notion was that the man would be confronted
whereby he would confess, repent, and they could make a deal with him to pay
the money back and thereby not involve the police. Apparently the Church's
board decided to contact law enforcement despite the Pastor's appeals not to.
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Lesson 64 - Matthew 18 concl
Who was right? The Pastor or the board? I tell you that the board was right. And
this is because what Christ taught about community discipline in this passage
generally speaking did not involve criminality.
A way to think about it is that what is being dealt with is more akin to our civil
code of justice that doesn't deal with matters of guilt or innocence. Rather it deals
with compensation, satisfaction, and restoration for someone wronging another.
Very often in our time it has to do with the performance of a contract. Or maybe
your neighbor cut down a tree and it fell and damaged your fence. Or someone
borrowed a tool and returned it broken, feeling no responsibility to fix or replace
it. So it was these sorts of offenses (plus the element of shame) that is more what
is being contemplated. It isn't outright theft or murder or some such thing.
I tell you this because both as a community of Believers and as individual
Believers we must be careful not to misapply what is being spoken by Yeshua.
And, what is being spoken is about members of the local community at large;
you, me, everybody. But the key word is local. Leaders are certainly included, but
they are held to an even higher standard and can bear larger consequences than
laymen for their wrongs. However the issue of leadership and leaders is not the
real focus of the subject. With that, let's re-read the passage.
RE-READ MATTHEW 18:15-20
Front the long view, the entire scenario that is being envisioned is something that
we could call dispute resolution that in the West could involve an arbitrator and
not a judge. There is a multi-step process established by Jesus to deal with a
dispute between two individual followers; one seeing himself as the offended
party. By definition the other party sees no responsibility in the matter, or it could
be that the person isn't even aware he has caused an offense. If we look behind
the words it is rather easily seen that there is great benefit meant for the offender,
so that he is not publicly humiliated or put in a position of never being able to be
restored. And of course the outcome hoped for is that the offended party feels
satisfied. Thus privately the offended party is to confront the other party to see if
matters can be worked out. If not, then 1 or 2 other members of the Believers'
community are to be taken as witnesses (this is assuming they have some insight
as to what occurred). Why? Because as the end of verse 16 says:
CJB Matthew 18:16 ...so that every accusation can be supported by the
testimony of two or three witnesses.
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Lesson 64 - Matthew 18 concl
This phrase is a paraphrase of the Law of Moses in Deuteronomy.
CJB Deuteronomy 19:15 "One witness alone will not be sufficient to convict
a person of any offense or sin of any kind; the matter will be established
only if there are two or three witnesses testifying against him.
So how does taking 1 or 2 witnesses along add up to obeying the Law of Moses
that requires 2 or 3? Because obviously the offended person is, in this case,
counted as a witness. But also because we are once again dealing with lesser
matters; personal offenses and shaming... not criminality.
Verse 17 says that if steps 1 and 2 fail, then step 3 must be invoked. The offense
is to be announced to the local Believing community. Or, better, the offense now
moves from the private sphere to the public. And if the person refuses to even
acknowledge his offense after it is revealed to the community, then he is to be
treated as a pagan or a tax collector. The Greek word being translated as pagan
is ethnikos and it is referring to a person of another nationality. In other words, a
gentile... a non-Jew. I find it ironic that 1 of the 12 disciples was a hated tax
collector. The point is not that Christ is somehow saying that tax collectors are
inherently wicked. He is merely using 2 examples from among those folks
considered by Jews in general as unwanted outsiders to the Jewish community.
A Jewish tax collector was deemed an outsider because he was seen as a traitor
and so was shunned. Bottom line: the final step of the discipline process is to
exclude the unrepentant offender from the Believers' community. Some
commentators say this amounts to excommunication. Excommunication is
actually an action that was originally prescribed by the Catholic Church; it meant
that the person could not engage in any of the Church sacraments (such as
communion) nor could they attend confession. So essentially they were declared
no longer part of the Church; their salvation was in jeopardy if not revoked.
Therefore I cannot agree that excommunication is what is being called for by
Yeshua. That is, that this unrepentant offender is somehow declared as having
had his faith declared null and void. Rather being cast out is the most severe
community discipline contemplated. He can't be in the group.
It goes without saying that the hope is that at some point this person who is now
experiencing the loss of fellowship as a discipline will realize his offense and
wrong, confess, repent, and be restored to the community. Then in verse 18 we
get what isn't really a repeat of something Yeshua said in an earlier chapter; it is
more or less saying that this is the principle that He had already stated that is
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being brought to action. And the principle is that whatever you prohibit on earth
will be prohibited in Heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted
in Heaven. Thus Jesus is saying that if one follows this discipline procedure then
the decision of the community to forgive the offender his offense (to loose or
permit) or to cast out the unrepentant offender (to bind or prohibit) is to be
accepted as the correct and righteous thing to do on every level... physically and
spiritually. God backs it. So there is no need to worry, and no need to wonder if
there is proper authority. Yeshua goes so far as to say that such a decision is to
be taken as if they had received it directly from the Father in Heaven. Pretty
strong. But now in verse 20 we get a well known phrase that, again, must be
taken in its context for proper understanding.
The verse is:
CJB Matthew 18:20 For wherever two or three are assembled in my name, I
am there with them." The context of Christ's statement is the decision of the community to forgive or to
expel a wrong doer. Notice that 2 or 3 witnesses were to be called against the
offender before the more drastic action of going public and then expelling him
was taken. And in this context Jesus is saying: I am there with you in this
decision when, as Believers, you follow this process. So we can't just willy-nilly lift
this statement about "2 or 3 being assembled in My name" from Matthew,
isolating it, and then making it into to an overly broad proverb.
Folks, I'm sorry to pop some large Christian bubbles, but this is the ONLY place
and the ONLY context that we find this particular statement of Yeshua or of any
writer in the New Testament. And the issue is that this is not the establishment of
a Christian minyan. In Judaism a minyan of 10 men is needed for prayer. So
Yeshua isn't somehow reducing that number to 2 or 3 for His followers. This has
nothing to do with prayer in general; this has to do with the specific matter of the
minimum number of men to determine and then apply community discipline, and
it includes His assurance that they are acting in His authority ("I am there") when
they do that.
I think it is instructional to see how Paul looked at this teaching of Yeshua and
then taught it. In 1Corinthians we read this:
CJB 1 Corinthians 6:1 How dare one of you with a complaint against another
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go to court before pagan judges and not before God's people? 2 Don't you
know that God's people are going to judge the universe? If you are going to
judge the universe, are you incompetent to judge these minor
matters? 3 Don't you know that we will judge angels, not to mention affairs
of everyday life? 4 So if you require judgments about matters of everyday
life, why do you put them in front of men who have no standing in the
Messianic Community? 5 1say, shame on you! Can it be that there isn't one
person among you wise enough to be able to settle a dispute between
brothers? 6
Instead, a brother brings a lawsuit against another brother, and
that before unbelievers!
Notice the key words "minor matters", and "affairs of everyday life". This is a
lovely and accurate way of characterizing Yeshua's instructions from Matthew
18:15 - 20. These are NOT large or criminal matters. These are disputes...
disagreements. And just like today, there were in Christ's era lower courts to
settle these everyday matters if need be. Think of it like small claims court. No
one is going to jail over it, and the size of the matter is relatively small. But
Yeshua and Paul are saying that there ought to be enough good will and wisdom
in a community of Believers to settle such small disputes among ourselves
instead of having to go to a public court of small claims. Thus a dispute that must
go outside the community and to a court over small everyday matters means that
either the offended or the offender is not being reasonable or obedient, and thus
in a way it is a defeat for the entire community.
Let's move on to the final section of Matthew 18, which is essentially about mercy
towards the offender. Before we read it, I want to preface it with this. Mercy does
NOT meaning declaring a person not-guilty. It also doesn't necessarily pardon a
person from consequences for their wrong actions. Especially when it comes to a
community, mercy doesn't only involve love it also involves wisdom. It is easy to
just follow a series of precisely defined laws to the letter. But even in Western
style secular justice systems a judge must determine not only guilt or innocence
but also what is just and reasonable. Decisions can have farther reaching effects
than only upon the perpetrator or even the victim, and that too has to be
considered. There is no perfect answer; so we must do the best we can with the
tools we are given in this imperfect world. Yeshua is giving His Believers tools for
running a community that include adding the elements of wisdom and mercy to
our determinations for the discipline that is to be applied to an offender within that
local Believing community.
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RE-READ MATTHEW 18:21 - end
Here is another statement of Jesus that we have all heard many times, but again
it's context that is crucial for understanding and application. Begin by
disregarding the paragraph change because it tends to signal to our minds that
there has been a subject shift. There has not. Rather the issue is still community
rules and discipline, and what to do about everyday offenses and disputes that
arise...NOT criminal matters. And the proof of this is in the Parable that Yeshua
uses to make His point.
So verse 15 began: "Moreover if your bother sins against you..", and now in
verse 21 we read "Rabbi... how often can my brother sin against me and I have
to forgive him?" The two verses are clearly connected in the subject that is being
addressed. So the issue is not if this offending brother admits to his offense; it's
what happens if he is a serial offender... even if he's one who is quick to admit
his wrong. Let's face it; most of us have known people who regularly do wrong
but easily admit it when confronted. Even so, they'll race to do it again. Wash.
Rinse. Repeat.
I confess to you that this is perhaps one of the most challenging instructions of
Yeshua that I struggle with. Just how many times must I put up with someone...
family member, neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance, employee... that clearly has
become an expert at doing wrong but confessing and pushing all the right buttons
to garner some mercy and thus get out of some consequences, even though you
know that sincerity is lacking. Peter asks if he is to forgive a brother as many as 7
times; Yeshua responds: "70 times 7". A little quick math says that is 490 times!
Of course tabulating someone's offenses against you so that you must forgive
until it is the 491st offense is not the intent. The idea is that you always forgive
someone's offenses against you. I know I've said it a few times today, but I'll say
it again: this is not about criminality. I'm not saying that you don't forgive
someone that has done something serious and criminal against you; I'm saying
that this is not what is being addressed here in Matthew 18.
And why must we be willing to forgive so much? Because it is in imitation of the
Father who has forgiven us so many times. In the Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua
told His audience to "pray like this", and then what follows is what we call The
Lord's Prayer. Part of that prayer is:
CJB Matthew 6:12 12 Forgive us what we have done wrong, as we too have
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forgiven those who have wronged us.
Then immediately after giving His audience this prayer model, Christ expands on
the issue of forgiveness.
CJB Matthew 6:14-15 14 For if you forgive others their offenses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others
their offenses, your heavenly Father will not forgive yours.
So although we are 12 chapters along after this statement, nonetheless the
principle is embedded in what Yeshua is teaching in Matthew 18. Forgiving
others for their offenses against them has no limit to the number times the
offenses are committed. That said, keep in mind that the context for what we are
currently studying remains what Paul called "everyday" offenses... even though
these everyday offenses have the potential to be somewhat serious in their
effect.
Nearly every commentary or journal article I've read on this section of Matthew
speaks of how this verse and what follows stands in tension with what Yeshua
has just said about dealing with an unrepentant offender, even to the point of
expulsion. The conclusion is that because of the tension either the narrative in
verses 15-20 is in error, or verses 21 -35 are in error. Or that one or the other has
been added by some Christian editor at a later date, which rather made a mess
of things. I've mentioned before that academics in most fields... also in the field of
Bible... don't like fuzzy or gray areas. Typically there can be only
black/white, either/or interpretations. But nothing is further from the Hebrew
mindset of ancient times. A tension between multiple biblical principles indeed
exists; it is legitimate and a given because they are being carried out in the
background of a much fallen world.
Yeshua was anything but an idealist; He was a pragmatist. He didn't address
hypothetical problems; He addressed real and present problems in the Jewish
faith and society. And one of those societal problems stemmed partly from the
remnants of the fallout of a shame and honor culture (a system that God had
been trying to eradicate from Israel since Mt. Sinai), as well as from erratic
behaviors that result from our corrupted human nature. In application it was that
people could be petty. People could also be inconsiderate and selfish. People
could say cruel, insulting or totally improper things to one another. It happened
every day... probably hundreds if not thousands of times a day in every society...
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Jewish included. Retribution and revenge is the un-Godly norm that so many
humans almost instinctively respond with when we feel offended or shamed.
Sometimes we're so sensitive to being rejected or disagreed with that we
anticipate it'll happen and we look at all of life through that lens. In the 1st century
it often led to homicide, fights, injuries and then blood feuds among families that
could last for generations. But Jesus envisioned a community of humans based
upon the Kingdom of Heaven; its community rules would be entirely contrary to
what seemed all too normal and customary to the current Jewish society. In truth
it was what Israel was always supposed to have looked like.
Before we move on I want to continue with this Scriptural problem of tension
between and among some God principles with forgiveness not the least of these.
Much too often a Bible verse (or even just a portion of one) is lifted out of its
setting and made to stand alone; it can become an all encompassing proverb or
even a Church doctrine. Then another verse about the same matter is subjected
to the same treatment, but it may offer something different about that subject and
now you have 2 doctrines that disagree. Things like love, mercy, discipline, and
forgiveness are dealt with in many places in the Bible, often bringing different
aspects of these attributes to bear, thus causing this tension. But in reality it falls
to us to discern and know when and how to apply the various attributes of things
like forgiveness.
For instance: we like to say that God forgives all. Not true. He doesn't forgive
something called blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And He also doesn't forgive
everyone for everything or we wouldn't have any issue at all with anyone living
their eternity outside of His presence. And according to the New Testament the
ONLY people in line for any kind of divine forgiveness are those who accept
God's Son Yeshua and confess it publicly. So with God as our example to mimic,
it cannot be that there exists nothing that can be done to us by another human
that arrives at a place where we are not obligated to forgive. Are we to be held to
a higher standard than He holds Himself? And even if you don't agree with that
statement, we also learn in both testaments that a perpetrator is to seek
forgiveness. What if they don't? Well, we see in the previous verses of a
perpetrator who didn't confess, or repent and therefore would not have sought
forgiveness, and thus doesn't seem to have been given any. And even though
the issues Christ is addressing in this narrative are of the smaller everyday
variety, where is the line that the offense crosses over into serious matters? So
the attributes of love, mercy, discipline and forgiveness involve shades of gray
and are complex. This means we can't read a couple of verses about any of
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these things (or others) and just mechanically go by that in our decision making.
We need to study God's Word thoroughly and see these matters in several
different contexts in order to learn how He deals with them and therefore what He
asks of us.
This is the reason that the remainder of chapter 18 is a Parable. It is to help the
12 disciples understand how to apply what Yeshua has just taught them. Let's
take just a moment to review what a Parable is. A Parable is a fictional story that
is concocted to make a point. The characters in the story are also fictional. In
addition every Parable has but one moral to it; it is not an allegory that we can
remake to suit a number of circumstances. And finally, we must be careful not to
try to dissect a Parable. The details are generally unimportant. They are only
there to make the Parable meaningful, enjoyable, colorful and thus memorable.
Therefore in this Parable of the king and the wicked servant, this is not meant to
mimic any particular king or servant in any real situation or to imply that all kings
and servants are like this.
So the point this Parable is trying to teach concerns the nature of divine
forgiveness within the context of human to human relationships (love your
neighbor). I've mentioned before that Yeshua is not a revolutionary; He is a
reformer. So His teachings are also NOT revolutionary; rather they are trying to
reform the Jewish faith by reinstituting to it a true understanding of God's Word
(the Tanach) that has been undermined by centuries of manmade Tradition. So
much of what we see Yeshua teach had already been long ago taught. As an
example: in the Babylonian Talmud, section Shabbat 151b, we read of Rabbi
Gamaliel Berribi saying something that had been a bulwark of Hebrew society for
centuries: "He who is merciful to others, will have mercy shown to him from
Heaven. He who is not merciful to others will not have mercy shown to him by
Heaven". Of course we have heard this nearly word for word from Jesus because
Jesus didn't invent the concept. Jesus was trying to restore an understanding of
the operation of forgiveness and mercy from the divine viewpoint, and so how it is
intended to play out in human relationships. Yeshua of, course, was more directly
concerned with this divine concept of mercy and forgiveness playing out properly
within the newly arrived Kingdom of Heaven and the community that participated
in it.
So in the Parable we find that a servant of this anonymous king is in debt to the
king for the insanely huge amount of 10,000 talents. We must understand that
just like the instruction to forgive 70 times 7 is not a number meant for the
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purposes of tabulation, but rather is just a number that represents a limitless
amount, so is the 10,000 talents meant to represent a limitless amount of debt
that is owed. Trying to comprehend that number for the average Jew in the
1
st century is like us trying to comprehend the ever growing national debt. Who
can imagine a trillion of anything? Let alone several? So the number wasn't
meant to present us with a precise amount but rather to make the point of it's
enormity that had no chance of ever being paid back. And since common Jews
(probably rich ones as well) of course understood that, then the servant asking
the king to have some more patience to give him more time to pay it back is an
absurdity. That king could have given the servant 1000 years and there is no way
he could have accumulated such an astronomical sum.
Now that Yeshua's audience is hooked on this story, the totally unexpected
solution is presented. Rather than the king giving his servant more time (knowing
that time wasn't the issue, the debt simply was not repayable), he shows mercy
and cancels all that was owed. In Yeshua's day a servant.... along with his entire
family... that didn't pay his debt was liable to became property of the debt holder
until it was paid. Now the plot takes an interesting twist. The now debt-free
servant immediately confronts a man (a peer, more or less) who owes him but a
trivial amount of money. And this other servant asks for a little more time. The
servant that has just had his incalculably high debt canceled by the king as an act
of mercy, then threatens the servant who owed him only a tiny amount and said
he'd have him imprisoned if he didn't repay it immediately.
Other servants overheard this, were greatly upset, and reported it to the king.
The king calls this servant before him, deems him wicked because he didn't show
mercy to this other servant... on just the smallest level. It is inherent to the story
that the wicked servant should have mimicked what his king just did for him. Thus
the king reversed his edict, took back the forgiveness of the debt that the servant
had been given, and threw this greedy and unrepentant person into prison until
every last shekel was repaid. Of course it was impossible that the debt ever could
be repaid so this man was destined to remain imprisoned forever. In verse 35
Christ gives us the moral of the story (just 1 moral) so His disciples didn't have to
figure it out for themselves.
CJB Matthew 18:35 35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat you, unless
you each forgive your brother from your hearts." Mercy and forgiveness are not simple matters; they are complex with several
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nuances. But a general underlying principle is that mercy and forgiveness is a
reciprocal arrangement and it must happen from the heart; it can't be only an
outward behavior. If we show mercy and forgiveness to our fellow man, the
Father will show it to us. We don't, He won't. Of course the impossibly perfect
and complete forgiveness that the Father will give to us cannot be precisely
carried out by any human. But this is the bull's eye of the target that especially as
Believers we are to strive to hit.
Now let's return to the beginning of the Parable. The first words are:
CJB Matthew 18:23 23 Because of this, the Kingdom of Heaven may be
compared...
So the important background of this Parable is that it is about how to understand
what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Mercy and forgiveness are not natural for
humans but they are for the Kingdom of Heaven. So what is depicted in this
Parable is nothing like what everyone on earth... Jews included... have ever
witnessed. It operates like nothing on earth because at the moment earth is
Satan's dominion. However as much as is possible Christ's followers are to
choose, decide, obey, and behave as though the Kingdom of Heaven was
already in it's fullness and Satan had already been banished.
I find it interesting that in Jesus's Parable there is no mention of the wicked
servant asking for mercy and forgiveness a second time. I confess that I don't
know that we ought to draw anything that Yeshua intended to communicate from
the absence of such a pleading, yet again, for forgiveness. But from an
allegorical standpoint, I think an application can rightfully be made. The servant
knows that this time his offense is so great, and that it has crossed over some
line in the sand, that once the king's wrath came down upon him and once that
begins there is no turning back. The servant stands condemned due to his hard
heart and wrong attitude, and forgiveness for him is no longer an option. In fact,
the punishment... the king's wrath... for him is even worse than it would have
been had he not been forgiven the first time.
The CJB does a poor job in translating verse 34 because there we read that the
king turned the wicked servant over to jailers for punishment. This implies that jail
IS the punishment (like it is in the Western world today). However the Greek word
is basanistes and it means a person who tortures. Think of being burned slowly
at the stake; being sawed in two; having your skin flayed from your body. The
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Lesson 64 - Matthew 18 concl
king has turned this wicked servant over to the torturer to suffer unspeakable and
interminable pain. And trust me, the 12 disciples who heard this Parable
understood the gravity of the intent.
We'll begin chapter 19 next time.
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 65, Chapter 19
We begin chapter 19 of Matthew's Gospel today, and it begins with a bang.
Immediately some dicey subjects arise; dicey for the 1st-century Jewish
community and they remain problematic for God worshippers to this day. The
subjects are divorce, monogamy, and celibacy. Before we're through with this
section I have little doubt that I will bother most of you or possibly offend some of
you, because facing what the Bible actually has to say (and does NOT say) about
these subjects makes it challenging and well out of step with today's Western
society perspectives and customs, and that includes some branches of
Christianity.
Before I say any more, let's open our Bibles and read Matthew chapter 19.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 19 all
The setting is this: Yeshua determines it is time for Him to leave the Galilee
where He has done nearly all of His ministry work. Thus He is completing the
bulk of His teaching of His 12 disciples although it will continue. He will not return
to the Galilee in the flesh. The next time we find Him in the Galilee is in a
somewhat altered form after His crucifixion and resurrection.
The Book of Mark offers a similar narrative beginning in chapter 10. Let's read it
to get his perspective.
READ MARK CHAPTER 10:1 - 12
At first glance these accounts are generally the same; however, there are some
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
key differences from Matthew, which I'll address as we encounter them.
Returning to Matthew. Since His destination was Judea, why cross to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee and walk down the east side of the Jordan River?
Simply put, Yeshua didn't want to travel through Samaria. The Jews of that day
had little regard for, and some an actual hatred of, Samaria and of therefore of
Samarians. Samarians were a mixed population of gentiles, Jews, and Jews that
were married to gentiles and so bore what Jews would have considered half␂breed children. There were also small cells of various of the so-called 10 Lost
Tribes living there as they had for nearly 8 centuries and apparently they did not
practice the official Judaism of that era, even having their own separate Temple
and priesthood.
We discussed in earlier lessons that Jesus taught that in some measure,
appearances matter. He didn't, and we can't, just do things in some strict
adherence (as we see it) to our faith beliefs in disregard of our cultural norms.
Naturally we are not to disobey the Torah or break a biblical moral law; but we
also have to pay attention to those cultural norms and traditions that helps to
define our society, or we will be cast as outsiders and be ineffective in reaching
others with the Good News. While I have no doubt that He harbored no personal
ill will against the Samaritans... and in fact, as God on earth, loved them... it
would have made Him an even more controversial figure among Jews than He
already was if He as much as walked through Samaritan territory to get to
Judea... because Jews (especially Galileans) avoided Samaria like the plague.
So Yeshua took the longer route from the Galilee that wound along the east side
of the Jordan River, and then crossed over probably somewhere near Jericho
where John the Baptist had been known to operate.
We're told that large crowds followed Him. The route that He took from the
Galilee to Judea went through the district of Perea that was not taboo to Jews, so
many Jews lived there. Christ's reputation as a miracle healer had spread far and
wide and so where ever He went throngs of people followed Him that needed
healing of every sort. Matthew remarks that Yeshua indeed healed them... which
He always did since His heart was always for the hurting, the lame, the sick, and
the downtrodden. Here we encounter our first difference between Matthew and
Mark. In Matthew Christ healed; in Mark He taught. I suspect that He did both; it's
only that with each Gospel, the writer chose to highlight one over the other and
not both. So whereas most Bible commentators see this difference as a conflict
of what happened, I see no such thing; it is simply an issue of the writer's
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perspective and emphasis. I'll remind you: Matthew was writing from a Believing
Jewish perspective with an intended audience of Believing Jews. Mark was
writing from a perspective of addressing a gentile audience and this had much to
do with what they each chose to focus on.
In the CJB, verse 2 says that some Pharisees (who always seemed to mingle in
with the common folk that followed Yeshua) tried to "trap" Him with a question
about divorce. Some Bible versions say test, others say tempt. The Greek word
is peirazo. The Greek lexicons say that it means to test someone or something,
usually by trying to ascertain what a person thinks about something. Therefore I
think the CJB saying they were trying to "trap" Jesus is a bit off the mark as the
word carries an ominous tone with it. What the Pharisees were really trying to
determine was something rather legitimate in that day: was Christ's view of
divorce in line with the School of Hillel, or with the School of Shammai? The one
view is something that we could call liberal, the other more strict or
fundamentalist. Generally speaking, the Pharisees went along with Hillel's
teaching on divorce, which was the more liberal. That is,
Hillel's Halakhah (Jewish Law, Tradition) was that there were several legitimate
reasons for divorce, while Shammai's Halakhah was that there was really only
one. And Mark and Matthew also differ on this.
Mark has it as a very broad question the Pharisees asked: " is it lawful to permit a
man to divorce his wife". Matthew adds a qualifier to that question. He says the
question was: "is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any ground
whatever?" Different Bible versions word this slightly differently from one
another, but they all amount to the same thing. The question is: can there be
many different reasons to divorce a wife? There is an important nuance for us to
notice. In both Mark and Matthew, the word lawful (is it lawful or permitted) is in
Greek exesti. The CJB assumes that lawful means Torah law; but I have my
doubts. I think it means it in the way most Jews would have seen it: it means
lawful in the sense of permitted according to the Halakhah of the day as a
representative interpretation of the Torah. In other words, just as today when a
layman might ask a Pastor a theological question, the Pastor is typically going to
answer based on his denomination's doctrines, and not necessarily what the
Bible strictly says, or perhaps a combination of both. So Jesus responds in this
way:
CJB Matthew 19:4-5 4 "...Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator
made them male and female, 5 and that he said, 'For this reason a man
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should leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two
are to become one flesh1?
So Yeshua says that the answer to this question must necessarily go back to the
time of Adam and Eve... long before there was a written Torah or Law of Moses.
This doesn't mean that the Law of Moses didn't have a divorce clause;
Deuteronomy 24 speaks of it.
CJB Deuteronomy 24:1 "Suppose a man marries a woman and
consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing, because he has
found her offensive in some respect. He writes her a divorce document,
gives it to her and sends her away from his house. 2 She leaves his house,
goes and becomes another man's wife; 3 but the second husband dislikes
her and writes her a get, gives it to her and sends her away from his house;
or the second husband whom she married dies. 4
In such a case her first
husband, who sent her away, may not take her again as his wife, because
she is now defiled. It would be detestable to ADONAI, and you are not to
bring about sin in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as your
inheritance.
We won't deal with the multiple aspects of divorce in the Deuteronomy 24 law,
but you can go to TorahClass.com and find some in-depth teaching on it. The
point is that divorce is indeed part of the Law of Moses, but it can only be applied
narrowly and not broadly. What Yeshua says also raises the issue of monogamy.
Thus, says Christ, the two (male and female) become one so no one should split
apart what God has joined together. Yeshua is quoting from 2 places in the Book
of Genesis.
CJBGenesis 1:27 SoGod created humankind in his own image; in the image
of God he created him: male and female he created them.
And:
CJBGenesis 2:24 This is why a man is to leave his father and mother and
stick with his wife, and they are to be one flesh.
So marriage, divorce, and monogamy get all wrapped up together as something
that cannot be understood properly without considering them all. The Genesis
verses (and thus Jesus) also gets specific about what marriage amounts to: a
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
man and a woman leaving their parents and becoming joined together as a
couple. It pains me to have to emphasize the obvious: from a biblical standpoint...
from God's standpoint... marriage is exclusively between a male and female. *
marriage is an oxymoron from the biblical perspective and of course is but a
modern Western civilization attempt to subvert and destroy the God-ordained
institution and purpose of marriage, which is to be fruitful and multiply.
Please notice that Yeshua quoted the Torah as His answer, thus continuing the
proof of Matthew 5:17-19 that He did not come to abolish or destroy the Law of
Moses, but rather to uphold it, teach it, demonstrate the spirit of The Law as
opposed to mechanical obedience to it, and how it ought to look in application.
In response to Christ's words the Pharisees ask: if that's so, then why did Moses
give the commandment that a man could divorce his wife if he gave her
a get (a get is a Hebrew document of divorce)? Again I want to stress; there is
nothing ominous or against Jesus going on here. This subject was a raging
debate during the 1st century in the Jewish faith, and so Jesus wasn't going to
get in trouble no matter how He might have answered. Naturally the Pharisees
wanted Him to believe and teach their viewpoint and agree with their traditions on
the matter. But there would be no penalty other than their growing disdain for Him
if Yeshua taught otherwise. And in fact, He did teach otherwise. Yeshua agreed
with Shammai's stricter code for divorce as the standard and not the Pharisees'
more liberal approach.
Christ answers the Pharisees quite reasonable inquiry of His stance about
divorce with the words:
CJB Matthew 19:8 "Moshe allowed you to divorce your wives because your
hearts are so hardened. But this is not how it was at the beginning.
Yeshua is explaining (or better, properly interpreting) the Deuteronomy 24
passage about marriage, divorce, and possible re-marriage. What He says is of
course true, but it hit the Pharisees square in the face (like a cream pie thrown at
them) because He says it is the fault of the hardened hearts of God's people that
a system of divorce is even necessary. So in addition to Jesus saying that He
has adopted the Pharisee's rival's position on divorce, He is also saying that
divorce was only allowed by God due to hardened hearts (sin), and it therefore
makes the Pharisees' position on the matter a result of their own hardened hearts
to allow such liberal use of the Law of divorce.
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
Let me clear something up because grasping the nuances of the Hebrew mindset
is critical in interpreting the New Testament. When the Jews (including Jesus)
say things like "Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because..." the
reference to Moses making the law or commandment was just a colloquial way of
speaking. That is, it was understood that God gave the laws and commands to
Moses and Moses merely wrote them down. There is no implication that it was
Moses who created the laws and commandments. From the time the Law was
given to Moses until His death, Moses was more or less God's scribe and the
supreme earthly Judge presiding over the Law that God gave to Israel. Just as
Christians call the legal section of the Torah the Law of Moses so did the
Hebrews of every age. Thus for Israel the term "The Law of Moses" was often
abbreviated to just "Moses" since Moses was the Mediator.
Verse 9 makes Yeshua's position on divorce unequivocal. Only on account of
sexual immorality... unfaithfulness in the marriage... was divorce legitimate in
God's eyes. He has essentially spoken Shammai's Halakhah on the matter. So
the Pharisees would not have walked away very happy about what Yeshua said.
But His statement then does something that I'm sure upset all the males
listening, just as it might upset many males listening to me right now. If a man
divorces His wife for any reason other than she has been sexually unfaithful to
him, and the man then remarries, the man becomes guilty of adultery. That is a
man who divorces his wife because of her infidelity, and then he remarries, does
so legally and without consequence in God's eyes. By no means does this mean
that divorce still wasn't permitted for other reasons. But all those other reasons
for divorce bring a dire consequence upon the man who divorces his wife and
then remarries: God declares him guilty of adultery. The Hebrews always had a
hard time accepting and obeying this, just as Christians do, because no one
wants to live a lifetime in an unhappy marriage.
Look; we need to grasp that Yeshua was not reading more into Deuteronomy 24
than was there and thus elevating the Law's stance on divorce to a higher and
more rigid level that He favored. Rather, it was because He well understood the
Pharisee's liberalized doctrine on divorce that He used the words and examples
that He did. He wanted to expose that while the Pharisees walked around
claiming to be the righteous upholders of the Law of Moses, in fact they tended to
ignore the Law on the difficult matters often taking the more populist view and
following Tradition instead. They saw themselves as men of the people and so
wanted to make religious rulings... Halakhot...that were more well-liked by the
majority of the common folks. They preferred their Traditions that often stretched
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
and twisted and contorted God's Law like Silly-Putty in order to increase their
status and gain approval of the people. Without apology I can say that the
Church (in general) has followed suit... but of course with our own but different
Traditions that equally distort God's laws and commands or most often simply
throw them all out, wholesale.
Now we can understand why an unnamed one of Christ's disciples, after hearing
this conversation, says that it seems when one understands the severity of the
consequence of divorce, it must be better not to marry at all! Why? Because the
many flexible reasons for divorce that the Pharisees preached (and that the 12
disciples had up to now accepted as the norm), suddenly evaporated. This made
getting married a far more precarious matter because getting out of a marriage a
man no longer wanted was now understood as having serious consequences.
And yet it seems at every turn we are confronted with still another fact of divorce
and marriage. So if one divorces his wife for her adultery, is he actually free to
marry again? While there is an implication that it is, that question is not directly
answered. Various Rabbis and Christian Theologians return different answers.
Looking upon what was no doubt a batch of frowns and perplexed faces Christ
says that not everyone grasps this teaching, only those for whom it is meant.
Translation: this is a very hard teaching and it goes against centuries of Jewish
custom and Tradition. Good luck trying to work against it. But it also is
reminiscent of something Yeshua said back in Matthew chapter 13.
CJBMatthew 13:11 He answered, "Because it has been given to you to know
the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it has not been given to them.
Knowing the secrets to the Kingdom of Heaven are reserved only for the
members of the Kingdom; but that hardly means that every member of the
Kingdom grasps these secrets equally. Like everything else about our faith, it
takes time and experience to mature in it. One cannot expect a new Believer to
know the many mysteries of the Kingdom the way an Elder will. And not every
secret understanding is going to sit well with us; marriage and divorce is one of
these because in many cases it goes against what we want that we think will
make us happier.
Being single was not the norm for an adult Jewish male. And I imagine in some
ways it made Jesus stand out because he was around 30 years old and not
married. So in some ways He is justifying His personal decision NOT to marry.
He lists some reasons (it is certainly not an exhaustive list) why a man might
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
choose not to marry. Some because they just don't want to. Others because they
were, sadly, made into Eunuchs to serve a master. Some did so for religious
reasons, dedicating their lives to their faith, and thus marriage would be both a
personal hindrance and also unfair to a wife. Yeshua repeats that only some to
whom He is speaking will understand this teaching and point of view.
I have no doubt that just like in our time, men of Yeshua's generation looked
around their society, saw the many unhappy marriages, the wreckage of lives
and family (especially of women and children's) that divorce caused, and decided
"no thanks". The more devout no doubt worried that certain temptations would
arise once a man made a marriage commitment to a woman, and that of itself
added some temptations to sin that weren't there before marriage. The difference
between then and now is that Jewish men and women of that day generally didn't
just co-habitate as an alternative; the shame would have been too great. Today,
the number of unmarried couples living together is rising at an alarming rate and
Western society doesn't even blink at it. Since marriage has moved from the
religious realm to the secular and governmental realm, then it has become mostly
a financial issue. Young couples don't want their finances to be affected since in
the Western world it is finances that is at the heart of divorce details (along with
the disposition of the offspring). That is, for many of them in the modern era it is
better to just live together, keep the finances separate, and when one has
decided to move on to greener pastures, it's only a matter of hiring a moving
truck. No commitment, no further damage done. There is no thought of God's
commands and laws on the subject.
Paul had things to say about marriage as well, with one eye towards the specter
of divorce. In 1
st Corinthians 7 we read this.
READ 1CORINTHIANS 7:1 - 16
Since I'm not teaching what Paul said but rather what Matthew and Mark said, we
won't go into every detail of Paul's narrative. I had us read this in order to notice
how complex the matter of marriage and divorce had become later in the
1
st century. Believing in, and following, Yeshua in some ways added to the
complications; yet if we listen to what Yeshua said in Matthew 19 it should only
simplify. The matter of marriage for a Believer can be so fraught with dangers of
sinning that Paul outright says that he wishes every Believing male would be like
him (choosing not to marry). Of course that also assumes celibacy, which our
modern Western cultural says is puritanical if not stupid.
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
OK. I want to embellish a little on this teaching about marriage, divorce, and
monogamy. The expansive subject of marriage, divorce, monogamy, and even
celibacy loomed large in the 1
st century and perhaps even larger now. To
understand the biblical view and Yeshua's view of it, we need to understand what
all of this meant to the Jews of the 1
st century because the context in which it was
taught is how we need to take it. There were numerous viewpoints about these
topics in the 1
st century. I have already mentioned the Pharisees, Hillel and
Shammai and their views but there were others as well such as that of the
Essenes, who, as near as we can tell from the Dead Sea Scroll documents,
allowed no divorce for any reason. So in a kind of Paul-like view (or maybe Paul
had adopted the Essene view) male Essenes usually shunned marriage for the
sake of not sinning, although marriage was by no means outlawed by the
Essenes.
It's so important to realize that the majority of marriages in Jewish society then
were what we might call arranged marriages, and that was because the girl was
usually quite young when it happened. Being only 12 or 13 it was not unusual for
a girl to be betrothed to a man she likely didn't even know, at her father's
decision. Partly this is because money was involved, and at other times one party
in the arrangement might have held a higher social status that would have
allowed the more common family to be elevated into it, if such a marriage could
be arranged. A girl (a maiden, or more common in the Bible vernacular, a virgin)
was transferred from being under the authority of her father immediately to the
authority of her husband. Unless the girl was a much more advanced age, she
had no choice in the matter.
Despite what can seem to us as harsh rules for marriage and divorce, it was
actually mostly for the benefit of the woman. Not until later in time could a woman
divorce a man; it was a one-way street and that's why we see the divorce laws
worded the way they were. It was not if a man displeased a woman that there
was grounds for divorce, it was only if a woman displeased a man. And what
amounted to unfaithfulness in a marriage was quite different for a woman than a
man. Unfaithfulness was expanded for a woman to mean that perhaps she
wasn't a good enough housekeeper to please her husband. Or maybe she was
unable to have children. Or she had some disability that didn't enable her to do
the work or marital duties expected of a wife. None of this applied to a man. If he
was unable to, or unwilling to, perform his marital duties or support the family
then the wife and children suffered with no recourse. If he was abusive, she
couldn't leave him. So the divorce laws were meant to help with this
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
situation. The requirement of the Law for a husband to give his wife a get (a
divorce document) freed her from the control and authority of her husband. Often
this meant giving her the ability to return to her father's household and authority.
In only the rarest of cases could a woman divorce her husband. Divorce was
entirely in the hands of the male. And as much as not, the underlying reason that
women were stuck in a bad marriage was because in the biblical era an
unmarried adult woman not living under her father's roof was likely to be in
poverty because men held down almost all the paying jobs. Divorce could mean
real deprivation for the female.
It is interesting to me how Yeshua clearly veers off from divorce and into the
issue of polygamy versus monogamy. While that isn't all that apparent to us, it
would have been to His Jewish listeners. While we really don't have any strong
evidence one way or the other into how widespread the practice of polygamy was
in His day, the evidence is clear that it existed in Jewish society but probably not
outside the Holy Land. This is because Roman Law generally prohibited it in their
Empire, although they made many exceptions for the former Israelite territories
and the Jewish people. It might surprise some Believers, but the Law of Moses
actually allowed polygamy although it didn't advocate for it.
Exodus chapter 21 of the Torah presents a series of rulings given by God
through Moses. In verse 10 we read:
10 If he marries another wife, he is not to reduce her food, clothing or
marital rights.
So the thought here is a protection for the woman who becomes a man's second
wife; she's not to be provided for less than his first wife. In Deuteronomy we read:
CJB Deuteronomy 21:15-17 15 "If a man has two wives, the one loved and the
other unloved, and both the loved and unloved wives have borne him
children, and if the firstborn son is the child of the unloved wife; 16 then,
when it comes time for him to pass his inheritance on to his sons, he may
not give the inheritance due the firstborn to the son of the loved wife in
place of the son of the unloved one, who is in fact the firstborn. 17 No, he
must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the unloved wife by giving him a
double portion of everything he owns, for he is the firstfruits of his
manhood, and the right of the firstborn is his.
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
So while this passage is structured around a man having 2 wives (one whom he's
happy with the other that he's not), the issue is what about the children each wife
has borne? And what about the firstborn (which were always males) when
conditions change, such as death or divorce? This matter is as critical for the well␂being of the wives as it is for the sons and the other children because if a wife
was either widowed or divorced, her only hope of a decent life lay in the
existence of a son to care for her. My point is that polygamy was not only
tolerated it was planned for. Yet do not think that anywhere in the Torah is
polygamy recommended. Rather it is something that God knew would continue to
exist and so commanded what must be done to protect the women and the
children.
What Bible student doesn't know that the forefather of the entire Hebrew race,
Abraham, had not only multiple wives but also concubines as did his son Isaac
and grandson Jacob after him. King David had multiple wives and yet he was so
very dear to God's heart. So what we must be careful to do with such issues as
marriage, divorce, and polygamy versus monogamy is to separate God's ideal
will from what God in His mercy makes provision for, for the fallen and perverted
human race. In fact, in the Old Testament polygamy most often is related to the
first wife not being able to bear children and even when that's not the case we
read of trouble after trouble, headache after headache that comes from
it... especially from the offspring... with the consequences often bleeding into
future generations.
When we arrive to the 1
st century, polygamy has mostly died out among the
Jews partly due to the Roman influence but also because of the sheer financial
burden of it. Most men simply couldn't afford more than one wife. It is very
interesting that information found within the Dead Sea Scrolls sheds light on this
matter of polygamy during Jesus's day. We learn from it that the Essenes firmly
rejected polygamy. But what is interesting is what they had to say about what the
Pharisees thought about polygamy. Keep in mind that the Essenes and the
Pharisees were, at the least, rivals. Their doctrines were very different because
while the Essenes' goal was to shuck off the centuries of manmade traditions that
now ruled the Jewish faith, and in-so-doing return to something more pure and
much closer to the Law of Moses, the Pharisees embraced those manmade
traditions (and seemed to make more of them nearly daily), taking them farther
and farther away from the Law of Moses. I want to quote this Dead Sea Scrolls
passage to you because it is within this context that it helps us to understand why
Yeshua took the topic of divorce that the Pharisees confronted Him with, and
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
essentially moved it towards an argument for monogamous marriage.
It seems that in the so-called Damascus Documents (which are part of the Dead
Sea Scrolls) the Essenes have two articles of denunciation for the Pharisee␂allowed practice of polygamy, something the Essenes saw as evil and definite
sexual immorality. Here is one them (this is a quote from that ancient document).
"They (the Pharisees) are caught by two snares. By sexual sin, namely
taking two wives in their lives, while the foundation of Creation is male and
female He created them. And those who entered Noah's Ark went in two by
two into the Ark. And of the Prince it is written let him not multiply wives for
himself. And David did not read the sealed book of the Torah, which was in
the Ark of the Covenant, for it was not opened in Israel until the day of the
death of Eleazar and Joshua and the Elders. For their successors worship
the Ashtoreth, and that which was revealed was hidden until Zadok arose,
so David's works were accepted, and God forgave him for them." CD 4:20 - 5:6.
We could spend much time with this passage, but the point is that the Essenes
saw that the Pharisees (who are the "they" in this passage) were caught in a
snare of their own making (their traditions that accepted polygamy). This snare, a
stumbling block, was the sex sin of allowing a man to have 2 wives and, just as
Jesus did in Matthew 19, the Essenes argued their point beginning with the act of
Creation (a time before the Law of Moses came into being) when God created 2
people: a man and a woman. I can't go by without commenting how the Essenes
also found a way to make the polygamist King David innocent on the grounds
that the sealed book (taken to mean Deuteronomy) wasn't available to him
because it was inside the Ark of the Covenant, which he dare not to open, so he
was ignorant of God's ideal of a man having only 1 wife.
The other article of denunciation against polygamy itself (less so directed against
the Pharisees) comes from their interpretation and midrash of Leviticus 18:18.
This same argument against polygamy is used in another of the Dead Sea
Scrolls documents called the Temple Scroll. It goes like this:
CJB Leviticus 18:18 18 You are not to take a woman to be a rival with her
sister and have sexual relations with her while her sister is still alive.
The Essenes interpreted this differently. The Hebrew word used for sister
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Lesson 65 - Matthew 19
is achoth. However it is now known that in the biblical Hebrew of that day
that achoth could be used for meaning a sister or it could mean "other" or
"another" of the female gender. The word sister was often used as meaning a
fellow female Israelite (just like Christians will sometimes refer to a female
Believer as a sister, when in fact no familial relationship is intended).
So, perhaps a better reading of Leviticus 18:18 (that really makes the most
sense) is how the Essenes took it. Please listen carefully.
"And he shall not take another wife, for she alone will be with him all the days of
her life".
What I am telling you is not my opinion but rather it is how the writers of both the
Damascus Document and the Temple Scroll from Christ's day (and some
decades before) took Leviticus 18:18 to mean: it was, for them, a decisive
argument in favor of monogamy. In any case this must be taken as the
background in Matthew to explain why Yeshua sort of oddly devolved into the
issue of marital monogamy since that is not what He was asked about. Rather it
was that He was talking to religious authorities (Pharisees) who accepted
polygamy as Godly and He wanted to use this opportunity to straighten them out.
Christ was a pragmatist; not an idealist. He dealt with the real issues of His time;
not a series of hypothetical ones. It's when we lift Him out of that pragmatic
approach, and out of His Jewishness, that Christian teachers regularly spiritualize
what He says and so His teachings become a maze of allegorical sermons with
different outcomes.
We're not quite finished with the issues of marriage, divorce, celibacy, and
monogamy yet, so that is what we'll continue with next week.
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 66, Chapter 19 Continued
Marriage, divorce, polygamy versus monogamy, and celibacy... these were all
important issues in Yeshua's time, and remain so in the modern era. While
polygamy in the Western developed world is found only in smallish and offbeat
remnants of our societies and so is rarely even a topic of discussion in the
Church or within secular governments, in the 1
st century, it was still a somewhat
unsettled part of the marriage discussion among Jews. As I showed you last
week, the Pharisees generally allowed for polygamy even though its practice only
occurred sporadically within a small fraction of the Jewish population and
interestingly, was something nearly exclusive to the Holy Land Jews; there is no
evidence that it was practiced in the Jewish Diaspora, no doubt because of the
heavy-handed Roman influence that was anti-polygamy.
Therefore in the Gospel of Matthew we find Yeshua planting (or perhaps re␂planting) a stake in the ground for monogamy as God's marriage standard. He
did this when in verse 3 of Matthew chapter 19, some Pharisees (who accepted
polygamy) asked Him a question about divorce. The question was not if divorce
was legal or acceptable to God (and since it was the Pharisees asking the
question they were thinking in terms of Jewish Law, Halakhah), but rather the
question revolved around what the proper grounds for divorce are. Christ
answers by taking the tact that the issue was settled at Creation (long before
there was such a thing as a Hebrew race, a Law of Moses, or Halakhah), at the
moment when God formed the first man and first woman as the first couple. He
combined with that God's command in the Genesis account that a man and a
women are to leave their parents, become one flesh, and remain that way their
entire lives. It is not directly said, but Jesus's instruction clearly imputes
monogamy among humans since it is illogical that 1 male and 2 or more females
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
could unite and become a single flesh. That is, in order to satisfy the command to
become one flesh would mean that the not only the male becomes one flesh with
2 (or more) women, but also that the 2 (or more) women would become one flesh
with one another. From a God-standpoint of marriage being a uniting of male and
female that creates one flesh, such a polygamous marriage is an oxymoron.
Therefore the practice of polygamy is wrong, and probably can't even be
technically thought of as true and pure marriage, even though throughout history
among the Hebrews it is clear that God tolerated it, just as He tolerated divorce.
Although I made this point last week, it is too important to not address again for
God's people of the 21st century. There was no such thing as * marriage within
Jewish society in Yeshua's era. There were in ancient times some rare ritualistic
and informal same-sex unions that occurred, usually privately and hidden, and
always with perverted and demented people such as Nero who thought
themselves as gods or demigods who didn't have to play within the normal
bounds of humanity. But these so-called marriages did not occur within the
religious realm so far as my research has shown. Such a thing wasn't
contemplated within any societal norm because marriage was something that
was handled exclusively in the religious realm and because perhaps the primary
purpose of marriage was to produce offspring both for the purpose of the family
economy and to carry on the family name. So when we look at the Jewish faith,
of course, the uniting of 2 men or 2 women in marriage wasn't anywhere on their
radar nor do we ever read of it in the Bible or even extra-biblical Jewish
documents. Such a publicly recognized concept as a legitimized * marriage is
only a late 20th century phenomena, and even that is generally only in the bubble
of Western culture. So to make myself clear: God teaches in His Word, Jesus
affirms, and Seed of Abraham Ministries obeys and firmly advocates, that
marriage is an institution of a union between 1 man and 1 woman.
Of course, such a thing as * marriage did not originate within the Church; it
came about because civil governments have intervened and taken marriage out
of its formerly exclusive religious realm and put it into the secular civil law realm.
In other words, in the West marriage was stolen away and put into the political
sphere of control and thus politicians can now define and redefine marriage at
their will and for their own political benefit.
In response to what all Believers ought to see as an outrage, inexplicably some
Christian denominations have actually taken it upon themselves to accept and
embrace the civil and political concept of * marriage, retool the holy concept of
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
marriage, add to it an aura of heavenly legitimacy, and bring it into the body of
Christ as acceptable (even admirable). Large denominations such as the
Presbyterians and the Methodists have adopted * marriage (these are not the
only ones to do so). It has resulted in that part of those denominations (and
others) having to split off from the main body, further fracturing an already
fragmented Christian Church, to maintain the sanctity of marriage as the God
ordained platform of 1 man united with 1 woman. Make no mistake: marriage has
become Satan's playground in a way no Jew could have imagined in Christ's era.
Even though it was also Satan's playground then, it expressed itself in different
ways such as through rampant divorce and the acceptance of polygamy (even
though as with * marriage today, polygamy only happened infrequently in
Jewish society as compared to the norm of monogamy).
Now we get to the matter of divorce. Before we talk about that, let's re-read a
portion of Matthew 19.
RE-READ MATTHEW 19:1-12
Christ doesn't disagree with the Pharisees that divorce is legal both from a
biblical and a Jewish Tradition standpoint and that a bill of divorce to protect the
woman and the children is to be part of the sad procedure. However, Yeshua
explains that because of how it was "at the beginning" between a man and a
woman (meaning at Creation) then there is only one acceptable grounds for a
divorce: marital unfaithfulness. In the Greek manuscripts the word for this kind of
unfaithfulness is porneia, and it literally means illicit sexual activity outside the
sanctity of the marriage union. Interestingly the word was also used as a
metaphor within the Jewish community for worshipping idols because to worship
idols is to be unfaithful in the union between the Hebrew people and God.
However we find that some Hebrew religious leaders early on in Hebrew and
Israelite history, redefined this marital unfaithfulness to extend beyond only actual
illicit sexual activity (adultery) and into the realm of a woman not pleasing her
husband in some manner, and the source of this displeasure was left up to the
husband. Therefore in 1
st century (and earlier) Jewish society, divorce could only
be enacted by the husband and for nearly any reason that he claimed. This was
more or less the way the Pharisees, and therefore the Synagogue, taught about
divorce. Thus divorce had become quite the frivolous thing in parts of Jewish
society. It was thought that fornication outside of marriage was the lesser sin than
adultery, so often it was merely a man divorcing his wife only briefly in order to
have a fling with another woman, only to remarry the wife he had divorced in a
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
few weeks. So as we ponder all that Christ had to say to His 12 Jewish disciples
about marriage, divorce, and monogamy, keep this background in mind.
This is one of those Bible passages that I spoke about last week in which there is
disagreement between Matthew and Mark. In Mark 10 we read:
CJB Mark 10:12 and if a wife divorces her husband and marries another
man, she too commits adultery." So here Mark speaks of a wife initiating a divorce. A wife divorcing her husband
was simply not part of normal Jewish culture in the 1st century. I suspect that we
find such a concept in Mark because his Gospel was written for a gentile
audience while Matthew's Gospel was intended for a Jewish audience. Therefore
Matthew sets the scene as Yeshua attempting to reset the guidelines for divorce
to what was God-ordained (as He put it) "from the beginning"... at the time of
Creation. This would have not only upset the Pharisees (although we don't read
of any response from them) it had a pretty unnerving effect on the 12 disciples.
So here's 2 things to take from this: first, I have been describing the context and
cultural backdrop from which the question of divorce was asked of Yeshua, and
therefore the context of His response. Second, no matter how we in the
21st century might attempt to turn it to our favor, sexual infidelity... adultery... is
the ONLY acceptable grounds for divorce according to Christ. It is true that Paul
in 1Corinthians 7 adds as a second legitimate reason for divorce as
abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. Therefore it is a great sin to divorce for
any other reason. That said, forgiveness and restoration are possible for those
who do divorce for other reasons... at least for those who trust in Christ and
sincerely repent.
So how about the woman that divorces her husband due to his violent physical
abuse? Nothing like this is contemplated in the Bible, so what I'm about to tell
you is only my opinion and not a command of God. We live in fallen, ever␂darkening world. Violent domestic abuse ought not to exist... but it does. In God's
Word we find that the value of life trumps nearly everything. Even in the Sabbath
observance commandment we find in both Old and New Testaments examples of
a person working to save a life on the Sabbath as the right thing to do... even the
life of an animal. Thus for me, if a wife is being violently abused and has to leave
her husband to literally save her own life and very likely that of her children as
well, then it is warranted. I've heard too many stories of Christian women staying
with their physically abusive husbands thinking it is their duty in order to please
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
God, and even of some Pastors counseling wives to remain in physically abusive
marriages otherwise they become great sinners.
Certainly God hates divorce no matter the cause. But that doesn't mean He hates
the divorcee. He laid down rules to deal with the very thing He hates, and this
because He better than anyone understands humanity's fallen nature and the
terrible consequences it produces. So out of His great mercy, under very narrow
circumstances, He permits a way out. The bigger problem lies in that as with the
Pharisaical Traditions, almost any kind of unhappiness between spouses became
the grounds for divorce. Today the term to make divorce easy is irreconcilable
differences. I'll say it loud and clear: irreconcilable differences...whatever those
differences might be... may be a civil legal reason acceptable to secular society
but it is not a fine reason for Believers to divorce. With that said, we have a much
more complex society today that in no way operates as it was in biblical
times. The way our family economies work is very different, and the way people
are cared for is very different. This doesn't excuse the sin of divorce outside of
the reason Christ gave and perhaps the one that Paul gave. And yet divorce is
not, and does not have to be, the end of our relationship with God. Let's move on
to celibacy and singleness.
Christ's disciples respond to his teaching on divorce and monogamy in verse 10
by essentially saying that to play within those rules makes marriage too hard,
because it makes divorce too hard. The disciples' response frankly exposes them
as the spiritual infants that they remain to be, but also it highlights the attitude
about marriage and divorce of the male segment of Jewish society in general.
The disciples completely contort Yeshua's instruction to make it as though His
exhortation of monogamy is a promotion of singleness and celibacy. Because
every one of the disciples is a product of the Synagogue (and therefore of the
Traditions of the Pharisees) then they hold to a view that (as a result of Yeshua's
new teaching) that a lifetime of commitment to only 1 woman is more trouble than
it's worth, and it opens oneself up to sinning in more serious ways, than if they
didn't marry at all. To that Jesus responds in a rather understanding way: "Not
everyone grasps this teaching, only those for whom it is meant". I suspect He
displays an acceptance to the disciples' attitude on marriage versus singleness
because He Himself has chosen to remain unmarried and celibate. But we must
take His meaning in light of what comes next when He talks about reasons that
men may indeed rightly choose to remain single (men had as much responsibility
to be fruitful and multiply as did women). And He speaks about this subject using
the term "Eunuch" in 3 different cases (this is somewhat hidden in the CJB). The
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
Greek word for the English "Eunuch" is eunouchos. It means castrated males or
abstinence (celibacy) by choice. The fundamental sense of the word is that for
whatever reason a male isn't able to (or chooses not to) have sexual intimacy
with a wife, and it also includes the sense that he cannot or will not help to
produce children. The KJV has it translated the most literally.
KJV Matthew 19:12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from
their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made
eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let
him receive it.
We find in this difficult verse 3 types of Eunuchs, each meaning well understood
in 1
st-century Jewish society.
The first type of Eunuch is in Hebrew seris hamma, which in the literal sense is
Eunuch of the sun. What it means as a phrase is, from the first seeing of the sun.
In other words, since birth. So this means that something is either wrong with the
male's reproductive system that was thought to have been from birth, going so
far as to not even having been born with the proper genitalia. And while in
modern times very often such medical issues can be resolved, in those days it
couldn't.
The second type of Eunuch is in Hebrew seris adam. It literally means Eunuch of
man. In other words, this is a male who has been castrated by another male. This
type could include a male that had a medical issue occur later in life or even is a
case of having his genitals damaged in an accident or in battle such that
reproduction was no longer possible.
The third type of Eunuch does not have a specific Hebrew word or phrase for it
(at least not one I know about), but rather it is only described. It is a man who has
a fully functional reproduction system and normal desires. Yet for religious
reasons chooses to remain celibate and therefore to not marry. In the case of
Believers that Christ is talking about they, like He, are doing it for the sake of the
Kingdom of Heaven. Let me be clear: this is NOT about being extra pure. It is
about making a personal sacrifice in order to be devoted, full time, to do a work
or ministry in which it would be unfair to a wife. Perhaps it involves being
permanently itinerant, or has a severe element of danger, or is going to be so
time consuming that the proper demands of marriage and family cannot be met.
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
Yet these men are so committed to something greater than their own normal and
healthy personal needs and desires that they are willing to forego them that they
might obtain a different kind of joy from serving God and His Kingdom.
What Christ is saying (I'll use Christian-eze) is that such a decision must be a
special divine calling. This is those that He says "can grasp this". The word
"grasp" sort of misses the point. A better English word is to "accept" it in the
sense of being prepared by the Holy Spirit to accept and act on behalf of the
Kingdom as a calling and purpose in life, by choosing to be single for the reason
of any of these 3 types of Eunuchs. So from the viewpoint of the disciples' rather
poor response to Yeshua's teaching on marriage and divorce as a devotion to 1
woman for a lifetime, and their reply that it is easier to remain single, Yeshua is
saying no to that thought. In fact, He is saying that to be like Him...single by
choice, like that 3
rd type of Eunuch... is the harder choice than marital fidelity to
one woman. Celibacy and singleness is a good choice, but in no way is it
somehow better than a choice of marriage. It is a choice only for some and must
be based on a divine calling; few men ought to make it. And Paul tells us why few
men are mentally and emotionally equipped to make that choice and stick with it.
CJB 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 7 Actually, I wish everyone were like me; but each
has his own gift from God, one this, another that. 8 Now to the single people
and the widows I say that it is fine if they remain unmarried like me; 9 but if
they can't exercise self-control, they should get married; because it is
better to get married than to keep burning with sexual desire.
So, yes; choosing to remain single brings with it its own set of challenges and
temptations that include a possibility of committing a sex sin of a different nature
than the kind that marriage brings with it. Bottom line: marriage and singleness
are equally valid and good in God's eyes. It's a personal choice.
Verse 13 shifts gears. Some children were brought to Yeshua so that He might
lay hands on them and pray over them. What this is really getting at in a round␂about way is to lay hands on them and to pronounce a blessing over them. But
the 12 Disciples are still off on a wrong track and almost seem to have forgotten
what their Master has just taught them about showing respect for little children,
their value to God, even displaying the kind of humility that small children display.
So when the children come, the disciples try to shoo them away. Christ again
rebukes them for it. Let's re-read the remainder of Matthew 19.
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 19:13 - end
Before we get too tough on the 12 Disciples, remember that these were men.
Especially in this era children were the responsibility of women. Men usually
didn't have much to do with children until they neared the age of adulthood (13
years old). If the Disciples had been women, this lesson about children would
never have had to have been taught, since women tend to be natural nurturers of
children. For the Disciples the children didn't even belong around them and
Jesus as they discussed important adult matters. But Christ challenged their view
with something that wasn't the norm for the Middle East.
It is interesting to me that Mark characterizes the ritual of Christ laying hands on
the children and blessing them as:
CJB Mark 10:13 13 People were bringing children to him so that he might
touch them, but the talmidim rebuked those people.
"That He might touch them" tells me that Mark didn't really understand this
Jewish ritual Tradition because obviously, the issue is not that people wanted
Jesus to merely touch their children, it's that He would bless them in the
customary Jewish way.
Now, interestingly enough, verses 13 and 14 have been used by Catholic and
other Christian denominations as one of the basis for infant baptism. I find that a
rather major stretch, as this passage not only has nothing to do with immersion, it
also doesn't have anything to do with infants.
So what did Christ mean in verse 14 when He said that the Kingdom of Heaven
belongs to such as these, referring to these children? Mark adds:
CJB Mark 10:15 Yes! I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of
God like a child will not enter it!"
This has puzzled many Bible scholars. My opinion is that this refers back to
Chapter 18 about the disciples' argument over who is greatest in the Kingdom,
and then Jesus used some little children to teach and answer the disciples'
question. The point is this: in the Kingdom, earthly ways are going to be
reversed. In the Kingdom, the greatest will be the least, and the least the
greatest. The greatest and least are referring to social status usually attained
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
through material wealth or family name since wealth and family name were
perhaps the primary determiners of status. Since little children held the least
status, and yet they are humble, they make for a good metaphor to explain not
just who gets into the Kingdom of Heaven but also by what standard does one
attain Kingdom societal status. Those who will hold the greatest social status in
the Kingdom of Heaven will be the most humble. Those with the least social
status in the Kingdom will be the least humble. Money and family name simply
doesn't matter. This lesson about status reversal continues with the story of the
rich man wanting eternal life.
Verse 16 begins with the words: "A man approached Yeshua...". We don't learn
until later that this was a rich man so he held great social status. It is good to
remember that wealth, status, and the Kingdom of Heaven were central themes
to the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore what happens concerning the rich man is
an actual case example of a remark from Yeshua that He taught during that
Sermon, which we find in Matthew chapter 6.
CJBMatthew 6:24 No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate
the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first.
You can't be a slave to both God and money.
Further, we cannot help but see that Jesus goes on to use the 10
Commandments (which is the preamble to the Law of Moses) as a way to
continue highlighting the central importance and relevance of the Torah and our
obedience to it. And, as a good observant Jew, the rich man wanted to know
what good thing (probably meaning good deed, or in Hebrew what mitzvah) that
he ought to do to get eternal life. I find it interesting not so much as the query
itself about what particular thing should he do, but rather with the goal of it in his
mind: attaining eternal life. We simply don't find the words "eternal life" in
the Tanakh, the Old Testament. The only place we find that thought is in the New
Testament. As a matter of fact, the first time we hear of it is in the previous
chapter of Matthew. And since there was no New Testament yet, how are we to
take what the rich man was thinking when he said he seeks eternal life by doing
some kind of deed or work?
Therefore whoever this fellow was, he had to have been part of the crowd over in
the Galilee who heard Jesus use the term "eternal life" that we find in Matthew
18:8. This man was so taken by Christ's teaching that he then followed Jesus to
the border of Judea.
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
CJBMatthew 18:8 "So if your hand or foot becomes a snare for you, cut it off
and throw it away! Better that you should be maimed or crippled and
obtain eternal life than keep both hands or both feet and be thrown into
everlasting fire!
I imagine that the rich man didn't really know what eternal life meant because
those words were new with Yeshua; but it sure sounded like something anyone
would want. Does eternal life mean that a person lives forever in their current
bodies and therefore in their current social status? Or is it that some essence of
themselves that lives forever? Is it reincarnation? Where do you live eternally? It
was common in that era (less so among Jews) to be buried with some of their
wealth in hopes of aiding in having a pleasant afterlife. Of course, whether there
even was an afterlife was an unsettled matter and provided a never-ending
debate topic among the Jewish intellectuals. Jesus threw everyone a curveball
with this eternal life thing, and I doubt anyone knew what He meant by it. Since
for Jesus's Jewish listeners the Kingdom of Heaven was thought of as a
concrete, tangible earthly Kingdom that Jews would live in... mainly as a restored
and exalted Israel... I have no doubt that this young man figured he'd just be
taking his wealth and social advantages with him. So for him the issue was, what
is the good thing he needed to perform for access to the Kingdom so that he
could continue his wealthy life forever?
Although in the CJB the rich man walks up to Yeshua and calls Him Rabbi, in
other Bible versions it is Teacher. Either way, the point is that this rich man sees
Christ as a very wise Teacher, but not a Savior. Not as a Messiah. Yeshua sort of
chastises the man when He says: "Why are you asking me about good... there is
only One that is good". I can't imagine that Jesus didn't understand the intent of
the man's question. The obvious subject is good deeds, not the source of
goodness (which Yeshua says is God). So various scholars have various ideas
about what Christ was getting at with that remark. For me, it's a head-scratcher
and I really don't want to speculate because I'm not sure how it adds to the
teaching. What comes next, however, throws the mother of all monkey wrenches
into what is a nearly universal Church doctrine. Yeshua says if you want to obtain
eternal life, then obey the commandments (obviously He means the 10
commandments). Whoa! Christian doctrine is that we pray the sinners prayer and
then go live our lives without regard to anything that comes before the New
Testament. Since the rich man knows that there are many commandments (not
just the 10 Commandments), He asks the rather absurd question "which ones?"
as though only some of the commandments really mattered. Yeshua comes back
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
with don't murder or commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie and he should honor
his parents.
I need to pause to tell you something that is a pet peeve of mine to the point of
distraction because I find the same or similar comments in so many Christian
commentaries on this passage. I'll quote to you what Ben Witherington III said as
representative of the concept so many other commentators also profess.
"Jesus lists some of the commandments... prohibitions against murder,
adultery, theft, and false testimony, and on the positive side honoring one's
parents and loving one's neighbor as oneself. It is perhaps most significant
what He does not list....namely the Sabbath commandment. This deliberate
omission may reflect Jesus's view that... keeping a particular day as the
Sabbath was no longer obligatory..."
Long ago I would have found such a thought as bizarre and certainly not
widespread; but it is all too common among academic Christian commentators. It
simply doesn't matter what the New Testament says, their conclusion is that
Jesus abolished the Torah and the Law of Moses and everything else prior to the
New Testament along with it... including of course the dreaded
Sabbath...because that is 1800 year old gentile Roman Church doctrine. The
reflection of deep-seated Christian traditions that are so steeped in anti-Semitism
that the typical academic or layperson is blinded to their own prejudice, causes
these otherwise intelligent people to at times say the most outlandish, forehead␂slapping, things.
So in other words, if Christ didn't utter every single commandment in the Torah to
the rich man, then He must have intended to communicate that the Shabbat was
abolished? Jesus also didn't say to the rich man the commandment that we are
not to worship other gods. So I suppose following Professor Witherington's logic
that can only mean that Yeshua just gave His approval for us worshipping other
gods. He also didn't quote God's command that we are not to make graven
images nor to take God's name in vain. Good news! Jesus says that now we can
swear like a sailor and make all the little wooden idols we want to! What do you
see that is the common theme behind the commandments Yeshua listed? It is
that these all involve human to human relationships (loving your neighbor),
sometimes called The Second Tablet, and not human to God relationships,
sometimes called The First Tablet. These are the commandments that are about
loving our fellow man. The Sabbath is about our relationship with God. The rich
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Lesson 66 - Matthew 19 cont
man asked about good deeds, so Yeshua responded with a list of good deeds
taken directly from the Torah and the Law of Moses.
The rich man replies that he already obeys those commandments (at least he
must think that he does). So where might he fall short (of doing enough to obtain
eternal life), he asks? Yeshua says if he is really serious then the rich man
should sell all his wealth and distribute it among the poor people. It is an
exchange of riches on earth for riches in Heaven. After that, the rich man should
follow Christ. But when the rich man heard this he became sad, turned, and
walked away. To best understand what happened here we must keep in mind
that the issue revolved around good deeds as the key to eternal life (whatever
eternal life meant to the rich man). Good deeds and obeying the Law of Moses
were seen as the measurements of a person's righteousness. And since doing
good deeds was the standard that the rich man was assuming was needed for
membership in the Kingdom, then Yeshua says essentially that if the man wanted
to enter by that means and standard, then he had to be perfect in those good
deeds by divesting himself of all earthly treasure and distributing it to the poor;
something the rich man was not prepared to do
We'll finish up this teaching and the remainder of chapter 19 next time, and begin
chapter 20.
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 67, Chapters 19 and 20
In Matthew chapter 19 we find the story of the rich man who asked Yeshua how
he could obtain eternal life. We find this same story in Mark and Luke as well,
with only minor differences. Let's re-read it.
RE-READ MATTHEW 19:16-22
Now turn your Bibles just a few pages to Mark chapter 10 and we'll read Mark's
version.
READ MARK 10:17 -22
Luke's version is nearly word for word of Mark's so we won't go to the Gospel of
Luke. Mark adds an element of emotion that isn't there in Matthew ("Yeshua
looking at him felt love for him...") but otherwise is nearly the same. We
discussed this story last week and will complete it today, so I'll briefly review.
To a modern Christian when we read the words "what must I do to obtain eternal
life" we have a definite idea of what that means because our Church doctrines
have taught us to think in that way. Generally, it means that by placing our trust in
Jesus as Lord and Savior, after our physical death our souls and at some point
our transformed bodies will have a pleasant eternal afterlife living in perfect
harmony with God (and this, of course, is true). We must be careful, however, not
to read that doctrinal understanding back into this passage because that cannot
be what this young man who approached Yeshua was thinking. For one reason,
the knowledge that Yeshua is the Messiah was at this moment a closely guarded
secret among the 12 Disciples at the order of their Master. For another, the idea
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
that Yeshua would go to the cross, and in His death atonement for them would
be made, and this would lead to eternal life in God's presence, was nowhere yet
presented nor was it present in mainstream Jewish tradition. In fact, there's no
evidence that at this point this is what the 12 Disciples were thinking about the
outcome of their Master being the Messiah. Thus this rich young man had to
have been thinking in different terms, perhaps along the lines of some undefined
means of living beyond a normal life span that also involved taking his wealth and
status with him. So he was merely seeking an answer to a burning question from
a wise holy man; it was not that he considered that in some way Jesus would be
the facilitator or be part of this man's eternal life.
So, Yeshua answers the man's question in a rather straightforward way, well
within the Jewish context and way of thinking of the times, by telling him to obey
the commandments of the Torah. He specifically names the commandments of
the second tablet; that is the commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai that
had to do with interpersonal human relationships. While not included in Matthew's
Gospel, Mark's and Luke's say that the young man responded that he had
obeyed these commandments since he was a boy, inferring that even before the
age of accountability he was Torah observant to a fault (at least he was in his
own mind). Since the young man believed that he had kept the commandments
perfectly, then he asks what else he must do and Yeshua answers that he should
sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor.
The thing is, in Jewish culture almsgiving (charity) was considered to be a high
virtue, and the wealthy were expected to be very visible alms givers. In a sense
by giving alms then this was seen as an act of generosity that made it OK
(righteous) for a man to be wealthy in the midst of so many impoverished people.
So Yeshua sort of raised the bar on that Jewish Tradition by saying that if the
man was going to pursue eternal life through perfect obedience to the
commandments then to love his neighbor perfectly meant to sell his wealth and
give it all to the needy. But there's another sense we need to view this statement
that doesn't try to find a way around what is obvious: the man asked how to
obtain eternal life and Jesus essentially says he should obey The Law of Moses.
If that doesn't startle you a little, then you're not paying attention. The first part of
obtaining eternal life, according to Christ, was obeying The Law and specifically
doing good deeds in accordance with the 10 Commandments (the dreaded
"working your way to Heaven" scenario that is so off-putting to evangelical
Christianity). Even when Yeshua continues that to more perfectly obey the
commandments in the spirit intended the rich man should give away everything
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
he has accumulated, this still amounts to works and deeds to gain eternal life.
What gives?
Well, if we stopped here, this would indeed be confusing. Where does God's free
grace enter into the equation? It comes only when Yeshua finishes His
conversation with the words: "then come and follow Me". As much as Christian
doctrine implies that Christ's ONLY response to the rich man inquiring about
eternal life (that we should pay any attention to) was "follow Me", that isn't at all
what He said about it, is it? So there are 2 parts to gaining eternal life in Christ's
response to the rich man. Not either/or, but both. First: obey the Commandments
of God... especially in the doing of good deeds... and second: follow Christ. All
the New Testament writers wrote, and Yeshua taught, in the context of obeying
the Law of Moses as the necessary beginning of the route to eternal life; but it
was not the completion of it. Christ was that completion. The most prominent
branches of the Church have for centuries separated those two requirements
Yeshua has just laid out for eternal life, and then discarding the first... obeying
the Law. The doctrine became that ONLY following Christ is how we obtain
eternal life with God, and if we include works and obedience to the Law as part of
that requirement it makes us "legalists" who are trying to "work our way to
Heaven". The irony is that following Christ includes obedience to the Torah as He
clearly stated in Matthew 5:17 - 19 and again here in Matthew 19:17. The New
Testament writers urge us to understand that doing what the Torah says to
do...taking concrete action, doing good works and deeds... is mandatory for
Yehoveh worshippers.
Paul writes often about this subject but probably Romans 2 and 3 are his most
detailed. I urge you to fully read those 2 chapters and also to go to
TorahClass.com for the Romans study. But here are just a couple of verses to
ponder.
CJB Romans 2:7-8 7 To those who seek glory, honor and immortality by
perseverance in doing good, he will pay back eternal life. 8 But to those who
are self-seeking, who disobey the truth and obey evil, he will pay back
wrath and anger.
CJB Romans 2:13 13 For it is not merely the hearers of Torah whom God
considers righteous; rather, it is the doers of what Torah says who will be
made righteous in God's sight
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
The King James Version puts it this way:
KJVRomans 2:13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the
doers of the law shall be justified).
Jesus's biological brother James also speaks on the subject.
CJB James 2:17-20 17 Thus, faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is
dead. 18 But someone will say that you have faith and I have actions. Show
me this faith of yours without the actions, and I will show you my faith by
my actions! 19 You believe that "God is one"? Good for you! The demons
believe it too- the thought makes them shudder with fear! 20 But, foolish
fellow, do you want to be shown that such "faith" apart from actions is
barren?
CJB James 2:24 24 You see that a person is declared righteous because of
actions and not because of faith alone.
These New Testament authors are teaching what Yeshua was teaching the rich
man. Good works from following the Law are important and the inauguration of
one's faith journey; but following Him was the necessary culmination of the road
to eternal life. One apart from the other is incomplete.
The rich man in our story did the first requirement but in denying Christ erected a
road block to eternal life. Christ told him to first sell his wealth and give it to the
poor; and then to follow Him. The rich man could not bring himself to give
wholehearted obedience to Jesus because of what it meant he would have to
give up: his material wealth. So does this mean that people that have more than
they need are to give it away? Is wealth itself a sign of not following Christ? Have
we encountered a command of Christ for all of His followers to take vows of
poverty? Is the call a requirement to renounce the material in order to take up the
cross? Countless have taken it this way including many Early Church Fathers
such as Origen, Cyprian, and of sainted folks such as Francis of Assisi. Although
the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls didn't do so to follow Christ, they did
disavow material possessions and share all that they had. Yet by no means are
we to take Yeshua's conversation with this one wealthy man as an all␂encompassing proverb about wealth. Clearly, Yeshua knew that the obstacle that
stood between this particular rich man and true eternal life was his familiar and
secure wealth. Most of us that have said "yes" to Christ had some sort of
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
obstacle that we had to overcome, or perhaps give up, and it will be that way for
nearly everyone who has yet to accept God's great gift to us. Perhaps it is
wealth, but more often it is something else.
Even so, then as now material possessions (and especially if one
has great wealth) can be a serious obstacle to our faith, often not only because
of the false security it seems to bring us but to the high cost we paid to obtain it
and continue to pay to maintain it. Open your Bibles again and we'll re-read the
remainder of Matthew chapter 19.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 19:23 - end
So in reference to the rich man's decision NOT to follow Christ because it would
have meant giving up his wealth, Yeshua turns to His disciples and gives them a
saying that we've all heard countless times: "I tell you that it is easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of
God". First, let me dispel a belief that I had taught as true up until a few years
ago but have since learned otherwise: that there was a small gate in the wall of
Jerusalem called The Eye of the Needle where folks could enter after dark, and
this is what Jesus was referring to. It turns out that, after much investigation,
there is no good basis for such a belief. There is no ancient literature (Jewish or
otherwise) that mentions it and no physical or archeological evidence to support
it. There is no long-held Jewish tradition about such a gate. Rather it is meant
similarly to Yeshua's comment that faith as small as a mustard seed can move
mountains. It is a metaphor whereby the tiniest is compared to the largest. That
is, a camel was the largest land animal indigenous to the Middle East, and of
course, the eye of a sewing needle was extremely small by design. So, says
Yeshua, for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven was as difficult as the
largest land animal to pass through the tiny hole of a needle... it was a
memorable absurdity. But what was His point? All Yeshua is doing is
summarizing to His disciples the outcome of the conversation He just had with
the rich man who walked away; a conversation the disciples had witnessed. The
wealthy are more likely to cling to their wealth than to trust in Yeshua and the
unknown journey such trust brings with it. But please notice: Yeshua was
speaking about degree of difficulty; not that wealth of itself barred a man from the
Kingdom nor that no wealthy man would ever be able to trust in Him.
The astonished disciples exclaim: "then who can be saved"? Here's the picture
that is being drawn. The wealthy were the privileged and of course held the
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
highest societal status. They were catered to, bowed down to, and given the best
seats at banquets and even in the Synagogues. This was the Jewish aristocracy
whereby the aristocrats were above all others, and the poor mainly existed to
serve them. So if a wealthy aristocrat can only rarely find a way into the Kingdom,
"who can?", thought the disciples. Jewish Tradition was that abundance and
wealth was an unmistakable sign of divine favor. Deuteronomy 28 seems to
teach that abundance was indeed a sign of Heavenly blessing.
CJB Deuteronomy 28:1 "If you listen closely to what ADONAl your God says,
observing and obeying all his mitzvot which I am giving you today, ADONAI
your God will raise you high above all the nations on earth; 2 and all the
following blessings will be yours in abundance- if you will do what ADONAI
your God says:
And the next 12 verses go on to list the incredible blessings of abundance that
God will bestow on those who obey Him. So then if it was nearly impossible for a
rich man who was blessed by God to be saved, how could a poor person who
didn't enjoy such a position with God have any hope whatsoever? To which
Yeshua at first validates their fear. He says: humanly this is impossible.
Remember: Yeshua's response at the moment is not if a rich man can enter the
Kingdom, but rather the disciples' thought of "then who can ?" Obviously, they
were thinking about their own ability to have eternal life. And to paraphrase, His
answer is: no one. Yet there is hope. Jesus concludes that thought with: but with
God everything is possible. Let me be clear: Christ is not saying that God's
attribute of omnipotence somehow assures all Jews, or all humans for that
matter, of salvation.
Here we encounter the word "saved". The Greek is sozo. It means to be rescued
from destruction or to be kept safe. But again, do not read into the disciple's
words the standard Christian meaning that to be saved means to have our sins
forgiven (which of course is true). By no means were the Disciples thinking in
those terms. For them, the Kingdom of Heaven was a place of safety and
security on earth, and so they wanted in... badly. For them, that was salvation.
And since Yeshua had just told the rich man to divest himself of everything as a
prerequisite to entering the Kingdom (which was also in some undefined way
connected to eternal life), then Peter asks: "if we who have left everything (as you
just instructed) and followed you (the very thing the rich man refused to do), then
what will we have?" That is, what is the outcome of our allegiance to Yeshua?
What is our reward for going all-in? Yeshua goes on to answer employing an End
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
Times scenario by bringing in Daniel's Son of Man sitting on His throne.
I cannot say it strongly enough. Yeshua is now projecting something well into
their future whether the disciples understood that or not. And from His teaching
perhaps we can learn something about the order of End Times events. He says
that when He sits on His throne it will be in age of a regenerated (a re-created)
world, and at that same time the 12 disciples will also sit on their thrones as
judges over the tribes of Israel. This means "judges" in the sense of the Judges
of old as a ruling class, not judging in the sense of declaring people guilty and
condemning them. Therefore this likely is not speaking about something that
happens even in the era of the Millennial Kingdom but rather what follows when
the earth is destroyed and re-created.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there. 2 Also I saw the holy city, New Yerushalayim, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband. 3 1heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's Sh'khinah
is with mankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and he
himself, God-with-them, will be their God.
A few more verses down in Revelation 21 we read of God and Yeshua seated on
thrones, and of the city of Jerusalem having 12 gates each with a name of one of
the 12 tribes upon it. This may be inferring the existence of the 12 disciples as
the 12 judges over the 12 tribes sitting on their thrones as Yeshua has just
promised, since this is taking place inside the Israelite city of Jerusalem.
So the answer Jesus gives to Peter is that the 12 disciples who gave up
everything to follow Yeshua will, in the end, be rewarded with more than is even
imaginable in this present age, on this present earth. Yet Yeshua tempers that by
saying that everyone (not only the 12 disciples) that has left everything and (if
necessary) everyone behind to follow Christ will receive 100 times more (with
"100 times more" being a figure of speech not as a precise number of
multiplication).
Perhaps one the most wondrous things that we as God worshippers, Jesus
followers, and students of the Holy Word ought to take from Christ's promises to
His disciples and to His Jewish followers is that Israel has a future. Even
a glorious future throughout eternity. The Prophets speak of it as well although
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
for 1700 years the Church has said that God has transferred that glorious future
from Israel to the gentile Church. My brothers and sisters, God is not done with
Israel and He has not turned their blessings over to the gentile Church as some
propose. In his Gospel, Matthew sees the Kingdom of Heaven as mainly about 2
things: Messiah Yeshua and the restoration of Israel. In academic terms, the
Gospel of Matthew presents an Israel-centric worldview. The question for us is:
does Matthew see what he has recorded on one level or two? That is, does He
see Jesus and a regenerated Israel as a reborn physical, tangible Golden Era of
Israel with its Jewish King Messiah (another King David) that was the centuries␂old Jewish hope and expectation? Or does Matthew see it as something that
happens well into the future, at the End Times? Or does he see it as both? My
opinion is that Matthew mainly has the traditional Jewish worldview that was
earthbound and Israel-centric, but he was honest and obedient enough to write
down, through divine inspiration, things he didn't understand and couldn't
comprehend in the 1st century. Things that we, today, have a better
understanding of because more time and history have passed.
The final words of this chapter once again foresee one of the interesting
paradigms about the Kingdom of Heaven that Yeshua has been teaching: a
reversal of fortunes. The economic and social dynamics of today will not remain
the same in the Kingdom. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the first in the present age
will be last in the Kingdom and the last in present age will be first in the Kingdom.
Those who enter the Kingdom of Heaven with nothing because they gave it all up
to be there, will be rewarded with the highest status. Those with the most status
on earth (the first) but choose to put their faith in the security of their wealth and
power will be reduced to the last ... in this case, the last will be left on the outside
of the Kingdom, looking in.
Let's move on to chapter 20.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 20 all
The chapter opens with a truly fascinating Parable. And as usual, the Parable is
about trying to explain to the Jewish people listening to Yeshua what the
Kingdom of Heaven is like. So He concocts a purely fictional story to teach them.
Yet fictional or not Parables often dealt in matters of everyday life, as does this
one.
Jesus sets His Parable in the backdrop of agriculture; something familiar that
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everyone following Him around would understand. However for us of the
21st century to understand, I will need to explain some of the nuances that
needed no explanation for His audience because it was common knowledge so it
was left unsaid. A farmer was usually a landowner, and therefore a well-to-do
man (not wealthy necessarily, but certainly something that the majority of Jews
would have strived for). This farmer had a vineyard and it is implied that the
grapes needed to be harvested because he was urgently hiring more workers as
the day went on. Grapes had a very short timeframe to be picked. A day too soon
or a day too late and not only would the yield be lessened but the grape quality
suffered and so didn't bring as good a price at market.
A vineyard was a familiar symbol for Israel that can be found in various places in
the Old Testament such as Isaiah 5 and Jeremiah 12. This would have been
apparent to Christ's followers and so they would have understood that Israel as
the vineyard was at the heart of the Parable.
The farmer went and found some workers around daybreak and offered them a
denarius to harvest his crop. This was the standard wage for a day laborer; it
wasn't considered too little or too much but fair. Around 3 hours later he must
have needed more workers so he went back to the market-square. He saw some
men standing around doing nothing and told them to go to the vineyard. He didn't
say how much he'd pay... only that it would be fair. At this point, any listener
would think that it would be a bit less than the denarius he was paying the first
group because the 2
nd group would be working fewer hours. 3 more hours pass
and the farmer repeats the process, and then does it yet again in mid-afternoon.
Finally, with only an hour of daylight left for harvesting, he goes yet again to the
market-square, finds more men that had been standing around all day doing
nothing, and says essentially "why aren't you working?" They answered "because
no one hired us". So he hires them and sends them out to his vineyard.
For a 21st century reader, some of the description about the men standing around
doing nothing makes it sound as if they are lazy, not too interested in working,
and had to be sort of coaxed to go to the farmer's vineyard; but that is not the
case. Farmers didn't have full-time crews of men to work for them, and the
average common laborer didn't have a steady job. Rather these men that
occupied the lowest rung of the economic ladder would go to a customary place
and wait all day long in hopes of someone coming along to hire them for the day.
Generally speaking, if they didn't get some work, their families would either eat
very poorly or not at all that evening. Even if they didn't work a full day, and so
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
got substantially less money, it was better than nothing. So in hiring some
workers even if only for an hour or two, those workers might get enough to feed
their families 1 sparse meal.
Another nuance that would have pricked the ears of the Jewish listeners is that it
was the farmer himself doing the hiring. A landowner usually had a house
steward that would go do such a mundane task as hiring some unskilled workers
to labor in the fields for a few hours. Instead in Yeshua's Parable, this farmer took
a personal interest and did the choosing and hiring himself.
In verse 8 the day ends and it's time to pay the workers. In this case, the farmer
that hired the workers gives his steward the task of doling out the pay although
the farmer comes, too, to observe. He also instructs his steward that he is to pay
the last ones to be hired first, and the first to be hired were to be paid last. Lo and
behold the men that had worked for only about an hour got paid a denarius... a
full day's pay! And as the men got paid, in reverse order of their hiring, it finally
came to the field workers that had been hired early in the morning and so had
labored all day long. Since they had to wait while all the others got paid before
them, they were upset that they got paid exactly the same for their many hours of
toil as those who barely worked at all. It seemed totally unfair to them and they
grumbled to their employer about it.
I imagine that Yeshua's listeners probably identified with the grumbling laborers
that had worked all day long, and now exhausted saw the ones that had hardly
worked up a sweat get paid exactly the same! These angry laborers say that
they've worked all day in the hot sun and now the farmer has recompensed them
equally with the ones that had not. Another nuance: whereas most English Bible
translations speak of the men working in the "hot sun" or in "the heat" in fact the
Greek word is kauson. It means not only a scorching heat, an extreme heat, but
is Greek for the Hebrew chamsin. Literally, it means east wind but it is actually
akin to what they call in Southern California Santana winds that can cause a lot
of discomfort and damage. They blow in off the dry desert very hot with near-zero
humidity; invariably full of gritty dust you can feel in your teeth. So it's not as
though the vineyard workers in the Parable were merely working on a typical hot
summer day; they had been subjected to a brutal adverse weather condition that
would challenge anyone's stamina.
This additional information about the cruel weather merely heightens the matter
of fairness; the first being put on an equal footing with the last. Some would call it
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
unjust. The farmer responds to the grumblers with no sympathy or understanding
at all by saying: didn't I give you what I said I would? What's unfair about that?
That I chose to give the last workers hired the same amount as I paid you is none
of your business. Is this not my vineyard and my money and I have the right to
choose to be generous to whomever I decide?
Jesus's Parable ends with words:" Thus the last ones will be first and first last".
So now we've had a few examples of the greatest becoming the least and the
first the last in order to describe the coming dramatic change that will happen
when the Kingdom of Heaven manifests fully. The question I put before all of you
is this: was the farmer fair and just? Don't those workers have a legitimate
perspective? Is it fair and just to make the last first and the first last and everyone
put onto an equal footing no matter how little or much they had toiled in the
farmer's vineyard? I can tell you that if we are honest with ourselves we'll say no:
it was not fair. Fast forwarding to modern times, if a person doing an equal task
as you, with equal education as you, and equal skill as you, and working right
alongside you got just as much pay as you when they only worked one-8th as
much time as you and so produced only 1/8th as much work, would you find that
fair? Of course you wouldn't. As humans we're instinctively making those sorts of
relative comparisons among ourselves. Fairness may be in the eye of the
beholder, but by whatever standard it might be in our own eyes, we all seek it
and don't like it when our standard isn't met. No doubt that would have been the
same conclusion of those 1
st century Jews that heard this Parable directly from
Yeshua's mouth. In fact, the Parable was designed to draw its listeners in and
then shock them because of what that farmer did.
So since a Parable has only one moral to it, what's the moral of this one? It is
that in the Kingdom of Heaven, God's idea of fairness will rule the day and our
idea of fairness will be overturned. A reversal of standards and status will occur.
The Kingdom of Heaven will operate upside down from what we're used to in this
present age. Which means that in many ways the farmer, the owner of the
vineyard, who is meant to represent the king of the Kingdom of Heaven (who is
God) has a standard for justness and fairness that is the opposite of the way
humans and this world naturally evaluates it. So it is in this sense that the last will
be first, and the first last in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now we could probably take the more conventional Christian approach and make
this Parable into a dozen or more allegories to make each the several elements
within this story have important meanings. And many of those allegories might
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
actually express something good and true. But that doesn't mean that any of
them bring to light the crucial point Jesus was making or how His 1
st-century
Jewish public understood it and so how we are to understand it. When we can
finally comprehend that the reversal of the present age human standard of
fairness and justice, along with status and worth, will be the divinely enforced
standard for the Kingdom of Heaven is the point that Yeshua has been making,
then indeed we can reasonably draw some assumptions about what this might
look like, but we must do so very carefully so as not to inject something into that
assumption that is entirely off-point because we're approaching this through
21st century, gentile lenses.
I can do no better than to quote a comment that Brad Young, Professor of Biblical
Studies at Oral Roberts University, made about this particular Parable to
demonstrate how far off the mark such an allegorical approach to interpreting it
can be. He said this:
In modern Parable interpretation, the story of the Fair Employer is usually
viewed as an illustration of the message of grace in Christianity, which
must be contrasted to a theology of works in Judaism. The Gospel Parable
portrays salvation by grace, whereas its Jewish counterparts refer to merit
through works. The grumblers are to be identified with the Jewish
leaders
I'd have to say that this more or less sums up the interpretation of this Parable
that I had been taught all my life until I undertook to immerse myself in a Hebrew
Heritage approach to serious Bible study, setting aside centuries of manmade
doctrines, traditions, and taboos in order to make room for God's Word to speak
for itself. The rather broadly accepted interpretation within Christianity of this
Parable that Brad Young rightly exposes misses the point of the Parable so badly
because of a Church insistence to impose doctrines and traditions upon it that in
no way reflect the mindset of the Jewish Christ or the realities of His 1
st century
Jewish listeners. Not unlike the sticky problem Jesus was dealing with in His day
that Jewish Law and tradition had so engulfed and overwhelmed biblical truth and
teaching that the Messianic expectations of the Jewish people, and the standards
they thought to live their lives by, and their mindset of what God and His Kingdom
must be like had veered so very far off the mark that they were in grave danger of
trusting in a false self-righteousness instead of in their divine Messiah, which was
only going to lead towards a great disappointment if not their eternal destruction.
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Lesson 67 - Matthew 19 & 20
I want to stress this as much as possible to end this lesson because if you are
Believer, get ready: Christ has been informing us that the way the Kingdom of
Heaven is eventually going to operate is going to be shockingly unconventional
from the way the world, the Church, and humanity in general operates
today. Many of our current definitions of fairness and justice that seems so right
and normal in our own eyes will be overturned when the Kingdom of Heaven
achieves its fullness. Adjusting ourselves to God's Kingdom standard and not His
to ours is going to be our challenge, and perhaps it would be wise to begin that
process, as much as is possible, right now.
We'll return to chapter 20 next week when the scene changes drastically as
Christ begins His final journey to Jerusalem to face the trials that await Him.
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 68, Chapter 20
We began Matthew 20 last week and dealt with the Parable of the Fair Farmer
who paid the same amount of money to workers that had labored from dawn to
dusk equally as workers that had worked perhaps no more than an hour. The
exhausted workers that had worked all day were not happy with the farmer,
feeling that it was not a fair arrangement. The farmer responds that it is his
vineyard, his money, and he paid the first workers he had hired exactly what he
promised he would, and such was his prerogative to do. Further, the order in
which the workers were paid was that the ones that were paid to work all day
were the last ones to get paid, while the ones who worked only an hour got paid
first. The Parable ends with the words: "Thus the last ones will be first and the
first last". Since the Parable began: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like...." (in the
sense of what the Kingdom can be compared to) then we understand that the
purpose of the Parable is to show that "the first shall be last and the last first" is a
characteristic of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Since every Parable has a moral...one and only one moral... the moral to this one
is that the operation of the Kingdom of Heaven is going to be a true reversal of
how we see things happen on earth. This will be especially so regarding societal
hierarchy. That is, those who are last on earth in this present age will be first in
the Kingdom of Heaven. And those who are first in societal hierarchy in this
present age will be last in the Kingdom of Heaven. This reversal will also be
reflected in how leaders lead, as we see addressed in later verses of Matthew
20.
I want to address a question that came up after the last lesson so that I can be
clear. When in Matthew chapter 19 I spoke of the rich man that wanted eternal
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
life, and that Yeshua made it plain that one must obey the Law AND follow Him to
attain it, I did not intend to imply that there was a required sequence of a seeker
of God having to first obey the Law, and only afterwards determining to follow
Christ. The context for my remarks was in light of the story of what Christ told the
rich young man to do. So no kind of sequence was meant as a some kind of
salvation rule. Let's move on and re-read some of Matthew 20.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 20:17 - end
Verse 17 opens with: "As Yeshua was going up to Yerushalayim..." Here Jesus
begins His final journey to the Holy City where He will celebrate the Passover
Festival for the last time. All that Yeshua had been born for was leading Him to
this next few days that would change the history of Israel, and of all mankind
forever. What I want to highlight here are the words "going up". Jerusalem sits
atop a hill with a height of 2500 feet. Yet that is not the highest place in Israel;
there are other places with some of them, like Mt. Hermon, that rises to as much
as 10,000 feet. Since at the moment Yeshua was in Jericho, which lies some 900
feet below sea level, obviously He was going up in order to arrive in Jerusalem.
However, when we read the Bible and look at other ancient Hebrew and Jewish
documents, we see that when someone goes to Jerusalem it is always described
as going up. As David Stern says in his commentary on this verse, it wouldn't
matter if a Hebrew was beginning his journey from Mt. Everest, he would still
always be going up when he went to Yerushalayim. This is because the going up
had nothing to do with altitude but rather it is meant in a spiritual sense; it is a
'high place" spiritually. Even the word used in our time when Jews migrate back
to Israel is aliyah, which means going up.
This same story is told in Mark 10:32 - 45. Let's read it to see how Mark reports it.
READ MARK 10:32 -45
You will have noticed several differences between Mark's and Matthew's
versions, among which we'll address at least a few as we go along. Perhaps this
is a good time to remind you that in the 21st century the current fad among Bible
scholars is to say that Matthew copied much of his Gospel from Mark. There is
no evidence for this except that in some places Mark's Gospel has more to say
about a particular event. In fact, the earliest Church Fathers all agree that
Matthew's Gospel was the first to be written. However, the modern Bible scholars
dismiss this as these men's common erroneous belief. So the only real proof that
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
modern Bible academics have to offer is that most of them agree with one
another that Mark was first, and so this agreement rises to the level of fact. You
know, majority rules. I remind you of this because where there are actual
conflicts between Matthew and Mark (and there are precious few), I hold Matthew
as the more authoritative.
On their journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, Christ pulls His 12 Disciples away
from the watchful gaze of the crowds to tell them, a 3
rd time, that He was going to
Jerusalem to be betrayed and to die. He goes into a little more detail this time
than He has until now. Why does He tell His disciples, yet again, about His
coming death? It was to prepare them but also it was to focus their thinking upon
all they had seen and experienced with Him over the last couple of years, what
they would soon witness, and how they had been called to follow Him and to be
fully devoted to Him. Once again we find Yeshua speaking in the 3
rd person
about Himself: "The Son of Man will be handed over..." Clearly (at least to us, in
hindsight) He is identifying Himself with Daniel's Son of Man that goes to Heaven
and sits at the Father's (the Ancient of Days) right hand. Jesus also mentions
crucifixion for the first time, that the Gentiles will be complicit in it, and that He will
be jeered at and mocked. Since He will be in Jerusalem at Passover when the
city is full to overflowing with Jewish pilgrims, obviously the Jews will be His
primary audience that jeers and mocks His suffering (although the Roman
soldiers will as well). There will be no glorious martyrdom involved: only pain.
This Messiah is indeed a man of sorrows and not a victorious military leader as
the Jews had hoped for and expected for so very long.
Yeshua repeats that He will be raised from the dead after 3 days. So instead of
using the term that indicates the sign of Jonah (as He did earlier) of 3 days and 3
nights, He simply says He'll be raised from death on the 3
rd day. We need to be
careful not to read into these words any kind of intended precision of time in
which the minutes between daytime and nighttime, light and darkness, are
intended to be noticed.
All to say that Jesus's dire words certainly put a damper on the normally
enthusiastic demeanor of the trip to Jerusalem for the annual feasts of Passover
and Unleavened Bread. We hear not a word of acknowledgement of Yeshua's
dramatic statement of His impending death from His Disciples. It's almost as
though it went in one ear and out the other; their minds were otherwise occupied
with things that interested them more. Even more damning, a couple of Jesus's
12 disciples continue the issue of status raised by Peter and by others among the
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
inner circle of leadership hierarchy about what happens to their benefit once
Christ becomes king. Truly these men are tone-deaf. There is something else we
must keep in mind. It is that what Yeshua has been recently explaining about His
inevitable fate is simply not taking root in these 12 men; these 12 Disciples that
we all hold so high and are so exalted and celebrated in the Church. It is my
opinion that what Jesus says to them is so distant from the expectations of a
Messiah that they all held since childhood... expectations that had been a central
part of Jewish culture for centuries and was only heightened by the occupation of
Rome... that what He was saying to them was not fathomable.
While I don't want to take the illustration too far, in the mid-20th century a fellow
named Adolf Hitler wrote a book detailing his plan to restore Germany to
European respect and domination, and it included his hatred of the Jews and the
genocide he determined they were due. Most people that read Mein Kampf didn't
allow the parts that seemed so monstrous to register in their minds; not even
within the bulk of the German Jewish community that would be his target. It is
because the human mind often works such that we filter out things that don't fit
our preconceptions or our hopes, and we water down things that can not mean
what it sounds like it means because it is too severe to contemplate and
therefore cannot be real. I suspect this may in some ways describe the 12
Disciples' ability to brush aside Yeshua's description of His imminent death, and
their inability to process what it truly means for them and for all humanity.
To add insult to injury, Matthew 20:20 has the mother of the brothers James and
John coming to Jesus on their behalf with a request. But Mark 10 offers a
different scenario.
CJB Mark 10:35 35 Ya'akov and Yochanan, the sons of Zavdai, came up to
him and said, "Rabbi, we would like you to do us a favor." So Mark makes no mention of the brothers' mother. It is impossible for us to
know which account is the more accurate. Likely the mother was present with her
sons, but either way James and John are made to look petty and ignorant of the
great Passion drama that is about to unfold in their sight. In Matthew, we must
take it as meaning that the mother came to Christ because her sons asked her to
be their advocate. These weren't young boys; they would have been too old to
have a mother come in and take over their lives in such a way if they weren't on
board. So they must have put her up to it, which explains why Jesus responds
not to her but directly to James and John instead.
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
The mother proceeds to ask that when Yeshua becomes king, would He promise
her that He would make her two sons of the highest rank of leadership within the
royal leadership group. That is, it was standard that the person who sat at the
king's right hand was of the highest status, and the one to his left the next
highest. These were the closest of a king's inner circle. There's a couple of things
to glean from this. Since Jesus had told His 12 that He was the Messiah but that
they were to keep it a secret, obviously these two sons had blabbed it to their
mother. Further, because it was Jewish Tradition (and backed up biblically) that
the Messiah would be king of God's Kingdom (which they took to mean a Davidic
king of a reborn nation of Israel), then by her believing that Yeshua was the
foretold Messiah of course He would soon be made king (after expelling Rome
from the Holy Land). This is further proof that the 12 Disciples were still mostly
clueless about Christ's mission and what was about to go down. The reason for
this is that the Jewish Traditions about a Messiah were still the deeply embedded
lens through which these disciples viewed both the office of Messiah and what he
would do.
So the Galilean Zavdai family (Zebedee in English Bibles) were seeking positions
of high honor that would have drastically elevated their social status and
(hopefully) economic well-being from that of mere fishermen that have to fight
daily to keep food on the table. In light of what Christ has told them is about to
happen to Him, this is a pretty shameful response and it ignores His teaching
about the virtue of humility being the primary characteristic of one who hopes to
be a member of the Kingdom of Heaven.
So mom steps forward, Jesus says "what do you want ?", she asks for special
favor for her 2 sons. Christ says (I paraphrase) 'you folks are so far out in left field
you have no idea what you're asking'. He finishes the thought with: "Can you
drink the cup I'm about to drink?" Some Bible versions add the words:"...and to
be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Those additional words
were never in the Book of Matthew before the 800's A.D. They were added by
some later Christian editor, taken from the Book of Mark 10:38 no doubt so that
the 2 Gospels would harmonize better. On the other hand, since we don't have a
copy of Mark any earlier than from the 4th century, it's entirely possible (probable
in my mind) that those words were never in the original Mark, either. Rather my
speculation is that they were first added to Mark by a Christian editor in the 3rd or
4
th century, and then another 400 or so years later transposed into Matthew. Why
do I think that? Because it is such an odd sounding phrase and suggestion;
there's too much Christian-eze involved. For the Jews immersion (baptizing) was
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
one thing only: ritual immersion to combat ritual impurity caused by sin or by
being infected with some kind of uncleanness. But that was not what Christianity
thought or thinks of immersion (baptizing). Gentile Christians from the 3
rd or
4
th century onward thought of it more or less the way we do in modern times.
That is, baptizing as a Church sanctified ceremony that is part public
announcement of one's faith in Jesus accompanied by a symbolic drowning that
ends our life of reliance on ourselves and instead we take on a new life with the
character of Christ. That certainly is not what is being depicted in this scene with
Yeshua and His disciples and so I feel fairly confident that this phrase about
baptizing was added a few hundred years later, first to Mark and then in a few
more centuries it found its way into Matthew.
But what does Yeshua mean about the disciples drinking the cup that He is about
to drink? In some ways, there is an irony going on here. The confused and
distracted disciples may think that a glorious banquet to inaugurate their King
Yeshua, which of course involves liberal wine drinking, must be what He is
referring to. Yet what Yeshua is actually speaking about is a cup full of suffering
and death and the disciples are simply oblivious to it. The Bible speaks often
about drinking "a cup" that is full of God's wrath and therefore of pain and human
suffering.
CJB Jeremiah 25:15 15 "For here is what ADONAl the God of Isra'el says to
me: 'Take this cup of the wine of fury from my hand, and make all the
nations where I am sending you drink it.
CJB Ezekiel 23:32-33 32 Adonai ELOHIM says: 'You will drink from your
sister's cup, a cup both deep and wide, full right up to the brim with scorn
and derision, 33 filling you with drunkenness and sorrow, a cup of horror
and devastation- the cup of your sister Shomron.
CJB Isaiah 51:17 Awake! Awake! Stand up, Yerushalayim! At ADONAl's hand
you drank the cup of his fury; you have drained to the dregs the goblet of
drunkenness.
I could go on as there are many more such biblical references, but you get the
idea. This is the fearful nature of what Yeshua is talking about here when He
speaks of drinking the cup. Often Bible commentators say this is looking ahead to
the Christian sacrament of Communion; but that is what happens when we peel
away the Jewish context, spiritualize it and make it into a gentile ceremony. The
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Disciples respond by saying yes; that they can drink from His cup. Might they
have been thinking that He was talking about the Passover ceremonial seder that
included drinking cups of wine? That's possible; but even that would have been
strictly in a Jewish Passover Feast context. For sure what they were not thinking
of was their own suffering or martyrdom.
Yeshua responds to the Disciple's saying that they can drink from His cup by
saying that they will. Of course, we have a double meaning going on here. While
they are thinking He means the ceremonial Passover cup or perhaps as part of
His inauguration as king, He is meaning it metaphorically as the cup of pain and
suffering that He is going to experience. And since Yeshua is mainly talking to
James and John, then He is saying that they are going to experience pain and
suffering, which they both eventually did but in different ways. John, likely the
writer of the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John as well as the Book of
Revelation, suffered a great deal but died a natural death in his 90's so far as we
know. James died a martyr's death a few years after Christ, in 44 A.D. To be
clear: this James is not the James that was the brother of Jesus, nor likely was
he the one who wrote the Book of James. It is all but certain that the Book of
James was written by Yeshua's brother James (whose name wasn't really James
but rather it was Jacob).
Yeshua continues to say that it really isn't up to Him to determine who occupies
the places of honor among the Jesus movement or the Kingdom of Heaven.
Rather He once again defers to His Father. This was not in the sense of
deference for the sake of etiquette, but rather because a clear hierarchy of divine
authority is laid out throughout all the Gospel accounts beginning with God the
Father as the head, and Yeshua as His subordinate. But naturally as verse 24
states, the other disciples where furious at what James and John were
attempting to do. As a group the Disciples had already been down this road at
least once before in the "who is the greatest" debate and now up it pops again.
Were they outraged at the timing of a such a request... coming immediately
following Yeshua telling them He's going to die a horrific death? No. It was
because James and John approached Jesus wanting to be given special honor
and position that would naturally put them in authority over the other 10, should
Jesus have granted it.
Given that Yeshua has taught them how the Kingdom of Heaven is going to
operate in reverse compared to the present world systems, He shows patience
and gives them an example of why it is wrong to wrestle for status among
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
themselves. He tells them to notice how gentile rulers rule. First, you have the
powerful who lord it over their people. And then you have even more powerful
rulers who rule over the rulers. It's dog eat dog accompanied by never ending
power struggles. These gentile rulers rule with an iron fist and they don't do it for
the benefit of the people they rule over but for themselves. In a short phrase that
I think best describes the mode of how Christ says that gentiles rule is that they
are power hungry. So it must be that in the Kingdom of Heaven ruling and rulers
will behave in an opposite manner because they harbor an opposite mindset. In
the Kingdom the one who wants to lead must do so as a servant to the others.
This is a reflection of the quality Yeshua earlier said that all who want to be
members...and leaders... of the Kingdom must display: humility.
CJB Matthew 18:1 At that moment the talmidim came to Yeshua and asked,
"Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?" 2 He called a child to him,
stood him among them, 3 and said, "Yes! I tell you that unless you change
and become like little children, you won't even enter the Kingdom of
Heaven! 4 So the greatest in the Kingdom is whoever makes himself as
humble as this child.
Back to Matthew 20:26. The mention of the leader being a slave or servant to
others isn't meant in terms of a purchased slave that has minimal rights. Rather it
means someone who serves others, and in this case the nature of the service is
voluntary. To finish the thought Jesus circles back to the words He used to
complete His Fair Farmer Parable when He said that the first shall be last and the
last first. He says: "...whoever wants to be first must be your servant."
In verse 28 Yeshua further fleshes out who He is and what His current purpose is
and how the two connect.
28 For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve- and to give
his life as a ransom for many." One of things He is saying is: 'be like Me'. 'Use Me as your role model'. But then
He also adds the element that the reason and purpose for His existence and His
death is to be a "ransom for many". As Believers, Christians or Messianics, most
of us think we have a pretty good handle on what this means. However it is less
cut and dried than you might think.
The use of the term ransom in the Greek is lutron. It presents the idea of a
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
deliverance by means of a payment, and in the Roman world it mostly concerned
a bondservant paying his way out of his servitude or a prisoner of war being
bought out of his captivity for a price. In the Hebrew world it more spoke of things
like paying the half-shekel Temple tax, or the price paid for the firstborn to buy
him back from God, or in the time of Moses it could mean paying money as an
alternative to having one's life taken from him if he has killed someone. In
Leviticus 25:26 the concept even extended to property that could be bought back
from a debt holder.
We must not let the Greek language of the Gospel accounts lead us into thinking
that the Jews, Christ and His Disciples were thinking in Greek and Roman terms.
Rather what is being spoken is dealing in Hebrew terms inside a Hebrew culture;
so we must think about the meaning of ransom more as we would in the purpose
of the Levitical asham sacrifice. That is, as something based on the Torah... the
Law of Moses... as a ritual payment of appeasement to God for the commission
of a sin. No doubt Christians usually refer to Christ's execution on a cross as a
sacrifice for our sins, and thus the thought is that no further sacrifice is needed
(as with animals on the altar). And, I think that is correct to a point. However too
much we think of the word "sacrifice" in terms of a selfless act of our giving up
something we want or need in exchange for someone else benefiting from it. Like
perhaps as parents we forgo a needed vacation and instead use the money to
pay for something our child dearly wants or needs. However, this isn't the
Hebrew sense of the word "sacrifice" or "ransom". For them it was more literal
and spiritually oriented. It had to do with complying with the Law of Moses usually
by means of providing an innocent animal to be burned upon the Temple altar to
deal with their sin.
The asham sacrificial offering is what I prefer to call in English the Reparation
Offering because a God worshipper is paying reparations to appease God
because of a sin they committed against Him. It has to do with misbehavior;
things we do wrong in God's eyes and thus we must pay a price to compensate
Him for that. The good news was that the compensation required was an animal
whose life substituted for the life of the sinner. The really interesting thing about
the asham sacrifice is that by doing this particular kind of sacrifice the result is
the forgiveness of the trespass... the sin. So this is the sense we ought to take
what Yeshua meant when He said that He would give His life as a ransom for
many. His life was being given as payment of reparations as the asham sacrifice
for many... the payment owed to God for our misbehavior, our sin... on behalf of
all those who trust in Christ's ability to do so.
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
All of what we're been reading and I've been teaching seems to very clearly point
to Yeshua's interpretation and use of Isaiah 53 (Isaiah being the Prophet He
quoted and paraphrased the most). Isaiah 53 is one of the most dramatic
portrayals of why we need a Savior, and what our Savior would endure, that
exists in the Bible. Turn to that chapter in your Bibles and follow along with me.
READ ISAIAH 53 all
Certainly not every question we might think to ask is answered in Yeshua's
pronouncement of His death and resurrection. As Davies and Allison point out,
Matthew doesn't so far explain just exactly what the condition of "the many" is
that they need Christ's sacrifice. Or who are the many? Why is the payment of a
ransom necessary, especially since the Law of Moses proposed a sacrificial
system of animals that was in full operation in Christ's era? To whom is the
ransom paid? Some Early Christian writers and Fathers like John of Damascus
said the ransom was paid to God. Others like Origen and Gregory said it was
paid to Satan. Was this forgiveness offered through the death of Yeshua effective
for people immediately, or only at the time of the Great Judgment?
In our day we look back at Yeshua's sacrifice and think on these questions that
come out of it in our prayerful reflections. However for the people of Yeshua's
time, such sacrifice was not about mental reflections of its spiritual meaning but
rather ritual sacrifice was a required behavior of the Law of Moses that insisted
upon personal action and participation. They did it because they were supposed
to do it as observant Jews. And one has to wonder: who actually gained the
most? Those like us who can sit back, read the historical Bible, and joyfully
reflect on the spiritual meaning of Christ's act and what it's done for us? Or those
Hebrews who had to deal with a journey to the Temple, the costs involved, and
the smelly and bloody ordeal of the death of an animal that characterizes the true
and terrible nature of sacrifice?
Before we move on to the next section of Matthew chapter 20 I'd like you to
consider this. In this and earlier chapters we have uncovered a series of things
that Christ says to His Disciples that reveals who He is and what He's going to
do. He is going to be a king over God's Kingdom, He is going to drink from a cup
of pain and suffering, He is going to die on a Roman execution stake with both
Jew and gentile involvement, that He came to be a servant to people for their
benefit and not to lord it over them like a gentile dictator, and that He is going to
voluntarily sacrifice His own life for a greater good... for the many. These things
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
were said in different contexts, in both the simple literal sense (P'shat) and in a
deeper hint sense (Remez), and some of His actions would affect some people's
lives right away and others at a future time (just how much future was
ambiguous). Thus extracting meaning can necessarily be challenging and has
led to scores if not hundreds of Christian doctrines that attempt to fit this complex
puzzle together.
But Matthew had an expectation of his Jewish readers to put these pieces of
information together in light of their own Hebrew history and according to what
the holy book they had possessed for many centuries, the Tanakh (the Old
Testament), told them. Matthew anticipated that these Jewish Believers would be
able to make the intricate but sometimes blurry connections on their own that
more often than not defy a Christian layperson (even a Bible scholar) to make.
So Matthew didn't go out of his way to make those connections or to analyze
them for His Jewish audience. Much too often Christian Bible teachers and
ordained Pastors will quickly drift from the inspired words of the Gospels and
instead find ways to redirect the meaning of those inspired words that is alluding
them into allegories that make for good storytelling and rousing sermons, but
don't necessarily reflect the original intent of what is trying to be communicated.
Only when we endeavor to understand the Bible... Old and New Testaments... in
its various historical settings can it be properly understood.
The final event of chapter 20 again involves a Jesus miracle healing. We're told
that as Jesus, His disciples and a crowd that had been following Him left Jericho
to begin their steep climb up to Jerusalem, 2 blind men that were sitting on the
trail shouted out to Yeshua to get His attention. These blind men were not sitting
there as travelers resting on their way to the Passover Festival but rather as
beggars sitting in a strategic location; a highly traveled road. The blind, among
those with other kinds of disabilities, usually had only one way to survive and that
was through begging. In a scene reminiscent of an earlier encounter of Yeshua
with the blind, they yelled out "Son of David, have pity on us". The pity they
sought was that this widely known miracle healer would heal them of their
blindness. It bears repeating that the moniker of "Son of David" was not meant in
a messianic way but rather it was invoking the name and spirit of Solomon
(David's son) that tradition said was also a miracle healer. It also bears repeating
that until only the last couple of chapters, Matthew has fashioned His vision of
Jesus as primarily a miracle healer and a purveyor of great wisdom. Only
recently has Matthew added the role of Messiah and what that entails to the list
of Christ's traits and purposes.
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Lesson 68 - Matthew 20
The crowd is said to have scolded the blind beggars for shouting out as they did,
viewing them as an annoyance. But the beggars responded defiantly by shouting
out even louder. In His typical concern for the underprivileged and the disabled
He asked what they wanted from Him. They said, "Lord, open our eyes". Now, it
is certainly tempting for Believers to allegorize this short phrase and give it a
highly charged spiritual meaning. First, to think that by saying "lord" that the blind
men are calling Jesus lord in the sense that Christians do today is incorrect.
Rather, for them lord was like saying "sir"; it was a title of respect and not of
divinity. Second, by saying "open our eyes" they meant it entirely literally. They
didn't want to be blind anymore. It was a physical eye opening they sought, not a
spiritual one. Unfortunately so often this passage is said to mean that the blind
men were spiritually blind and that's what Yeshua healed them of.
Even so, Yeshua leaned down, touched their eyes and they were instantly healed
so that they could see. In response, we're told they followed Him. Again, we must
be cautious not to read something into that statement that is probably not meant.
Following Him was nearly certainly meant literally just as it has been thus far in
Matthew's Gospel. We're in no way told that (as with His overture to the rich man
to sell everything and follow Him) that part of healing these 2 blind men was
afterward Him reaching out and saying "follow Me". Very likely it was because
Yeshua was on His way to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival that they
followed, and they were excited to be able to join in this festival perhaps for the
first time in years... or ever.
Next week we will open chapter 21 and learn about what is known best as The
Triumphal Entry.
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 69, Chapter 21
The first 20 chapters of Matthew have set the stage for what we'll encounter
beginning in chapter 21. Those chapters could almost be set apart and in
summation titled "How We Got Here From There". Thus far we have learned
much about Yeshua's beginnings as a newborn, His time of a blooming self␂awareness, the countless miracles of compassionate healing He performed,
His unmatched wisdom and instruction on the Torah and the Prophets that was
intended to reform the Tradition and Synagogue-based Judaism of His time,
which explains a growing tension between He and the Jewish religious
authorities that intend on maintaining the religious status quo. Finally He reveals
to His inner circle of 12 men from Galilee the divine purpose for which He was
sent by His Father in Heaven to accomplish: His death and then rising alive from
the grave in 3 days.
Chapter 21 immediately switches the scene from the road by Jericho (which was
chapter 20) to Yeshua's entry into the city of Jerusalem for the biblical feasts of
Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits. There He will meet His destiny and
change the course of human history. In doing so He will right a wrong that had
occurred in the Garden of Eden. Let's read this chapter together. Open your
Bibles to Matthew chapter 21. READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 21 all
Bible scholars deem the opening words of chapter 21 as the beginning of the
Passion Narrative. Truly Jesus's ride up the Jericho road into the Eastern gate of
Jerusalem, from across the Mount of Olives, is the path to the cross.
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
As we have done throughout our study of Matthew, it is important for a couple of
reasons that we examine other Gospel accounts (called the Synoptics) that
speak of the same series of events. It is the general academic belief in the
21st century that Mark's Gospel was used by Luke and by Matthew for much of
their source material. I find that to be without merit. As I have stated on earlier
occasions, not only is there no historical evidence for the claim of the priority of
Mark, but in fact, the very earliest Church Fathers say straightaway that
Matthew's was the first Gospel written and Mark came later. Nowhere within
ancient Church documents is there a claim that Mark's Gospel was first; such an
assertion is a quite recent one. Why, then, is there this widely accepted
academic mantra that Mark's Gospel is the superior and was the primary source
for Luke and Matthew? Setting aside their opinionated textual and literary
criticisms, in the end, it is because Mark's Gospel is clearly gentile oriented and
equally clearly has had some later Christian additions to it (which most of these
same Bible scholars readily acknowledge). That is, Mark's Gospel was always
intended as gentile friendly, regularly finding fault with the 12 Jewish Disciples,
and so in time it became the go-to Gospel for the gentile Church institution. On
the other hand, Matthew's Gospel was always intended for a Jewish audience,
displayed a more balanced narrative towards the Disciples, and this fact made
Matthew's Gospel kind of the red-haired stepchild for Roman Christianity that
regularly complained over New Testament books that seemed "too Jewish". As a
result, the more conspicuously Jewish-oriented books like James and Hebrews
were excluded and re-included from Bibles in long cycles over the centuries.
This is NOT to diminish the Gospels of Mark or Luke in any way but rather to
make a distinction between them. Understanding this distinction helps us to
realize in what context and for what purpose and kind of readership each Gospel
was originally created. There is nothing wrong with Mark writing a Gospel
account of the life Christ for an interested gentile audience, and it doesn't make
what he says as inaccurate. It's only that when we can grasp the reality of
differences among the Gospels (and see it as a net positive and not a negative),
then we can better understand the reasons for the choice of events each Gospel
author highlighted, and the way in which each writer presented them. Therefore
we will read portions of this same event of Christ's entry into Jerusalem and what
immediately proceeded from it in Mark's Gospel account for a balanced
approach. But we will do that in small chunks as the amount of information is too
great to take in all at once.
We will go at it in sections of Matthew 21 because this chapter can be divided up
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
into several distinct events that are rather obvious; it makes for easier study. The
opening 11 verses cover Yeshua's entry into Jerusalem known in Christendom as
the Triumphal Entry. Verses 12 -17 tell about His storming into the Temple to
express His deep displeasure with the commerce that was inappropriately going
on there. Next is Jesus cursing the fig tree; this is reported in verses 18 -22.
Afterward is a tense encounter between Yeshua and the Temple and Synagogue
authorities over the source of His authority to teach and to do what He's doing as
a master of a flock of disciples in verses 23 -27. This is followed in verses 28 -32
by a Parable about a man with 2 sons who weren't reliable, and then another and
different Parable from verse 33 to the end of the chapter about the wicked
tenants of a landowner, and how the moral of the story was obviously aimed at
the Chief Priests and the Synagogue Elders and Scribes who didn't appreciate
such an attack.
Because each of these recorded events has its meaning so deeply rooted in the
Jewish culture of the 1
st century, significant explanation is required to extract it.
So here we go. Open your Bibles to Mark 11. READ MARK CHAPTER 11:1-10
We are told in Matthew 21 verse 1 that as Jesus and His disciples, and no doubt
a growing crowd following Him, approach Jerusalem (some having followed
Jesus from the Galilee), they first encounter the enclave of Bethpage. Its Hebrew
name was Beit-Pagei. The name means "house of figs". This suburb of
Jerusalem was located on the side of the Mount of Olives. So why would Jesus
and His sizeable entourage be entering Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives?
Because the road from Jericho went that way and therefore makes its entry into
Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate. Later in the Gospel of Matthew we'll find
Jesus staying overnight with a family in Bethpage.
I characterized Bethpage as a suburb of Jerusalem, but in reality, when people of
that era spoke of Jerusalem in their minds Jerusalem included the enclave of
Bethpage. It's exactly like in Southern California where residents might say when
asked where they live, that they live in Los Angeles. However, the actual City of
Los Angeles doesn't cover a very big area. Rather the many suburbs surrounding
Los Angeles have grown together into one giant population center and the only
way you can even know which town or city you are in is if you encounter a street
sign that tells you. So it is just easier to say Los Angeles (which is known
worldwide) and few Southern Californians would think that you meant that you
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
actually lived within the formal city limits of the incorporated City of Los Angeles.
At the time of the biblical feasts, especially that of Passover and later in the Fall
of Sukkot, the city of Jerusalem swelled 10 fold in the number of people there.
The increase was of course due to the scores of thousands of Jewish pilgrims
that journeyed to the Holy City to celebrate what is called the Pilgrimage feasts.
There are 3 of these biblical feasts wherein the Law of Moses requires every
Jew... or at least a representative of every Jewish family... to make a journey to
the Temple. Of course due to the 2 exiles that Israel had suffered (the Assyrian in
the 8th century B.C. and then later the Babylonian in the 6th century B.C.) all but
the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin were now entirely dispersed and scattered all
over the Asian and European continents, and even to North Africa. Thus the vast
majority of Israelites would never make a journey to the Temple in their lifetimes,
and the Jewish Diaspora only infrequently did due to the great cost, danger, and
time involved to travel so far. Even Jews living in the Galilee that was but a few
days walk to Jerusalem only occasionally made that trip and certainly if they did,
it was only to attend perhaps one of these 3 special pilgrimage feasts of
Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot in a year.
So it is also important to understand that in all of the Synoptic Gospel accounts,
we'll only find the Galilean resident Jesus in Jerusalem of Judea for the
occasions of the biblical feasts. And the one He is here for now is Passover.
Although we won't get into the details of it for the moment, it is good for us to
recognize that there was much-intended symbolism involved in Yeshua entering
Jerusalem from the eastern side by traveling over the Mount of Olives. The
Prophet Zechariah especially speaks of the Mount of Olives as the place where
great End Times events would occur, which of course includes the involvement of
the Messiah. And speaking of symbolism, it also is important to take much of
what Jesus does in the remainder of the Book of Matthew within the context of
Him playing out, in an orchestrated manner, the prophesied events spoken of by
some of the ancient Hebrew prophets. I say this to you because it is not as
though Christ was being driven towards His fate by some invisible hand, and Him
not knowing what would come next. Or that by divine serendipity He would do
this and that. He understands that the Prophets of old were quite specific in some
cases about the things the Messiah would do, where he would do them, and
even at times what He would say. In order to prove that He was indeed that
foretold Messiah, Yeshua did those things.
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
Before He enters the Eastern Gate, Jesus sends 2 of His 12 disciples ahead to
Bethpage to fetch a donkey and its young offspring (called a colt or a foal). Here
we have a discrepancy between Mark and Matthew. Mark has Yeshua saying to
His disciples: (CJB Mk. 11:2) "Go into the village ahead of you; and as soon
as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there that has never been ridden.
Untie it, and bring it here. In other words, Mark has Jesus requesting but 1
animal (only a foal), while Matthew has Him requesting 2. Why the difference?
There is no scholarly consensus on this, however, some newer understandings
help to untangle this a little because verse 7 in Matthew 21 also says that Yeshua
rode on "them". Plural. So are we to think that somehow Jesus rode up to the
gate of Jerusalem straddling 2 donkeys?
Without doubt what Matthew is speaking about, and what Yeshua is requesting,
is to bring about the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9.
CJB Zechariah 9:9 9 Rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Tziyon! Shout
out loud, daughter of Yerushalayim! Look! Your king is coming to you. He
is righteous, and he is victorious. Yet he is humble- he's riding on a
donkey, yes, on a lowly donkey's colt.
Hebrew sages took the meaning of this passage in Zechariah to indicate that the
mysterious person spoken of came into Jerusalem on two donkeys: the mother
and its foal (its colt). So we're talking about a full-grown female donkey and her
baby donkey. Common sense then, as now, is that no one (except perhaps a
small child) would ever climb onto the back of a baby donkey. So it would seem
that while there were two animals involved only the larger more mature one was
actually ridden. But is there any kind of evidence that such a scenario could be
the case? In fact, there is.
In the Mishna Bava Batra 5:3 we find that a mother donkey could only be sold or
used for work along with its foal. A mother donkey and her baby were seen as
one... a single connected unit. Obviously, since this matter of a donkey and its
foal is Jewish Tradition (Halakhah) then Matthew would have been aware of it
while Mark perhaps was not. Or if Mark was aware, he might not have found it
helpful to mention the issue of the mother donkey along with its colt to a gentile
audience unless he took the time to explain the context for it (like I'm explaining it
to you). Matthew on the other hand took it for granted that his Jewish audience
already understood the reason behind the mention of 2 donkeys: a mother and its
colt and why they must remain together.
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
So Christ sends 2 disciples into Bethpage and in foreknowledge says they will
find this mother and its colt, tied up, and they are to bring them to Him.
Understand: this foreknowledge while of course having a divine element to it, is
also Jesus firmly expecting that because He is the One that the Torah and the
Prophets have been pointing to, and therefore the One that Zechariah 9:9
prophesied about, He has no doubt that His disciples will find that mother and
colt and that they will be able to bring them to Him for His temporary use. Jesus
also says that if anyone says anything about taking the donkeys that they are to
say:(CJB Matt. 21:3) 'The Lord needs them'; and he will let them go at
once." Depending on which Bible version you might be using, this verse says (like the
CJB) the Lord needs them (that's big L, L), or the lord needs them (that's little I,
L), or the master needs them. The Greek being translated is kurios and it has no
inherent religious or spiritual sense to it. The issue is that when we use the big L
Lord, then of course the Christian sense of it is Jesus is being addressed as the
divine Lord and Savior. Little L lord is more difficult for English speakers to deal
with because about the only way that form of the word is used in our Western
societies is in the religious sense or perhaps in England as an aristocratic title.
But in fact, what the little L lord actually means is better expressed as the
3
rd option of "master" because master denotes a person who teaches and/or
leads a flock of followers. That is the sense it is meant here. The big L Lord is
reading centuries later Christian thoughts back into to it. So it was the crowd's
acclamation of respect, not that they saw Yeshua as divine or as their Messiah.
Verse 4 explicitly voices what I have been saying to you about the motive behind
Jesus doing the things He was doing and saying the things He was
saying: (CJB Matt. 21:4) This happened in order to fulfill what had been
spoken through the prophet,... The prophet was Zechariah. It must not go
unnoticed that Mark makes no mention of Christ fulfilling prophecy. It makes me
suspect that he may not have even been aware of those prophecies, or perhaps
because he thought it wouldn't have meant much to his gentile Roman audience.
Matthew being the scholarly Jew, writing for Jews, has proved himself to have
been well trained in both the Tanach and Halakah. So he recognizes what is
happening and comments on it because verse 4 is Matthew's personal
conclusion about what all this business about the way Christ entered Jerusalem
and the 2 donkeys He requested amounts to.
But there's even more to unpack about the 1
st century Jewish mind than this,
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
concerning Yeshua's entry into the city. I'll say it briefly and embellish it later, but
I want you to just tuck this away for the time being. Shlomo, Solomon, King
David's son, rode into Gihon on a donkey to be anointed as Israel's next king.
The King David, Solomon, and Yeshua connection has been front and center
throughout Matthew's Gospel and it continues here when Yeshua
says: (CJB Matt. 21:5) "Say to the daughter of Tziyon, 'Look! Your King is
coming to you, riding humbly on a donkey, and on a colt, the offspring of a
beast of burden!'
Who is the "daughter of Tziyon"? It's the people of Jerusalem. Let's talk about
Jerusalem for a little while. Much too often Bible commentators take the terms
Israel and Jerusalem as synonymous. That is, when it concerns Latter Days and
End Times and Messianic prophecies, sometimes we'll hear things about them
happening to Jerusalem and at other times to Israel. I can tell you without
hesitation that we must not see Jerusalem and Israel as interchangeable terms.
Let's begin with the obvious: the infrastructure and stone walls and paved streets
of Jerusalem are not the point of most of the prophecies about Jerusalem. It is
about the residents of Jerusalem or even more specifically about the religious
leadership of the Jews that of course reside in Jerusalem as the ancient and
ongoing capital city of Israel and the spiritual center of the world.
I will use the following illustration to try to make this more clear. Let's equate the
term Israel with the United States and Jerusalem as Washington, D.C. The
United States on the one hand is merely a piece of geography. And Washington,
D.C. is the place, the geographical location, where our national government
resides. Yet in reality what the United States means in practice has to do with we,
the people, who occupy it. And in reality, what Washington, D.C. means in
practice is the leaders, the human beings, who govern us. For the Jews of the
1
st century (and earlier) it was only the Temple within the city of Jerusalem where
the religious leadership congregated and made governing decisions; just as
within Washington, D.C., it is the Congress building where the leadership
congregates and makes governing decisions.
So as Americans we can make a distinction between the USA and our capital
city, as well as a further distinction between the capital city and the pinpoint
location where governing actually occurs. And when we talk about our nation and
the governance, we can use all kinds of terms to discuss it but any teen or adult
carries the understanding about the USA, Washington, D.C., and the Capital
building as a given context. It works the same in the Bible. So while Jerusalem is
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
of course part of Israel, as Israel's capital it can be spoken of a little differently
than the rest of Israel. And while the Temple is within the city of Jerusalem, yet
the Temple can be spoken of a little differently than the rest of Jerusalem. Thus
when Yeshua says "Tell the daughter of Zion" He means "Tell the people of
Jerusalem". 80 we must not expand this to mean "Tell the people of Israel". Yet
even more, Zion is a term that is associated in Bible prophecy with redemption
and with the Latter Days and the End Times. So when Yeshua says Zion, He is
setting a tone (which the people who heard Him understood) as incorporating an
End Times motif. Remember; due to the Roman occupation most Jews already
thought they were living in the End Times so this was not a big leap for them.
The remainder of what Jesus says is: (CJB Matt. 21:5 ) 'Look! Your King is
coming to you, riding humbly on a donkey, and on a colt, the offspring of a
beast of burden!' Now this pronouncement is simply loaded with explosive
ramifications. The term "king" would have set the Roman and Jewish leadership
on edge. This sounds like sedition and is the very thing that the Romans were
always on the lookout to prevent. But to Jews, "king" indeed meant the Messianic
king of Israel; the next King David. However, Yeshua throws a curveball into His
words when He says He is riding humbly. The Greek word is praus and the CJB
choice of the word humbly as a translation isn't the best. Rather the better choice
is meek because praus means to have a mild disposition, and a gentleness of
spirit. So He is announcing His coming not as a victorious military leader like
David but rather He is coming meekly. He is coming peaceably. So clearly
sedition and an uprising with a motive of ejecting the hated Romans from the
Holy Land and becoming Israel's 1
st reigning Jewish King in many centuries was
off the table.
So when the disciples return with the mother donkey and her colt, we read that
the disciples put their garments on them and Jesus climbed aboard. Now, the
words to end verse 7 are: "and He sat upon them". Most commonly, Bible
commentators say that the "them" that Jesus sat upon was the 2 donkeys. But
since I've shown to you that that makes no sense, then the "them" must be
referring to the garments that the disciples placed on the donkeys. That is,
Yeshua sat on the garments. But then we read in verse 8 that the crowd starting
laying their garments down on the road for Christ's mount to walk over. Others
went and gathered tree branches (no doubt meaning palm branches) to line the
road. What is the meaning of these actions? But first, who make up the crowds?
It means mostly the crowds that had followed Jesus from the Galilee and others
He picked up along the way. Remember: it was Passover and thousands of
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
pilgrims were traveling to Jerusalem on that road. It would not have been
residents in Jerusalem with whom He has had very limited interaction.
The act of one taking off their garment (this means a cloak of some kind) and
putting it on the roadway was a means by which a common Jew could welcome
someone of great status. In that era one's garments symbolically represented the
person. So to put one's garment at a king's feet was to publicly demonstrate
personal submission to that king.
CJB 2 Kings 9:11-13 11 Yehu returned to the servants of his lord, and one of
them said to him, "Is everything all right? Why did this meshugga come to
you?" He answered them, "You know the kind and how they
babble." 12 They said, "You're being evasive. Come on, tell us the truth."
Then he said, "This is exactly what he said to me and how he said it: 'Here
is what ADONAl says: "I have anointed you king over Isra'el.'"" 13 At this,
they hurried each one to take his cloak and put it under Yehu at the top of
the stairs. Then they blew the shofar and proclaimed, "Yehu is king!"
Using their garments in this way was, among Jews, a rarely used but recognized
and customary gesture of acclimation of a very important person; and biblically it
was usually used in association with a king. This might be the first time we find
Yeshua placing Himself above others by riding on an animal in a symbolic way
that separates Him from the people He has been among and so selflessly
served.
So, who, exactly, did the excited crowds think Jesus was? What did He represent
to them? Verse 9 says that the crowds roared: (CJB Matt. 21:9) "Please!
Deliver us!" to the Son of David; "Blessed is he who comes in the name of
ADONAI!" "You in the highest heaven! Please! Deliver us!" First: wherein the
CJB it reads, "...you in the highest heaven", the word heaven is not there in the
Greek. Other translations do a better job when they say: "hosanna in the
highest". Second: some more context. We must recognize that for the Gospel
writer Matthew, Yeshua enters Jerusalem as the Son of David and decidedly
NOT as the Son of Man or as the Son of God. This has a substantial effect on the
way Matthew characterizes how the crowds outside Jerusalem perceived Jesus
and thus what the acclimation they shouted towards Him was meant to convey.
The keyword hosanna comes from the Hebrew host ana that is really two words,
which can literally mean either "save, now" or "save, we pray". "Save now" is
rather odd in the current circumstance and "Save, we pray" fits better and could
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
well mean what it is most often taken to mean: it is the crowd pleading with
Yeshua to deliver them from the hands of the Romans.
Yet some Hebrew linguists say that looking at Psalm 118, and its use in all of the
Pilgrimage festivals, and what message it means to convey in the term hosi ana,
is that while in some cases it is meant in the sense of "deliver us", it is far more
likely in Christ's entry into Jerusalem in this scenario that it simply meant "praise".
And remember, just because a couple of words literally may mean something
else, in every language we have what we call "expressions" that make no sense
if the individual words are taken literally; but the words taken together as a unit
communicate a recognized meaning. "Go fly a kite". "Don't let the cat out of the
bag". "Oh no, we're in a pickle now". I could go on for some time with
expressions like this, but if a person of another country and language tried to
translate those English words literally, and understand them as meaning
something fully literal, they would be far off the mark and very confused. So it
seems that in some circumstances the Hebrew words hosi ana were but an
acclamation of praise. In other words, perhaps a better translation in English in
the modern way we use those words, verse 8 should read: "Praise to the Son of
David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Praise in the highest".
Eusibius and Jerome both took it to mean this. It's hard to know for certain which
way it was meant... as a praise or as a plea to deliver, to rescue.
The problem here, for me, is that this thing they said towards Yeshua is but an
often used verse taken from the Hallel... Psalm 118... and had become very
nearly a chant because while it was supposed to have originally been used
during the Sukkot ceremony, it became so popular that it was used at all the
biblical festivals including at Passover. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. It's
entirely possible that of the many yelling out those words towards Christ that
some meant it the one way, and some the other.
On the other hand, this is yet another time that we hear people calling out the
familiar "Son of David" towards Christ. Each time we have run across this in
Matthew I have explained that what this must have conjured up for those saying it
is the image of King Solomon, who indeed was King David's biological son. This
is because Solomon was remembered as the wisest of the Wisdom teachers, a
Torah expert, a miracle healer and exorcist of demon possession par excellence.
This is precisely how Jesus was viewed by the crowds because it precisely fits
with how He presented Himself and by the things that He actually said and did.
Remember: still as of the time of His entry into Jerusalem, the only people to
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
whom He had confessed that He was Israel's Messiah was His inner circle of 12,
and they were to keep this as a tight secret. Even then, as we'll see it play out,
exactly what that meant to the disciples was pretty hazy. So the crowds didn't just
suddenly, out of the blue, surmise on their own that Yeshua was their Messiah
and God's Son.
Here's something else to keep in mind. King David and King Solomon were as
opposite from one another as the colors black and white. King David's persona
and reputation was as a ferocious warrior leader who won countless battles
against Israel's many enemies. King Solomon was a builder, an intellectual, a
healer, and a diplomat. His Hebrew name, Shlomo, is connected to the Hebrew
root word shalom. Solomon, then, was King David's peace child and this is why
God refused to allow King David to build a Temple but rather He decided that
Solomon would do that. So King Solomon is part of the mold in which the crowds
see Yeshua; that is, Yeshua carries the spirit of Solomon with Him... as the Son
of David... not that of King David himself. And yet, when indeed we arrive at the
End Times and Messiah Yeshua returns, we know from the Book of Revelation
that He will not come back in the spirit of the peace child Solomon (as with His
entry into Jerusalem), but rather it will be in the spirit of the invincible and ruthless
warrior David that will carry out God's wrath.
Matthew says that the whole city shook as Jesus approached. This is not to be
taken literally. The Greek word is esiesthe and although it literally means the
effects of a strong earthquake, it is an expression that is the equivalent of the
English expression about a startled and now disoriented person being "all shook
up".
So the all-shook-up residents of Jerusalem ask the question found in verse 10:
"who is this"? Notice: this is not the "crowds" that have been following Yeshua
and laying their garments on the road that are saying "who is this?", but rather
this is referring to the flabbergasted and annoyed residents of the city of
Jerusalem. "Who is this?" doesn't mean "what is His name". Rather it means
"what ought we to make of this fellow?" It's actually a kind of indignant remark. It
would be the equivalent of something my mother used to say to me when I was a
teen, more times than she should have had to. She'd say; "Just who do you think
you are, young man?" I'm fairly convinced that she knew who I was. Rather she
more meant, "who does your high and mighty attitude make think you are that
you can act that way?" So now the indignant residents of Jerusalem adopt a
negative perception of Christ as a person who unsettles their lives... an unwanted
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
trouble maker.
Therefore in verse 11 the response to the disgruntled and unimpressed residents
of Jerusalem comes from the crowds (mostly Galileans) that have been following
Yeshua for some days. To answer the question of "who is this", they respond
with: (CJB Matt. 21:11) "This is Yeshua, the prophet from Natzeret in the
Galil." While for the proud Galileans their very own "prophet from Nazareth" was
a wonderful thing, the residents of Jerusalem had dealt too many times with
would-be prophets coming to town during festivals that did nothing but stir up
trouble. And, they didn't have much use for Galileans anyway because they
regarded them as rough, uncouth, and not particularly intelligent.
One has to wonder what the adoring crowd was mentally picturing when they
characterized Jesus as a prophet. I suspect that it was meant in connection to
Moses.
CJB Deuteronomy 18:15-19 15 "ADONAl will raise up for you a prophet like
me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay
attention to him, 16 just as when you were assembled at Horev and
requested ADONAl your God, 'Don't let me hear the voice of ADONAl my
God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will
die!' 17 On that occasion ADONAI said to me, 'They are right in what they are
saying. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their
kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I
order him. 19 Whoever doesn't listen to my words, which he will speak in
my name, will have to account for himself to me.
Perhaps those crowds weren't certain of it, but it had been a great hope for a
long time in Israel's history that such a prophet like Moses would appear, and
Yeshua bore all the earmarks of him. Little did they know how right they were.
I can do no better to conclude our lesson on the Triumphal Entry than to lift a
quote from the Davies and Allison Commentary on this passage as it so
profoundly sums up what we have been reading and studying.
"....The daughter of Zion for whose sake Jesus comes does not
comprehend the tumult before her gates or understand that her king has
come and that prophecy has been fulfilled. Even the momentary
acclimation that Jesus does receive is from those going up to the capital,
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Lesson 69 - Matthew 21
not from those within it... As Jesus leaves the sympathetic pilgrims to
encounter the hostility of the holy city He is exchanging His royal mount for
a criminal's cross. His exit will not be as His entrance." We'll continue next week as Yeshua enters the Temple and shakes things up yet
again.
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 70, Chapter 21 Continued
As we opened Matthew chapter 21 last week we read about what Christianity
calls the Triumphal Entry. In this short but revealing action in Yeshua's life and
mission, He enters Jerusalem riding upon a donkey, accompanied with the
donkey's foal. This is intentionally done in order to visibly fulfill the messianic
prophecy of Zechariah 9:9.
In His approach up the road that leads across the Mount of Olives to the Eastern
Gate of Jerusalem, Christ encounters two distinct and separate groups of people:
those inside the walls of Jerusalem, and those lining the roads on the outside.
Outside are mostly the people who have been following Him as He trekked from
the Galilee to the Holy City; thus a good deal, if not the majority, of that group
consists of Galileans. Inside the city are the residents of Jerusalem; meaning
they are Judeans (Judea being the Roman name for the province in which
Jerusalem is located). Although these are all Hebrews, Galileans and Judeans
are somewhat like oil and water; they don't mix very well. And thus we see two
entirely different reactions to Jesus's dramatic arrival for the Passover festival,
even declaring Himself to be king. None of the people view Him as their Messiah;
rather to the majority He is the one who embodies the spirit of Solomon... the Son
of David... but yet is greater than Solomon.
The Galileans and the other Jews in the crowd outside the gates adore Christ
and praise Him because of His miracle healing, His compassion, and His
Wisdom teachings. They lay their outer garments (their cloaks that serve as both
jackets and blankets) on the road for Him to ride over. This act is a traditional
symbolic display of allegiance. The Judeans inside the city are wary of Yeshua
and consider Him as an annoyance if not a threat. The Galileans are proud of
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
Yeshua because He, too, is a Galilean... one of them. The Judeans, considering
themselves to be the sophisticated and pious Jews, look down on Him as an
outsider, as they do all Galileans as little more than crude country bumpkins that
they are obligated to tolerate 3 times a year for the God-ordained pilgrimage
festivals to the Temple.
Let's continue now as the next thing we read about Jesus doing is going to the
Temple and creating a ruckus. Open your Bibles to Matthew 21 and we'll start
reading at verse 10.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 21:10-17
Mark has the same story but of course, because Matthew's intended audience is
Jews while Mark's is gentiles, the wording and tone in Mark is somewhat
different.
CJB Mark 11:15-18 15 On reaching Yerushalayim, he entered the Temple
courts and began driving out those who were carrying on business there,
both the merchants and their customers. He also knocked over the desks
of the money-changers, upset the benches of the pigeon-dealers, 16 and
refused to let anyone carry merchandise through the Temple
courts. 17 Then, as he taught them, he said, "Isn't it written in the Tanakh,
My house will be called a house of prayer for all the Goyim But you have
made it into a den of robbers! 18 The head cohanim and the Torah-teachers
heard what he said and tried to find a way to do away with him; they were
afraid of him, because the crowds were utterly taken by his teaching.
There is another noticeable difference between Matthew's and Mark's Gospel
accounts. In Matthew's, Jesus rides into the city and immediately goes to the
Temple to confront the business operators there. In Mark, after entering the city
Christ goes to the Temple, looks around, but then goes to Bethany to spend the
night. The next day He starts to walk back towards Jerusalem, curses a fig tree
along the way, and only afterward returns to the Temple to express His extreme
displeasure with what's going on there. Clearly whomever the two Gospel writers
interviewed to get their information had different memories about the goings-on
the first couple of days Yeshua was in Jerusalem. We need to not be terribly
concerned about event sequence because it really plays no role in the meaning
or actions Yeshua took. These Gospels were written more than 3 decades after
the fact, so one is pretty apt to get such details from people that remember things
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
a bit differently.
Notice in verse 11 that the people from the Galilee speak of Yeshua as a
prophet. It's important to remember that by the early part of the 1st century it was
believed that divine prophecy had pretty well come to a close. The generally held
belief was that Malachi was probably the last of the class of people called
Prophets in their holy book; chosen men that brought God's heaven-sourced
prophecies to earth. So now the term prophet carried a different meaning... 2
different meanings in fact. The first kind were seers of the future (not so much in
a divine sense... rather more like modern age fortune-tellers ), and the second
kind were respected teachers and interpreters of God's written Word. God's
written Word for Jesus and all other Jews was the Tanakh... what is most widely
known to us as the Old Testament. Yet at the same time, because His reputation
preceded Him, Yeshua was considered as more than a run-of-the-mill Torah
interpreter and teacher... He was quite special. In fact, there is no doubt that at
least some of the crowds hoped that Christ was the "prophet like me" that Moses
said would someday appear.
As Yeshua enters the Temple (it would have been into the outer courts) He
encounters the usual dizzying array of merchants and business people along with
their customers. He goes into a rage and begins to upset their tables and knock
over benches to display what we must take as genuine personal anger, but also
as intentional symbolism of God's divine wrath that is coming. But what, exactly,
was He furious about? The reality was that the money changers and the
business people provided a valuable and legitimate service. It revolved around
the sacrificial system that required animals for the burnt offerings. People coming
even from the Galilee (which was relatively close by) didn't usually bring their
animals with them to Jerusalem. Especially those from farther away could not
bring their best animals with them from a practical aspect. The odds that the
animals would even survive the trip weren't great, and the hassle of transporting
them wasn't worth it. So the scores of thousands of Jewish pilgrims purchased
their sacrificial animals from Temple-approved suppliers rather than bringing
them with them.
Therefore Yeshua's issue was not with the Temple itself as a divinely ordained
institution, but rather it has to do with the corruption of the men who ran it.
Instead of serving God's people in good faith, they used it as a for-profit
enterprise. In fact, very probably the reason Yeshua made a point to do what He
did in knocking things over was to visibly fulfill the prophecy of the Psalms of
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
Solomon, Psalm 17 verse 30... or perhaps of Zechariah 14:21. Do not look in
your Bibles in the Book of Psalms to find this. The Psalms of Solomon are not
contained in our Bibles. They were created in the 1st or 2nd centuries B.C. and
were widely known and used in Yeshua's era. There we read: "And he will purge
Jerusalem and make it holy as it was even from the beginning." Zechariah
contains something similar:
CJB Zechariah 14:21 Yes, every cooking pot in Yerushalayim and Y'hudah
will be consecrated to ADONAI-Tzva'ot. Everyone who offers sacrifices will
come, take them and use them to stew the meat. When that day comes,
there will no longer be merchants in the house of ADONAI-Tzva'ot.
It is interesting that in this verse from Zechariah the Hebrew word that is most
accurately translated as "merchant' is literally "Canaanite". Canaanite had
become a derogatory term used to mean corrupt people, and merchants as a
class of people were often put in league with tax collectors and so were seen as
dishonest.
It is terribly important that we recognize that nearly everything we read about
Jesus doing as He enters Jerusalem, and right on through the time of His death
and resurrection, were prophesied centuries earlier. He orchestrated the
fulfillment of many of them, just as He had in doing His amazing miracles of
healing, so that He could provide firm evidence that He was the One the ancient
prophets were speaking about. For those Jews whose hearts and eyes were
open, they would in time accept His acted-out fulfillments as proof that He indeed
was Israel's divine Messiah. But the vast bulk of the Jews were blind to it; they
had been led astray and taught wrongly (for generations) by the Jewish religious
leadership, and so in their darkened eyes He didn't fulfill the very different
expectations of the Messiah that their Synagogue and Temple leaders had
created as Tradition and insisted upon.
The thought is also often put forward that Jesus's actions were intended to
"cleanse the Temple".... to make it ritually pure.... I see no evidence of that.
Christ didn't do what He did to repair or restore anything; what He did was as a
personal protest and as a divine symbol.... and then He moved on. Jesus goes
on to justify His actions (that no doubt riled pretty much everyone that witnessed
them) by saying "It is written that My house will be called a house of prayer".
When He says "it is written" He of course is meaning written in the Tanakh.
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
CJB Isaiah 56:7 I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them
joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be
accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all
peoples." Notice how Matthew omits the "for all peoples" part of the prophecy, but Mark
includes it. It is but another case example of Matthew writing his Gospel for a
Jewish audience and Mark for a gentile audience. Matthew had little interest in
including the thought of gentiles being welcomed into the Temple of Jerusalem;
but of course Mark wanted to highlight it. Further, Yeshua takes a short quote
from Jeremiah 7 when He calls the robust commerce going on in the Temple
courts "a den of robbers".
Verse 14 changes course. He's still in the Temple; however Yeshua resumes His
miracle healing ministry, if only briefly. Likely He has moved to a different Temple
court... probably in the Court of the Gentiles. His actions here are also
provocative, but in another way. This is the one and only time we'll hear of Him
healing illnesses in Jerusalem. That He performs these miracles within the
Temple grounds would have brought the Sadducees and Pharisees much
concern. This action also needs to alert us to Him continuing to display His "spirit
of Solomon" attribute. We can be nearly certain that He was in the Court of the
Gentiles at this point because we're told that the blind and the lame came up to
Him. The blind and the lame were excluded from the Temple grounds. But since
the Court of the Gentiles was reserved for foreigners and non-God Worshippers,
thus making the area ritually unclean, then these Jewish blind and crippled were
also permitted to go there.
CJB Leviticus 21:17-21 17 "Tell Aharon, 'None of your descendants who has a
defect may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 No one with a defect
may approach- no one blind, lame, with a mutilated face or a limb too
long, 19 a broken foot or a broken arm, 20 a hunched back, stunted growth, a
cataract in his eye, festering or running sores, or damaged * - 21 no
one descended from Aharon the cohen who has such a defect may
approach to present the offerings for ADONAl made by fire; he has a defect
and is not to approach to offer the bread of his God.
Notice how this Scripture passage was no doubt used as the basis to prohibit the
blind and the lame from entering the holy precincts of the Temple. However, also
notice that this command was ONLY aimed at the priesthood (the descendants of
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
Aaron). Like so much else within the 1
st century Hebrew faith, a doctrine had
been taken out of its intended biblical context and wrongly applied. It was a
manmade Tradition that the blind and lame Jewish laymen were excluded from
the Temple grounds; it was not an ordinance of God. In fact, this cruel Tradition is
quoted in the Dead Sea Scrolls as existing at this time and even extended to the
lame and blind being excluded from Jewish religious congregations in general
(and so almost certainly from Synagogues) and from banquets (1QSa 2:5 -22).
This helps us to understand how terrible and unjust life was for the crippled and
the blind and thus why Jesus was always moved to heal them.
I also want to comment on a regular claim from Christian Bible commentators
that Jesus going to the Court of the Gentiles demonstrates that He was in
process of removing God's blessing from the Jews and transferring it to the
gentile Church. This, of course, is another bogus claim that ignores what
proceeded to occur there. The idea that gentiles came to Jerusalem at Passover
so Jesus could heal them approaches the absurd. The reason Yeshua went to
exactly where He did in the Temple area was specifically to heal the blind and
lame Jews who could appear nowhere else than the Court of the Gentiles.
The reaction to all this commotion and of Yeshua going against Tradition and
even becoming involved in healing at the Temple (an area jealously guarded and
controlled by the High Priest) was predictable. Verse 15 says: "But when the High
Priest and the Scribes saw the wonderful things he was doing..." The point here
is that there were two spheres of Jewish religious authority present that actually
were rivals: the Temple and the Synagogue. One had little to no control over the
other... they were fully separate institutions. Here however they joined forces as
the leadership of both spheres were upset with Christ. Then we read that the
children were also shouting "hosanna" at Yeshua. This really isn't surprising
since Jewish children began learning to memorize and recite the Hallel (from
which comes the term hosanna) at a very early age. As I have shown you,
children had a limited role around adults, and it almost always involved labor...
such as working in the field. Today we can be thrilled about young children sitting
in a Believer's congregation meeting and joining in with the adults in praise and
worship and hearing God's Word and even in asking questions. It wasn't quite
like this in the 1
st century in Jewish society. Adult women were excluded from
much religious activity, and children were even lower on the religious totem pole.
That is, children (in the view of these grumbling religious authorities) shouldn't
have been involved or certainly not shouting anything at all. So these authorities
told Yeshua exactly how they felt about it. In response, Yeshua paraphrases
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
Scripture that sort of conflates 2 verses.
CJB Psalm 8:2-3 2 ADONAI! Our Lord! How glorious is your name throughout
the earth! The fame of your majesty spreads even above the
heavens! 3 From the mouths of babies and infants at the breast you
established strength because of your foes, in order that you might silence
the enemy and the avenger.
Understand: it was the Jewish custom that when quoting a short Scripture
passage that it was the way that one referred to the entire passage. Today if we
want to refer to a passage in a Bible book we'll give a chapter and verse number
(or range of numbers). No such protocol existed at that time so the only way to
communicate what you intended was to say a brief part of a passage and then
expect the other party to know the remainder of it. Point being, the Priest and
Scribes full well knew the part that Jesus didn't say. The part that says who this
passage was meant for: "the enemy and the avenger". They got it that Christ
meant them. He wasn't there to make friends.
This ends this part of the Jerusalem Temple scene and Christ now heads for the
Mount of Olives and the town of Bethany that is about a 2 mile walk. Let's read
some more of Matthew 21. RE-READ MATTHEW 21:18 -27
This is the famous story of Yeshua cursing the fig tree. Matthew omits saying that
it was not the season for figs, something that Mark includes. Why? Perhaps
because Jews in the Holy Land know when it's fig season in Israel, but gentiles
may not.
As a few Bible commentators have noted, this story tends to upset some
Christians because Jesus is cursing a fig tree that doesn't seem to have done
any wrong nor is it an aberration of some sort. Let's set the scene. He's on the
road back to Jerusalem from Bethany; this means He's standing on the Mount
the Olives. Next to the road He spots a fig tree that has no fruit; only leaves.
Considering this would have been the late March/early April timeframe, it wasn't
time for figs to appear and then ripen (just as Mark reports) because figs are a
summer and a fall season fruit. Mysteriously Christ walks up to the tree, seems
angry that there's no figs on it, so He curses it and immediately it withers and
dies.
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
The disciples are stunned because they, like most Believers in all eras, can't
understand why Jesus would do this seemingly illogical thing... unless He was
just in a bad mood. So, they ask Him why the fig tree died. Surprisingly, He
doesn't really answer their question. Rather He tells them HOW they can have
the ability to do the same thing! He says if they will trust and not doubt then they
can not only decimate a fig tree with but a word, but even throw the mountain into
the sea. We'll get to the final part of His response shortly.
First: I am going to say something that I hope has you all scurrying to your
New Testaments to fact-check me. Nowhere in the Gospels does Christ directly
say to trust in Him. He certainly says to mimic Him, even to follow Him. But Him
instructing people to trust in Him simply doesn't occur in the Gospel
accounts. Rather all direct encouragement to trust someone points to Yeshua's
heavenly Father (although since Yeshua is divine a certain trust in Him can also
be derived).
Second: Christ does NOT say that with enough trust that the disciples can
throw A mountain into the sea; He says THIS mountain. What mountain were
they standing on? The Mount of Olives.
Third: It is commonly said in Bible commentaries that the fig tree must be
symbolic of something; that is, Yeshua wasn't in a bad mood and just needed to
curse something to let out His emotions. The symbol that is usually suggested is
that the fig tree represents Israel; I have my doubts in this instance. Israel is
nearly always symbolized by the olive tree. And if not an olive tree, Israel's
common symbol is a vineyard. There do seem to be a couple of odd instances in
which the fig is mentioned alongside Israel.
Fourth: It is also common among Bible commentaries (very good ones I might
add) to equate Israel with Jerusalem; that is, they are very nearly synonyms and
usually mean the same thing when spoken of in the Bible (especially
prophetically). I disagree. Jerusalem is Israel's national and spiritual capital. It
represents both governmental and religious leadership. Jerusalem is, quite
simply, the center of the world. Israel as a whole, is not. So now let's put this
together.
Yeshua is standing on the Mount of Olives that received its name for a good
reason: it was positively crammed with olive trees. A fig tree was an outlier. It's
not that it didn't belong, it's only that its character was quite different from that of
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
olive trees. So it's the context and setting of the story that leads us to its
meaning.
Yeshua had just received the coldest of welcomes inside the city gates of
Jerusalem by the city's residents. The religious leadership of both the Temple
and the Synagogue were now gunning for Him and openly displayed their disdain
against Him. The Romans were deeply suspicious of Him. He has just also
expressed His own disdain for what had become "The Temple, Inc". It was no
longer a sanctified place for worship; it had become a shopping mall for the
benefit of the Priesthood's bank accounts. The point is this: the fig tree was
symbolic not of Israel in general, but of Jerusalem in particular. It would be
Jerusalem's residents, religious leadership, and government that would condemn
the innocent Yeshua to die a horrible death on a Roman death stake... not Israel.
Just as His attack on the Temple merchants and money changers was symbolic
of God's anger and wrath on the corruption done by the Priesthood to this most
holy place, so was Yeshua's attack on a barren fig tree symbolic of a spiritually
fruitless Jerusalem. The curse was that it wither and die. And in but 40 years,
Jerusalem and the Temple would also wither and die; destroyed by an angry and
vengeful Roman Emperor. So the curse of the fig tree was symbolic but it was
also a veiled prophecy of God's judgment on the city, its residents and the
national and spiritual leadership.
On the other hand, we do read in the Prophets of judgment against Israel as a
whole and against Jerusalem specifically and separately. And each are
symbolized differently.
CJB Joel 1:1-7 1 The word of ADONAI that came to Yo'el the son of
P'tu'el: 2 "Hear this, you leaders! Listen, all who live in the land! Has
anything like this ever happened in your days, or in your ancestors'
days? 3 Tell your children about it, and have them tell it to theirs, and have
them tell the next generation. 4 What the cutter-worms left, the locusts
ate; what the locusts left, the grasshoppers ate; what the grasshoppers left,
the shearer-worms ate. 5 Wake up, drunkards, and weep! wail, all you who
drink wine, because the juice of the grape will be withheld from your
mouth. 6 For a mighty and numberless nation has invaded my land. His
teeth are lion's teeth; his fangs are those of a lioness. 7 He has reduced my
vines to waste, my fig trees to splinters - he plucked them bare, stripped
their bark and left their branches white."
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
Notice how the vines (vines are vineyards) and the fig trees are both
punished. Notice that verse 2 separates the leadership from everyone else, even
though both groups will be decimated ("Hear this you leaders! Listen ALL who
live in the land"). Vines represent Israel at large, figs the leadership of Israel (that
reside in Jerusalem). 8o I think the connections I'm suggesting are justifiable and
therefore correct.
As for throwing "this mountain" (the Mount of Olives) into the sea by means of
sufficient trust. I'm not sure I can provide a really good answer for this. Yet I think
the vein in which we have to consider this is as an End Times prophetic one.
Let's read Zechariah (who next to Isaiah is clearly Jesus's go-to prophet) and I
think this might help us to assemble the pieces of this story.
READ ZECHARIAH 14:1-11
So the Mount of Olives is prophesied to suffer a destructive calamity and be split
apart by a giant earthquake such that fresh water will well up from deep
underground in a huge volume, and flow through the now divided mountain in 2
directions: each direction ending up at a sea. The formerly decimated Jerusalem
and its violated residents (all at the judgment of God) will be rebuilt and
restored...why?...because Zechariah says the divine curse upon it will finally be
lifted. I think we can connect Yeshua cursing the symbol of Jerusalem, the fig
tree, with the curse that first destroys Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, but
then will be lifted in the End Times.
Verse 22 concludes this story of the cursed fig tree with: "In other words, you will
receive everything you ask for in prayer, no matter what it is, provided you have
trust". Wow. That's quite the promise. How are we to take this? Some branches
of evangelical Christianity embrace this promise by a doctrine that some call
"name it and claim it". That is, quite literally, if you truly trust God, and you ask for
something in prayer, it will be granted you no matter what it might be. This notion
is also the basis for the Prosperity Doctrine that is all the rage in some corners of
Western Christianity. It follows then, that Jesus has obligated His Father to do
this. Fellow Believers, we know from personal experience that this is a pretty
suspect meaning because not even when Yeshua in His darkest hour asked His
Father to take this cup of suffering from Him (as He was but hours from the
cross), it didn't happen. Rather true trust in the Father makes our prayers to
include the notion that despite our want or need, it is the Father's will that we
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
should want even more.
CJB Matthew 26:39 39 Going on a little farther, he fell on his face, praying,
"My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet- not what I want, but
what you want!"
While Yeshua didn't include that same qualifier in what He told His disciples in
the fig tree incident, in His mind it must have gone without saying. And that is
how we must understand it and it is how we must always approach God; your
will, Father, and not mine in no matter what the situation.
Verse 23 has Jesus going back to the Temple. This time He's more subdued and
instead of attacking He's teaching. This very likely means He's in Solomon's
Portico that is the traditional place in the Temple area where the Jewish religious
teachers gathered with their students. Therefore, some Temple and Synagogue
authorities would naturally be there; and this time was no exception. So up they
march to Yeshua and ask Him by what authority He teaches. Let me give you an
illustration that, although imperfect, is close enough to get the idea. Let's say that
you are on a college campus and someone walks into the library and begins to
instruct the students in English Literature. It would be expected that one of the
college professors or perhaps an administrator might come up and ask by whose
authority this person is teaching. This would mean two things: what are your
credentials and who gave you permission? Thus if you don't have the credentials,
the second point is moot. Same thing with Jesus.
In modern English we might say that the religious authorities are asking for
Yeshua's credentials to teach on matters of God; something that they consider
themselves to be the exclusive experts. Mark's and Luke's Gospels are so nearly
identical to Matthew's in this story that they must all have taken their cue from the
same source; so there's no need to read all of them. As is so typical for Jesus He
answers their question with a question of His own. He invokes the baptism of
John the Baptist and challenges the religious leaders to tell Him whether John's
baptism authority was from God or from other humans. In other words, Yeshua
says in effect before I give you My credentials, let's talk about Yochanan the
Immerser's credentials.
See; essentially Yeshua is saying that He got His credentials to teach by means
of being baptized by John the Baptist. Another way to say it is that Jesus says He
was ordained by John. So since everyone seems to be acutely aware of John
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
baptizing Yeshua, then the real question that demands an answer is, were John's
credentials up to snuff so that when he baptized Jesus it carried weight? In the
college education world the term is accreditation. A non-accredited school can
confer any kind of a degree on anyone they want, but it carries no weight.
Outside that school's grounds, it's a rather meaningless piece of paper. The
question the religious leaders must answer, then, is if John was accredited or not;
and if He was, was it by the accreditation of Heaven, or was it by a committee of
men?
The religious leaders know they've been had because there's really only 2 ways
they can answer it. If they say John's accreditation is from Heaven, then so is
Yeshua's. And if Yeshua has Heaven's validation, then they are forced into
believing what He teaches or be accused of refusing to submit to the Word of
God. On the other hand, if they say that John's was essentially accreditation by a
non-accredited human committee, the people will be roused to anger because
they so revere John as a true Prophet. And, Jerusalem was always on edge
during these highly emotional feast days and it didn't take much to spark a riot
(for which the religious leadership might be blamed). So they took the easy way
out. They said that they don't know the answer to Christ's question. Christ said
fine: then I won't tell you the source of My accreditation.
I think we must notice that despite the obvious tension that we have read about in
earlier chapters between John the Baptist and Yeshua, and between the Baptist's
disciples and Christ's, yet blood is thicker than water. These 2 men were, after
all, cousins. Yet what matters more, no doubt, is that Yeshua recognizes the
pivotal role of Elijah played by John in acting out a prophetic fulfillment. This
divine office John held was not dependent upon him being a perfect man, nor in
having some deep insight into all that Yeshua was and stood for. In fact, the New
Testament evidence is that John really didn't fully understand the scope of
Yeshua's ministry and even disagreed with Him on some theological points.
Rather John answered his call from God; a call that would cost him his life. John
said "yes" to God and that perhaps sums up what the Lord seeks from all
workers for Him; a person who trusts Him and responds with "yes" when the Lord
presents an opportunity to obey and serve.
We'll continue with chapter 21 next time as we encounter yet another Parable.
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Lesson 70 - Matthew 21 cont
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 71, Chapter 21 Continued 2
In Matthew chapter 21 Yeshua's journey to the cross is gaining speed as the
proverbial snowball rolling down a steep hill. We find Him having now arrived at
the place of His foretold and impending death: Jerusalem. In many ways it is
ironic, or perhaps unfathomably tragic, that of all places for the divine Messiah of
the Jewish people to suffer and die it would be the historical and spiritual capital
of the Hebrew people.
As His popularity and recognition as a miracle healing Holy Man, a Tzadik, who
has come in the spirit of the Son of David... Solomon... has become greater
among the common people of the Jewish Holy Land, so has the wariness and
dislike of Him become greater among the Jewish religious leadership. Essentially
by coming to Jerusalem trailed by a large following and entering the Eastern
Gate with much pomp and fanfare, Jesus has invaded the Jewish religious
leaders' territory. His mere presence in Jerusalem threatens everything they
stand for and control. Worse, every time they try to trap Him in some kind of
theological debate, or try to say He doesn't properly obey the Law, or try to
diminish His Jewishness, it backfires and exposes the leadership for their flimsy
aura of righteousness that has little authentic foundation.
In our previous lesson, we found the religious leaderships of the Temple system
and the Synagogue system joining forces to challenge Yeshua's authority to
interpret and teach the Torah and the Prophets, and thus His right to lead a
growing flock of disciples. In Matthew 21 verses 23 - 27 we read of this encounter
and how, interestingly, it revolved around John the Baptist... a name that we
hadn't heard in a while. While the Jewish religious leadership hoped to discredit
Yeshua by revealing His lack of credentials that they considered mandatory,
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
Christ said His credentials were publicly, and undeniably, given to Him by John
the Baptist. By making this claim Yeshua shifted the core of the dispute to
whether or not John had the needed credentials, because if he didn't then John
certainly didn't have the standing to ordain Yeshua for ministry. Trapped again,
the religious authorities knew that no matter what answer they gave regarding
John it would cause them an impossible dilemma. If they agreed that John had
the proper credentials and they were given to him from Heaven, then it made
Jesus credible. If they said that John was given his credentials by a committee of
humans, it did the same. But if they said that John did not have the proper
credentials then the people would rise up against them because they revered
John as a Prophet. Naturally, when any of us lose such a public argument we
also lose face; we don't usually accept our defeat and let it go. So this public
humiliation only firmed the resolve of the Jewish religious authorities to dispose
of this Galilean reformer that threatened their power base and perhaps even their
abundant livelihoods.
Let's re-read a little more of chapter 21. RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 21:28 - 32
This passage is regularly called a Parable. In fact, the next passage that begins
in verse 33 says: "Now listen to another Parable". So it seems undeniable that
Yeshua is classifying what He just finished saying (and we just read) as a
Parable. Or is that really the case?
The Greek word for Parable is parabole. I've explained on numerous occasions
that a true Hebrew Parable has several characteristics beginning with the
opening words that make it clear that what is about to be said is a comparison of
like to like. So, Jesus has started His Parables with words such as: "The
Kingdom of Heaven is like". Or "To what we can we compare the Kingdom of
Heaven?". As fairly recent research of ancient Jewish documents reveal...
documents mostly containing the sayings of Rabbis from shortly after Christ's day
to hundreds of years later... it is that the way that Yeshua began His Parables
was the standard format and that Parable as a teaching method was rather
common in Jewish culture. However other characteristics of a true Hebrew
Parable are that they are fictional stories that seek to communicate a single
moral point while making a like-for-like comparison. The so-called Parable of
verses 28 - 32 doesn't meet most of these characteristics. So why is the
term parabole used to describe the story, even by Jesus? But more, why is this
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
important to all students of God's Word and not just to academics or
Theologians? Because if this is a true Parable as the Hebrew culture thought of
it, then we are forced to search for but a single moral of the story and discard all
other elements of the story as irrelevant. On the other hand, if what Yeshua is
saying is something of a different kind of literary form, then we are freed to find
several morals or instructions or comparisons tucked within it.
When we look at the Greek lexicons as to the meaning and use of that Greek
term we find this:
parabole
1) a placing of one thing by the side of another, juxtaposition, as of ships in battle
2) metaphorically
2a) a comparing, comparison of one thing with another, likeness, similitude
2b) an example by which a doctrine or precept is illustrated
2c) a narrative, fictitious but agreeable to the laws and usages of human life, by
which either the duties of men or the things of God, particularly the nature and
history of God's kingdom are figuratively portrayed
2d) a parable: an earthly story with a heavenly meaning
3) a pithy and instructive saying, involving some likeness or comparison and
having preceptive or admonitory force
3a) an aphorism, a maxim
4) a proverb
5) an act by which one exposes himself or his possessions to danger, a venture,
a risk
Here's the point: as the lexicons tell us, the Greek word parabole can be
employed to express a wide array of literary forms and uses. It is more of a
general word that describes numerous kinds of fictional stories, in a number of
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
settings, which can be used to make a single point or even several points. So we
need to be conscious of the fact that Christ used fictional stories (all of which in
Greek are called parabole) in more than one way. Some of them are true
Hebrew Parables, and others are meant to impart something else. It is for us to
discern which way He meant them because it goes a long way towards aiming us
in the proper direction of how to interpret those stories. In this case,
the parabole about the man with 2 sons is NOT a classic Parable in the Hebrew
sense of it, which always begins with some version of "to what can the matter be
compared?". Rather the man and his 2 sons is a fictional story that is told as a
metaphor and meant to illustrate not only one, but several things. It probably
rises to the level of allegory. None of this is negative or is it a problem. We just
have to know which is which because Yeshua's immediate audience, and those
to whom Matthew wrote His Gospel, do know the difference. Now that we, too,
know, we can better dissect this story and extract the several intended meanings.
Yeshua is instructing and so addresses His audience like a teacher. His main
audience remains as some unidentified members of the Jewish religious
establishment. He says that when He's done with the story, He would like to hear
their opinion about it. What Christ is really doing is continuing His frank
indictment of not only these particular men but the Temple and Synagogue
leadership in general. The story is rather straightforward. This fictional man goes
to each of his 2 sons asking them to do some labor within the family vineyard.
Quickly we learn that both sons are rather rebellious, yet they each react to their
father's request in different ways. Son #1 is told to go and work in the vineyard.
Quite disrespectfully he refuses; however later he thinks better of it and goes to
the vineyard to work. Son #2 is then told to go work in the vineyard, he feigns
respect (we read that he replies "I will sir") deceitfully indicating that he'll obey,
but doesn't ever intend to show up. Son #1 at first refuses yet he works. Son #2
at first accepts but does not work. The short story ends and Christ asks: "Which
of the two sons did what the father wanted?" His audience... the Jewish religious
authorities... answers "the first one" and Jesus says that they answered correctly.
But the mood rapidly deteriorates. Yeshua compares the first son to prostitutes
and tax collectors. Prostitutes and tax collectors were seen as inherently outside
the scope of the Torah. That is, their lifestyles were so wicked and counter to
Jewish values that despite being Hebrew by birth they were considered by
normative Jewish society as having made themselves gentile-like in their
behavior... born as insiders, but choosing to become outsiders. And yet, says
Christ, even these prostitutes and tax collectors will be allowed entry into the
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
Kingdom of Heaven ahead of these religious authorities He is talking to. The
words "insult" and "offensive" are not strong enough. I think it is hard for us to
imagine the depth of injury that Yeshua has done to these men who consider
themselves as the pinnacles of holiness and righteousness. These men that are
widely accepted and held up as the ultimate Jewish insiders are told by this
Galilean man to their faces that God sees them as lower than prostitutes and tax
collectors. Yikes!
The second son represents the priests and scribes who do not believe in John's
credentials, and therefore in their eyes, Jesus has no credentials. Bottom line:
they are opponents of John and Jesus, and therefore opponents of God. They
are the ones who were clearly shown the path to righteousness by John the
Immerser, but they refused to trust in what John was and came to do even
though they acted as though they did. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes
DID trust in John, and so despite their sin relegating them to the lowest level of
Jewish society due to the disgust of their professions, they were invited into the
Kingdom of Heaven. Thus unlike the first son that at first refused, but then saw
things more clearly and did what was righteous, the Jewish religious leaders
acted like the second son that displayed a certain level of obedience to the Law
and to God, but then exposed themselves as deceivers and fakes.
Since this story is not a true Parable in the Hebrew sense of it and instead it is a
fictional story meant to illustrate a number of things, let me lay it out for you. The
father of the sons represents God the Father. The first son represents the
common Jewish people... even the worst of them. The second son represents the
stubborn and prideful Jewish religious leadership. The vineyard represents Israel.
In the end, this is a rather simple story with several rather easily made
connections. Although it is also a hard-hitting story that brings a number of
ramifications along with it.
The religious leadership (like the 2
nd son) that outwardly seems so amiable and
approving of John, are inwardly stone-like. They needed to appear to be
accepting of John because it pleased the people; but it was phony. They never
intended to act on John's call to repent from their sin, to adopt a new and holy
mindset, and to actually start behaving truly righteously. It is one thing to show up
every time the Church opens its doors and to say all the right things; it is quite
another to sincerely adopt and act upon God's truth.
This metaphorical story that Jesus has told and then firmly connected the
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
religious leaders of the Jews to, has another aspect that we shouldn't overlook. It
sort of takes us back a few chapters in Matthew's Gospel to what I have
previously said is, to me, the most terrifying passage in the entire Bible. Terrifying
not so much for professed non-Believers, but rather for those of us who claim
allegiance to God and His Son.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 27 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
While this warning applies to all who outwardly say they are Believers, this
applies doubly so to the leaders of the Church... including of course Messianic
Synagogues... and to all teachers of God's Word. And yet the final words of
Matthew 21:32 contain some of the best news imaginable. It is that the worst sort
of sinners, and those whom the societies of the world have relegated as their
outsiders, have hope. A change of mind, and a new and sincere trust in God
brings the happiest of results; the Kingdom of Heaven welcomes you. The past is
the past, and your future becomes victorious and glorious. Let's move on to the
next story in Matthew 21. RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 21:33 - end
It seems Christ still was not satisfied that He had sufficiently chastised the
religious leadership and so tells another parabole. Like the one we just finished
discussing, this next one is also more metaphor and allegory than true Hebrew
Parable. As much as I am not a fan of allegorical teaching in Church sermons,
nonetheless it doesn't mean that the allegories aren't necessarily true. And here
Yeshua employs allegory to reveal some important spiritual truths. I'll say upfront
(and repeat it later) that once again we find a vineyard at the core of the story
meaning that Israel is at the core of the story. Yet there are some other nuances
about this narrative that history has preserved and helps us to better understand
how Jews in general would have taken the meaning and application.
The tale is actually spun around the beginning words of Isaiah chapter 5 and I
think you will immediately see the connection. Here's a few verses of it.
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
CJB Isaiah 5:1 / want to sing a song for someone I love, a song about my
loved one and his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a very fertile
hill. 2 He dug up its stones and cleared them away, planted it with the
choicest vines, built a watchtower in the middle of it, and carved out in its
rock a winepress. He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced
only sour, wild grapes. 3 Now, citizens of Yerushalayim and people of
Y'hudah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could I have
done for my vineyard that I haven't already done in it? So why, when I
expected good grapes, did it produce sour, wild grapes? 5 Now come, I will
tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and [its
grapes] will be eaten up; I will break through its fence, and [its vines] will
be trampled down. 6 1 will let it go to waste: it will be neither pruned nor
hoed, but overgrown with briars and thorns. I will also order the clouds not
to let rain fall on it. 1 Now the vineyard of ADONAl-Tzva'ot is the house of
Isra'el, and the men of Y'hudah are the plant he delighted in. So he
expected justice, but look- bloodshed!- and righteousness, but listen- cries
of distress!
Notice in Isaiah how God explains straightaway that the vineyard is meant to
represent Israel.
I'll begin unpacking this farmer and the wicked tenants story by reminding you
that Yeshua is still speaking primarily to the Temple and Synagogue authorities
(although without doubt other ears are listening) and so it is mostly tailored for
them, even though it has some elements that speak of Israel in general (the
vineyard) as we find in Isaiah 5, which Jesus no doubt modeled this story around.
However, we're going to do something in reverse. Rather than our first going
through the parabole point by point, I'm going to tell you in advance what each
element in the story represents.
1) The vineyard is Israel and its meaning can be expanded to include the End
Times Kingdom of Heaven.
2) The farmer that owned and planted the vineyard is God the Father.
3) The tenants that the farmer rented the vineyard to are the Jewish religious
authorities but in this instance, they can probably be slightly narrowed down to
mean the Jerusalem-based religious leaders who were the highest of the
leadership of both Temple and Synagogue.
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
4) The crop or the fruit of the harvest is that portion which is owed to God by the
religious leadership. That is, the fruit or crop are those Hebrews that have been
prepared and nurtured by the religious leadership... God's representatives on
earth.
5) The mistreatment and the non-acceptance of the farmer's servants represent
the rejection and hostility towards God's Prophets.
6) The sending and the repudiation of the farmer's own son represents God
sending Yeshua to Israel, and the disdain and dismissal the Jewish religious
leadership have for Him.
7) The new tenants of the vineyard that replace the destroyed ones equal those
religious leaders who sincerely trust in God and His Messiah Yeshua, and act
accordingly.
One other thing that I want you to be acutely aware of. The bad guys in this story
are NOT Israel (the Jewish people) in general, and the good guys are NOT
gentiles in general. Rather this entire story is about the Jewish religious
leadership... those God has allowed to be in charge of His people.
So; this farmer plants a vineyard. It was a new vineyard. And, as was rather
standard in that era, he built a wall around it to not only mark its boundaries but
also to help keep critters out that could eat up the harvest. Next, he builds a wine
vat. The vat described is the ancient way of extracting the juice from the grapes,
and while still in use in Jesus's day, better more efficient ways were also now in
use. The ancient-style wine vat usually consisted of a large rock that had two
depressions carved out, one higher than the other. In the first depression the
whole grapes were laid where a person would stomp on them. As the juice came
out it would stream through a small channel that was cut between the upper and
lower depressions. Once the juice reached the lower depression and it filled up, it
was removed for further processing and then fermentation.
The farmer also built a watchtower in his vineyard. A watchtower was used as a
place for a caretaker to stay for shelter, and also to be on the lookout for larger
animals that might come to chew on the grapevines, and also for people who
might come to steal from the vineyard. In truth, neither the watchtower nor the
wine press play a role in the story other than to say that the vineyard was
properly planted, growing, and everything had been set in place for it to be
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
properly tended and then harvested. In other words, it was fully equipped and
complete.
So after the farmer who owns the vineyard establishes it and gets it going, he
turns it over to others to run and even to profit from it to some extent. Of course,
as the landlord-tenant relationship implies, the landlord is the owner and the
tenants are just renters. The renters have no rights beyond whatever the landlord
gives to them. As the story continues the grapes mature and it is time for the
harvest. The farmer sends 3 servants to collect his portion of the crop that is
payment for the tenants being allowed to farm and use the vineyard. However,
the ungrateful and criminal tenants not only refuse to give the farmer what is
rightly His, they harm His servants. One they beat up; another they kill; the
3
rd they stone. Let's pause here before we complete the story to incorporate what
each element of this story represents so far.
God establishes Israel as a new group of people set apart as His own. He
provides the Torah (God's laws and commands) to them as the protective wall (a
fence) around His people, and uses some of the people as warrior-guards to
defend Israel both spiritually and physically so that it may produce healthy
members for God's Kingdom. He leaves Israel in the charge of leaders whose job
it is to see to it that Israel produces Kingdom members abundantly. But, when
God decides it's time to check up on His people He sends His Prophets as His
representatives, and some are beaten up, others are harmed and run-off, and still
others are killed.
Back to our story. The farmer, distressed at seeing what had happened to the
servants he had sent decides he'll take the rather serious, even dangerous, step
of sending his own son on his behalf to oversee the harvest, certain that these
wicked tenants would relent and obey him now. But no, they decide they'll kill the
farmer's son as well with the idea that they would take possession of the vineyard
and therefore all that it produced. So, they grabbed the farmer's son, threw him
outside the vineyard, where they killed him. That's the end of the story.
Let's pause and see how this plays out using the elements that are being
represented in the story.
God sees what the Israelite leaders have done to His Prophets that He has sent
to Israel... they have been rejected and killed... so later He decides that He'll
send His own son, Yeshua, to Israel to check on and oversee God's people.
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
Jesus, as God's son, who in Middle Eastern cultures is essentially the Father's
agent and is to be treated and respected exactly the same way God ought to be
treated and respected, was recognized as God's Son but the leaders of Israel
didn't want to accept Him because they wanted it all for themselves. They wanted
to own and run Israel as they saw fit. So they plotted to kill Messiah Yeshua and
steal Israel (Yeshua's inheritance) from Him and therefore from God the Father.
The story completed, Christ asks the Jewish religious leaders what they think
such a farmer would do about this horrific and unjust situation. They correctly
answer that the farmer will come and destroy those vicious men that He had left
in charge of His vineyard and turn it over to others whom he trusts. In other
words, the farmer would simply exercise reasonable and lawful judgment upon
these irresponsible, negligent, and criminal men to destroy them and give their
leadership rights to others that were more loyal and obedient to the farmer.
Now; sometimes it's good to ask ourselves what the reasoning is behind Yeshua
picking the subjects He does to mold His many fictional stories around in order to
teach some points that He wants to get across. It's not a difficult question to
answer, really. He chose situations that people in the Holy Land were familiar
with, and social and religious issues that were front and center in His day. So
what about the farmer and the vineyard? You see, from a Jew's 1
st century
perspective, the farmer was an absentee landlord of which there were many at
that time. He was rich, he held land in the Holy Land and would turn it over to
tenant farmers. Then at harvest season, the absentee landlord would send
certain of his servants to collect taxes from the tenant farmers. He really didn't
care what went on provided he got his money; and most of the time the absentee
landlord was a foreigner.
Thus the Galileans, being mostly farmers and herders, had strong views on the
subject of absentee landlords that had no connection to the Jewish people or the
land other than to collect money for their coffers. It's doubtful the Jewish religious
authority was affected much by such a situation, but the people they lorded over
certainly were. Thus the core elements of the story would have been of keen
interest to Yeshua's listeners, and also to Matthew's Jewish readers some
decades later.
This story of the farmer and the wicked tenants is concluded with Yeshua doing
what He often does: quoting Scripture. In this case, it is from Psalm 118 verses
22 and 23. However for the sake of better context, here are a few more verses.
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
CJB Psalm 118:22-26 22 The very rock that the builders rejected has become
the cornerstone! 23 This has come from ADONAI, and in our eyes it is
amazing. 24 This is the day ADONAI has made, a day for us to rejoice and be
glad. 25 Please, ADONAI! Save us! Please, ADONAI! Rescue us! 26 Blessed
is he who comes in the name of ADONAI. We bless you from the house of
ADONAI.
Perhaps you recall that Psalm 118 is what was known as the Hallel. It had
become Tradition to use various parts of it during the celebrations of the 3
pilgrimage festivals that the Law of Moses called for. So Yeshua attached this
portion of the widely known Hallel to His story and His open criticism of the
Jerusalem religious leadership to make a connection between some of the words
of the Hallel and Himself. He makes the cornerstone that the builders rejected
equate to the farmer's son that was thrown out of the vineyard and killed. And
who can miss the plea to God for salvation and deliverance in the Hallel that is
essentially the entire purpose for which Jesus Christ was born, and is now in
Jerusalem to bring about. So when we begin to think about all that is happening
surrounding Christ, from a 1
st century Jewish perspective Matthew's Gospel
blooms with beautiful color and meaning.
To sum up what everything He has said is intended to impart to the Jewish
religious leaders, Christ says in verse 43:
CJB Matthew 21:43 43 Therefore, I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be
taken away from you and given to the kind of people that will produce its
fruit!"
So Jesus's story has turned from fictional, to representative, to a serious threat.
The religious authorities finally had their excuse to do away with this Galilean
Holy Man.
Some Bible versions have a verse 44 (it is not present in the CJB). The NAB and
most others of the most recognized versions do have it.
NAB Matthew 21:44 [ The one who falls on this stone will be dashed to
pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.]"
The NAB properly puts brackets around this verse because it is nearly certainly a
gloss inserted by some Christian editor from a later period, and it didn't exist in
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
the early Greek manuscripts. So well not deal with it as it really doesn't add
anything to the narrative.
The final verse of this chapter says that the religious authorities knew Yeshua
was directing this charge towards them and because they were able to take His
words as a threat, they intended to have Him arrested immediately. They would
have except Jesus was very popular, the city of Jerusalem was bursting at the
seams full of Jewish pilgrims that were already operating in a heightened
emotional state, and any attempt to arrest this popular Tzadik would surely have
resulted in rioting.
When we're told that the people thought Him a prophet, we need to not be
thinking in Old Testament Prophet terms. Rather in the early 1
st century a prophet
was thought of as a seer or an astute interpreter of the Torah and dispenser of
Wisdom. These 1
st century prophets nonetheless were revered and the people
would not have stood still for them being harassed by the religious elite.
A final comment. Very sadly and wrongly, mainstream institutional Christianity
has for 1700 years said that this story of the farmer and the wicked tenants is
about God taking authority away from Israel and handing it over to the gentile
Church. That is, it is yet another false pillar used to prop up the Hellish
Replacement Theology Doctrine that has God transferring all His blessings from
Israel to the gentile-controlled Church, leaving only the biblical curses for Israel to
suffer. Hopefully, you have noticed in this last story that only the leadership of
Israel is being threatened by Yeshua of having their leadership authority
removed; and there is no hint that anyone but new and more faithful Israelite
leaders that trust in Yeshua would replace them. Gentiles play no role; there is no
sudden switch in ethnicity. Nor do the common Jewish citizens play a role (other
than as victims); and there is no hint of some kind of new gentile-fashioned faith
to replace the Hebrew faith.
So I want to leave you with some food for thought. I believe that one of the most
hypocritical and misleading doctrines ever concocted and mouthed throughout
Church history is that gentiles have accepted Christ because the Jews didn't.
Gentiles have by no means made trust in Jesus a universal characteristic; not in
the 1
st century and not in the 21st. The high end of the estimates are that only 3 in
10 gentiles in the world today are Believers; meaning that 7 out of 10 gentiles are
not.
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Lesson 71 - Matthew 21 cont 2
We'll begin Matthew chapter 22 next time.
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 72, Chapter 22
Today we open Matthew chapter 22. It begins with quite a long Parable. Unlike
some of the other metaphorical and symbolic illustrations that Jesus has been
using to instruct and to reply, this is a true Parable in the Hebrew literary sense
and thus we have to recognize it as such. This means that we have to set aside
our contemporary Western mindsets, and put on a 1
st century Jewish mindset to
get the most out of it.
I'll remind you that a true Parable is a fictional story. It has only one moral to it. It
always employs people, things, and circumstances that are familiar to Yeshua's
Jewish listeners. It is not an allegory, the details are relatively unimportant and
often hyperbole is used to heighten the tension in order to draw in the listener. In
fact, to pay too much attention to the details will lead us away from the single
important point that the Parable is attempting to make. Perhaps one of the more
complex challenges of every Parable of Christ is that it is told 100% within the
Jewish cultural mindset and experience of the 1
st century. This is one of the
several reasons that we spend as much time as we do with the historical
background of the Bible characters and setting since it is not general knowledge
that Bible students and God worshippers in general possess or (sadly) are
taught.
So if a Parable has but one single point (that is, like the one we're about to study
the point is stated at the end of it), then why are some so long winded and
elaborate? It is because they were meant to be heard, remembered, and then
passed along to others by the spoken word. Therefore the detail was added in
order to embellish, make it interesting, and more easily memorable. Let me give
you a very simple example.
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
A very wealthy older man lives in a 100 room mansion on a 1000 acres of
beautiful and well maintained grounds. His curious granddaughter comes to him
one day and asks if he would tell her how it happened that he became so wealthy
(since she knew that he came to America as a poor immigrant), and she also
asks how this beautiful house came to be. He replies: I was poor. Then I got rich.
I bought land. Then I built this house. End of story. Not very satisfying and not
very memorable. And while what he said was true and factual, a little more
information and color would have made for a beautiful story this young girl might
have cherished and then handed down to her own children. So a Parable is
constructed in a way that adds details for the sake of color and depth and to
make it feel more relevant to us and to our daily lives. It takes us to the same
truth as if it was told coldly and abruptly, but instead it makes the story into
something enjoyable, informative, unforgettable, and more likely to be
communicated to others.
When I said that the details of a Parable are not important, I meant it in the sense
that they can be a distraction if we're not careful. For a 1
st century Jewish listener
the details woven into the Parable were of familiar concepts and common
knowledge, and so the scene Jesus was setting and its several cultural nuances
were easily grasped. In fact, as more and more ancient Jewish literature is
discovered and translated, and then carefully studied, it seems that nearly all of
the illustrations and Parables Yeshua spoke had already existed and were in use
in some form. In the times immediately following Christ, we find some these
sayings and Parables written down by the Rabbis in the Mishna and Talmud. Yet
for us of the 21st century, we can easily misconstrue the meaning of Yeshua's
Parables and illustrations because we are so far removed from the biblical era
and culture. So I will explain some of the details so that we can appreciate how
those ancient listeners would have understood it, and therefore how we must
understand it. The meaning of Christ's Parables does not evolve over time; they
remain the same. It's only how to apply the moral of the story in this modern, fast
moving technological world we live in today.
Open your Bibles to Matthew 22.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 22 all
This is one of those situations that would it have served us better if the chapter
change and verse markings that were added to our Bibles 1000 years ago
weren't there at all, because what was going on in chapter 21 simply flows
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
uninterrupted into chapter 22. The chapter and verse format as it appears to us in
our Bibles makes it seem as though what was happening in chapter 21 has come
to an end and chapter 22 begins a new scene with Jesus speaking to other or
different people. That's not the case. The final words of chapter 21 were:
CJB Matthew 21:45-46 45 As the head cohanim and the P'rushim listened to
his stories, they saw that he was speaking about them. 46 But when they set
about to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds; because the crowds
considered him a prophet.
And then the scene continues with verse 1 of chapter 22 saying: "Yeshua again
used Parables in speaking to them". So the scene of chapter 21 continues with
more conversation. The "them" are the same fellows we were reading about in
chapter 21. So Jesus was in Jerusalem, at the Temple, and still jousting with the
same chief priests and Pharisees. In other words, Yeshua was doing battle with
both sides of the Jewish religious system that were engaging Him; the Temple
side and the Synagogue side. And these 2 sides that under normal
circumstances were quite separate and had little use for one another found a
common enemy in Yeshua of Nazareth. The all important context that we must
hold onto throughout this Parable (and really all of chapter 22) is Jesus criticizing
and warning these representatives of the Jewish religious leadership. Not
necessarily ALL of the Jewish religious leadership, but only those who thought
and behaved as those standing before Him. This was NOT a diatribe against the
entire religious leadership nor the Jewish people in general, but it was part of a
Christ-led reformation of their biblical Hebrew faith that had become so muddled
and polluted with manmade Traditions that it obscured the holy and true Word of
God. Yeshua's words were directed and nuanced towards the misguided leaders
who held such great authority and sway over the common people in Jewish
society. Whatever these men said, right or wrong, the people believed. After all,
these leaders were considered to be (and held themselves up to be) the experts
of all matters concerning the Jewish faith. A good and proper analogy of the
Jewish religious leadership of that era would be the Rabbis, Pastors,
Ministers, Bible teachers and commentators of our time.
Notice how the opening words of the Parable are spoken in classic Parable
style: "The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to..." So the instruction Jesus
is about to give is to explain something important about the Kingdom of Heaven;
and to do so He is going to use a familiar illustration within Jewish society to lead
His listeners to His point. So the fictional story is about a king that is throwing a
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
banquet. Kings, farmers, and women were often used as the fictional foils in
Jewish Parables. Immediately there is a detail provided that would have been
common knowledge to the 1st century Jews but can escape us. It is that this is
not just any lavish banquet, it is a wedding banquet. That the groom of the
wedding is the king's son simply adds to the gravity of the situation.
In that era there was little more socially important than a wedding. So what we
need to pay most attention to is the actions than to the specific people involved. If
one was invited to a wedding, it was far more of a social obligation to attend
than it was to any other kind of event invitation with an accompanying banquet.
To choose not to go was to bring shame to the one holding the event, and the
one who skipped it would normally have been looked at as being a rather bad
person. That a king is holding the event really makes the invitation more of a
summons with terrible authority behind it.
Since this Parable is constructed within a Jewish cultural context, then we need
to look for a connection to something else in a Jew's common reality that they
would have easily recognized. I suspect that that something was Proverbs 9.
We'll read the opening verses... but before we do I want to remind you that
Yeshua was seen by His followers as well as His mere admirers as possessing
the spirit of Solomon (the spirit of the Son of the David). Part of the Tradition
about Solomon is one we're most familiar with: His God-given Wisdom. So
Wisdom was seen by many who looked up to Jesus as one of His extraordinary
attributes.
CJB Proverbs 9:1 Wisdom has built herself a house; she has carved her
seven pillars. 2 She has prepared her food, spiced her wine, and she has set
her table. 3 She has sent out her young girls [with invitations]; she calls
from the heights of the city, 4 "Whoever is unsure of himself, turn in here!"
To someone weak-willed she says, 5 "Come and eat my food! Drink the wine
I have mixed! 6 Don't stay unsure of yourself, but live! Walk in the way of
understanding!" Wisdom in the Oriental cultures of that era was thought of as a person, in a
similar way to how many Christian denominations view the concept of the Trinity
as consisting of 3 persons. Wisdom was seen as a divine entity; much more than
a virtuous attribute. So in this Proverb we have a feast prepared and we have
Wisdom as the one who is hosting the feast. All are invited, even the weak-willed.
So the themes of Proverbs 9 and of this Parable of Jesus are quite similar in their
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
nature and likely Christ's listeners would have made the connection and felt that
His Parable was a sort of midrash... a commentary... on Proverbs 9.
Before we proceed, it is good to notice that Mark's Gospel doesn't contain this
particular Parable, but Luke's does have something similar. The majority of
commentators ancient and modern see Luke 14:15 - 24 as the parallel to what
we read in Matthew 22:1 - 14. So let's pause to read it in Luke. However I want to
start reading a bit earlier in the chapter so that the context for the Parable in Luke
is better displayed.
READ LUKE CHAPTER 14:1 - 24
Notice that in Luke Jesus told this Parable on Shabbat, in the personal home of a
leading Pharisee, and somewhere along the road to Jerusalem. Yeshua was
dining with this leader and with others. Verse 7 explains that Yeshua watched
how the guests were attempting to seat themselves according to their own
perceived social status and rank. Therefore in verse 12 He says to His Pharisee
host that he shouldn't invite only the aristocrats and his relatives to his home, but
also the poor and the lame. A person at the table with Yeshua was so overcome
by the truth and wisdom of Christ's words that he exclaimed how blessed people
will be who eat bread (who eat at a feast) in the Kingdom of God. And then
Yeshua responds with a Parable about a man giving a banquet, inviting the
wealthy and the land owners, but they shun the invite because they have other
things they feel are more important. So the man orders his servants to go out to
the highways and byways and invite strangers, common folk, to eat the food that
is otherwise going to go to waste. That's pretty much the end of the Parable.
My opinion is that this Parable in Luke while built upon a similar core truth and
having a few other similarities to the Parable we are studying about in Matthew
22, also has many differences. There seems to be a common mindset...a kind of
unconscious assumption, if you would... among Bible academics and teachers
that when we read about things Christ said in the different Gospels that He only
would have said them one time and in one way, and we'll never hear of them
again. Therefore a contest among intellectuals erupts to determine which of the
Gospels is telling us the most correct version of the story, or which is the actual
original story from which the other Gospel writers drew their information, but they
modified it. Again, this assumes that even though (as with our current Parable)
the setting of the Parable between the 2 Gospel accounts is different, some of
the most important elements of the story are different, and even the characters
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
are different, nonetheless the Parable in Luke 14 is the same event, at the same
moment, telling the same Parable as in Matthew 22; and that this Parable was
spoken only this one time. Folks, that is simply not how people genuinely operate
and I don't for a second believe Christ operated that way. He would have told
similar stories in different settings at different times using somewhat different
words, each story tailored to the circumstance at hand, even though the moral or
the point of the story was similar to other stories we read of Him telling. That is,
He would have told the same story or Parable to make a point that would have
varied just a bit to fit the application and audience at hand. So, no, we should not
compare the Luke Parable to Matthew's and say they are the same, with one
account of it being more accurate than the other.
It is always better that we look at the same story as told in the various Gospel
accounts in order to gather the most information available in order to achieve the
most well-rounded understanding of it that we can. That said, we will look no
further at Luke 14 because it doesn't contain the same Parable we are reading
about in Matthew 22, nor do we find this Parable in the Book of Mark.
In verse 3 of Matthew 22 notice the careful wording: the king sent servants to
summon those he had invited. In other words, the invitations had been sent at an
earlier time as a notification of an upcoming event. Now that the banquet has
been prepared, the guests are summoned to come immediately. That is, the
assumption in the Parable is that the invitations to the wedding were accepted
and now it is time to act by coming to the feast. But what happens? The guests
refused to come! Yet the unusually patient and benevolent king then sends a
second group of servants to summon the guests in order to give them a second
chance that they might have a change of heart. The servants are to tell the
guests that all the preparations have been made. The bulls and cattle have been
slaughtered and cooked. Everything is completely ready. But the guests were
unmoved. Some said, no I can't come because I have to mow my lawn today.
Others said, but I need a day to rest and put my feet up because we stayed out
late last night. Still others said, I'd normally come but there's a great football
game on today. Still others said... OK it doesn't say that. But that's essentially in
modern terms what the ungrateful guests responded with. In the Parable one
went off to his farm (to oversee it's operations no doubt), another to go look after
his business (that is, to continue to make profit). But worst of all, the remainder of
the guests grabbed hold of the king's servants, abused them and then murdered
them!
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
I remind you, this is a fictional story... an exaggerated fiction... with a goal of
leading us to a moral. I'm going to pause here to preach something that I think is
from the Lord, and admittedly in doing so I'm going to use allegory. Yet this
Parable of the king's son's wedding feast uses some powerful elements that I
can't let pass by. Just as the wedding guests in the Parable were obligated to get
up from their comfortable homes, and to leave behind what seemed at the time to
be more important to them to come the wedding feast thus honoring the king, so
are followers of the God of Israel and His Son Yeshua obligated to obey Him, to
worship and glorify Him, and to gather together in holy assembly if at all possible.
What we are doing today and other days when we come together as a
community of Believers is to worship and glorify the Lord in music, praise, prayer,
and in learning His ways through learning His Word. It necessarily begins with
our presence. It begins even earlier with our determination that despite the
business of life, and the many opportunities and options that we have to do other
pressing or especially enjoyable things, we will make gathering together in order
to communally worship God as a top priority in our lives. Whether you are sitting
in this sanctuary before me today or watching this at home, setting aside the time
to worship and praise God... and especially in the company of fellow Believers...
is not merely a nice thing to do, it is our duty as far as it is up to us. It is one of
the several ways we are to acknowledge the importance of the Lord in our lives...
not acknowledge it to others, but to Him by our actions.
Over and over we are warned by Jesus that merely claiming belief is not enough.
Thousands... millions... at the moment Judgment Day arrives will jump up and
confidently shout "Lord, Lord". But Yeshua says He will respond to so many
startled people saying: "I never knew you". He didn't mean "you're a stranger to
Me". He meant that despite what you claim, you never acted out what you say
you believe. There's too little actual evidence of your stated devotion to Christ to
count you as one of His. Listen: I've sat where you are seated. A long time ago, I
went to Church services only if I had nothing else that needed to be done or that I
preferred to do. I saw it as purely up to me, an option, that in no way affected my
relationship with the Lord. He'll understand, I told myself. But then tragedies in
my life proved I was wrong. Not because I think the Lord cursed me with tragedy,
but because if I had worshipped Him and stayed closer to Him, I probably would
have made different and better life choices that likely would have averted some,
maybe most, of those tragedies.
I learned that we can't have it both ways. Trust in God can't be a slogan, or only
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
skin deep. We must make every effort to come to the King when we're
summoned, to demonstrate to Him our loyalty and allegiance, and to sit at His
feet to learn His Wisdom, as we gather with like-minded Believers whom we can
befriend, encourage, love and help; and this comes only out of fellowshipping for
the purpose of worshipping the Creator. Or God allows us in our foolishness to
ignore the summons, have it our way, and eventually pay the inevitable price.
May those with ears, hear.
Going in another direction: by this early point in the Parable the questions as to
whom or what the King and his son, the wedding banquet and the invited guests
represent come front and center to the Christian Church. The King, it is usually
said, represents God. The son, of course, must be Christ. The wedding banquet
is the same as the Wedding Feast of the Lamb that we read about in Revelation
19; so this Parable is actually a prophecy of the far future. The invited guests that
won't come are assumed to be the Jewish people. And as the replacement
guests that the king ordered his servants to go out and gather are the gentile
Church. Folks, just as I used some elements of this story to allegorize and make
an application, my application was not at all the moral or point of this Parable.
And neither are any of these traditional identifications of the people in the story
correct. That is because the nature of the Parable is NOT to have each of these
characters as an allegorical or symbolic representation of someone or something.
They are just details added to embellish the story in order to get and hold our
attention and lead us to the point.
We, as gentile Christians and Messianic Believers, have had through the
centuries a troubling tendency to set aside the Jewish cultural context of the Bible
stories and their characters... and thus the points being made... and to replace
them with ideas that in no way existed at that time among those people, and
would not come into existence until centuries later and only among gentiles... not
among Jews. Yes, we can legitimately borrow from this Parable and fashion
some excellent and appropriate metaphors and illustrations to talk about the
Father and the Son, the End Times, and use them to explain some important
spiritual and practical things about our faith. Frankly, that's what most good
preachers and speakers strive to do. But that doesn't mean that our allegories
and applications are what Yeshua was actually teaching at the time or what the
people that heard Him thought a particular teaching meant. The idea we are to
obtain at this point of the Parable is of the shocking faux pax of social etiquette
by these invited guests who had the gall to refuse to attend their king's son's
wedding banquet. But even more shocking is that they didn't just leave it there;
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
some of them murdered the messengers! In other words, they exposed their
absolute and resolute rejection of the king, of his authority, and his summons. So,
what's the king to do?
This time, instead of sending his servants as messengers, the king sends armed
soldiers. The gracious invite and summons that was rejected, was exchanged for
merciless retribution. On behalf of the king, his soldiers killed the murderers and
burned down their city. Let's pause again. In the gentile Christian world of
allegorical interpretation, the majority of Bible scholars see what is occurring in
the Parable as God's judgment upon the Jewish people. The burning down of the
city is most often interpreted as the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (some of
this because so many scholars say that the Book of Matthew was written after
the destruction of Jerusalem). This burning down of the city is meant to show the
king's fury and the collateral damage that comes with it. Although because this
story is aimed at the Pharisees and the chief priests, it's hard not to think that
Jesus didn't intend these Jerusalem-based religious leaders to assume that He
meant the place of their government (Jerusalem) would be laid waste.
After the king's retribution has run its course, he decides that since the ones he
invited didn't come, he would extend the offer to other people. In the Jewish
understanding the invited ones are the wealthy and the aristocrats. I mentioned in
earlier lessons that the Jews believed that wealth and high societal position was
a blessing from God. Therefore, the wealthy and the aristocrats had to be closer
to God than the common folks could ever hope to be. So in this Parable, from the
Jewish perspective, the king rejected the aristocrats and wealthy who were closer
to God, and instead went seeking the poor, the common, and the under
privileged classes of people (who were not as close to God) to favor with his fine
banquet. Something that was near unimaginable. Again: this added more shock
value to the story.
We're told in the CJB that the servants went out into the streets to find more
people. The Greek word is hodos and it more means road. Other English Bible
versions say "highway". That's a bit better translation because the word street
seems to indicate something small and local. But that can't be the case because
the city with its streets has just been destroyed by the king! No; it means the
king's servants are looking for people who live outside the city; people coming on
a highway from other places. Let's pause again. The rather standard Christian
interpretation over the centuries is that the king is looking to replace Jewish
invitees with gentiles. In other words, the Jews rejected the offer from the king, so
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
gentiles would be sought out and they would happily accept the offer. The
Church (gentile of course) replaces the Jews. But even the conservative Bible
scholars such as Davies and Allison, Ben Witherington, and Daniel J. Harrington
all scoff at such a notion because no such implication is warranted. There is no
change in ethnicity implied here; this is a Jewish context start to finish just as with
all of Christ's teachings and Parables. So the change of guests is not a switching␂out of ethnicities; it is a switching-out of those belonging to a certain level of
social status. The least social status replaces the greatest social status. The poor
who had been further from God, replaces the rich who had been nearer to God
(at least as it was seen in Jewish eyes). Ah, but there's more. There would be no
discriminating between the good and the bad among the new batch of people
invited. No judging (at least for the moment) between the evil and the righteous.
All people that came within the sight of the servants were to be invited to the
wedding banquet at the call of the king.
Yet it seems that all is still not well. Although the net is widely cast to gather in
guests of all kinds to come, there are entrance requirements. The replacement
guests arrive and the king comes in to look them over and welcome them to his
son's wedding banquet. But Io and behold there's a problem. There was one man
that wasn't properly dressed for the occasion. In other words, he didn't come
prepared as he no doubt knew that he should. So the king confronts the
unprepared guest and demands to know just how he got into the banquet without
being properly dressed. The man was speechless because he knew he was
wrong and apparently was hoping he wouldn't be noticed or that perhaps the
wedding garment requirement had been abolished. In that era it wasn't
uncommon that a host would provide proper garments for his guests to a
wedding banquet because there was a cost for such fine clothes. Therefore no
one had an excuse for not honoring the host by being properly attired for such an
important occasion as a wedding feast. This ungrateful, impertinent guest is
summarily thrown out of the king's palace; tied up and bound, he is put outside
into the dark where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. The Church
interprets this as speaking of the grave, or perhaps *; maybe the Lake of Fire,
or simply complete separation from God. However this interpretation is reading
some far later Christian doctrine back into this story.
Almost certainly when the words of the king kicking the man into "outer darkness"
are used, the idea being expressed is the Hebrew concept of choshek that
Christ is thinking and describing and was well understood in the Jewish
culture. Choshek means darkness, but not like the darkness of nighttime (which
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
is layil in Hebrew). Choshek means an evil darkness... something depressing if
not terrifying... the total absence of Godly illumination. For this reason it is indeed
a place or a condition of wailing and despair that reminds a Jew of their exile in
Egypt and one of the plagues that consumed Egypt in darkness. But what it
would not have mentally pictured to the Jewish listeners was a spiritual place of
eternal pain and torment like *.
Then the Parable ends with the moral to the story so we don't have to piece it
together or wonder: "for many are invited, but few will be chosen". Because this
is such a long Parable, I'll repeat; this is Yeshua speaking directly to the
Pharisees and the chief (or senior) priests at the Temple in Jerusalem. He's
aiming this at them and they are well aware of it. And despite all the great
opportunities for meaningful illustrations by Bible teachers, Rabbis and Pastors
that is found in this meaty Parable, there is one and only one moral and point to
it: "for many are invited, but few will chosen". Who are the many? At this point in
the story we find out that the many could said to be "all"... everyone... rich or
poor, righteous or unrighteous, highly or lowly placed in the Jewish social
hierarchy. The aristocratic Jews didn't respond to the invitation and while many of
the common Jews did, some were good and some were bad. An example of the
bad was the man who wasn't wearing a wedding garment. He was thrown out
and so he clearly represents the class of common folk who are invited, but some
are not righteous, and so they won't be chosen. Let's not go outside Jewish
ethnicity in the meaning of this Parable because that's all that is being
contemplated at this time. It's only after Yeshua's death and resurrection that the
gate will be opened wider and gentiles will be pursued and welcomed to join with
believing Jewish brothers and sisters.
Let's address another matter of later Christian doctrine that also gets read back
into this story, with Calvin being one of the more notable contributors. Some of
you may already have guessed it: it is the issue of predestination or
predetermination. That is, that God has already chosen from eternity past those
from among the many who will be the few He accepts. And while I don't accept
such a doctrine, those Christian leaders who do would be better to abandon
pointing to this Parable as one of their proofs because any way one wants to look
at it, the reason for God NOT choosing anyone in the story has solely to do with
that person's own failures and not out of serendipity or some kind of
unchangeable destiny. The chosen are those who respond appropriately to the
king's invitation. In this case it is the failure of a man who indeed responded to
the invitation, but then behaves inappropriately, knowing better than to be found
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Lesson 72 - Matthew 22
without his wedding garment at the wedding banquet of the most important
person he'll ever encounter; the king.
With the ending of the Parable the chief priests and the Pharisees, stinging from
Yeshua's hard hitting words, go off to plot a way to rid themselves of this Galilean
Holy Man that is stirring up such a pot of trouble for them. So later they send
some others to try to entrap Him with what they think is a question that no matter
how He answers it, He will condemn Himself. That's what we'll study the next
time we meet.
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 73, Chapter 22 Continued
Matthew chapter 22 records a series of hard-hitting verbal reprimands and
instruction that Jesus had with some representatives of the Temple organization
and others from the Synagogue organization. Generally speaking, these two
organizations were populated and led by members of two different
religious/political/social sects. The Temple was led by the Sadducees, and the
Synagogue by the Pharisees. They had quite different doctrines that they each
abided by, and so the two groups remained in constant tension with one another.
Except here we find them teaming up to try to trip up Christ in order to discredit
Him, or even to do away with Him if they could find a way.
As we saw last time, chapter 22 kicks off with a Parable that leads us to a
principle about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. It involved a king holding a
wedding banquet for his son; but the invited guests brazenly refused to come. It
is understood that these guests were the wealthy, the influential, the aristocrats;
those highest on the social ladder. The reason for their refusals are several, none
of which lists any particular animosity towards the king or his son; it was simply
their indifference. Their excuses all revolved around things these various groups
of invited guests either held as more important in their lives or they preferred to
attend to something else that pleased them more. The Parable is shocking to the
Jewish listeners because there is little more socially important than a wedding.
An invite to a wedding is more than a suggestion; it is an obligation. Since the
shame and honor system was still embedded in Jewish society, then to not
attend was a great slap in the face, and damaged the king's honor, while at the
same time exposing those tardy guests as having poor character.
The king was not about to have his son's wedding banquet to go unattended, so
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
he sent servants out to invite common folks in at random, and their moral or
ethical condition was not to be examined or used as a determining factor in who
was invited. As the king inspected this unusual mixed bag of guests, one in
particular stood out because he was not wearing the required wedding garment
that everyone knew was to be worn for such an important occasion. The man
was bound and thrown out of the wedding banquet into an evil darkness. The
moral of the story is "for many are invited, but few are chosen". Let me expand
upon that. Since the Parable is meant to explain one aspect of what the Kingdom
of Heaven is like, then we are to understand that in the Kingdom of Heaven
virtually ALL are invited to enter (so far, the "all" are only Jews). Sinners, the
righteous, the rich, the poor, criminals and those who abide by the Law.
However, there are entrance requirements, and that is symbolized by the need to
wear the proper garment in preparation to be admitted. All who are invited are
called the "many", but the "few that are chosen" are those that show up properly
prepared for the occasion. So there is a definite sorting process.
Let us remember the scene. Yeshua is still on the Temple grounds jousting with
the head priest (which may or may not mean the High Priest), and with some
Pharisees who are not approaching Him in a sincere way, but rather are only
trying to find a means to discredit or kill Him. This Parable was aimed at them
and they were depicted as those indifferent guests who were invited but didn't
show up for the wedding banquet. The religious leadership was infuriated at this
blatant attack upon their integrity. So they stomped off and met together to
formulate yet another attempt to trap Yeshua. That attempt results in the famous
"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" proverb. Let's read about it.
Open your Bibles to Matthew 22 verse 15.
READ MATTHEW 22:15 - 22
This same story is told in Mark chapter 12. So, turn your Bibles just a few pages
to the Book of Mark.
READ MARK 12:13 -17
There are some minor differences in the two accounts, but that can be reconciled
when we factor in that Matthew's Gospel was meant for a Jewish audience and
Mark's a gentile one. Otherwise, they begin with, and arrive at, the same
conclusion.
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
Apparently, the Sadducees and the Pharisees went their separate ways because
it is the Pharisees who come back with yet another attempt to trap Yeshua. This
time they bring with them another identifiable group of folks that our New
Testaments call "the Herodians". History is vague as to just who this people
were. Scholars have guessed that these were Hellenistic Jews (that probably
lived in the Jewish Diaspora but had come to Jerusalem for the Passover
festival). That is, these were Jews that had assimilated into Greco-Roman
culture, and so were Jewish supporters of the rather hated Herod dynasty.
Clearly this group also had a problem with Jesus. Yet I emphasize that who they
were is only a guess since there is no recorded evidence to prove it.
At any length, the Pharisees and the Herodians come to Yeshua with a question
that involved the paying of taxes to the Roman Emperor. They open their
dialogue with "we know that you tell the truth" and conclude with "you are not
concerned with what other people think about you". In other words, they are
saying that Jesus can openly speak His mind and are encouraging Him to be
totally frank. Christ isn't anyone's fool and knows that these snakes are trying to
get Him to say something against the Emperor or to incite His followers to not
pay the required tax, which could be taken as sedition. Either way, the penalty is
crucifixion.
The question as far as the Herodians and Pharisees are concerned is tricky and
clever. When they say "is it lawful" or as in the CJB, "does Torah permit" paying
taxes to Caesar, it means "does it disobey God to pay that tax?" That is, as a
religious matter should Jews be monetarily supporting a pagan Roman
government, even against their will? So, the motive of the religious leaders isn't
so much to get Christ to cite what the Law of Moses says on the matter as it is to
draw Him out so that He states His personal opinion on the issue.
This is a good time to pause and make a point about reading the Bible... and it
applies to both Testaments. Whenever Jews (or Israelites in general) are
discussing the law, or what is legal, law means one of two things: the Law of
Moses or Jewish Law (Halakhah, Tradition). By Christ's era those two meanings
had become conflated such that it is only by context that we can discern which is
intended (and much of the time, Jews no longer made a distinction between the
two). Here it means the Law of Moses. The point being that whenever the Bible
discusses "the Law" or legality it always means God's laws and not secular laws
or the laws of gentile nations. There are a couple of exceptions to this, but when
those exceptions occur, they are specifically and clearly stated as being
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
something other than Tradition or the Law of Moses. Such a distinction is not
spoken but it is implied here. According to the Pharisees there is a Jewish law
that says that Jews should not pay the tax, but there is also a Roman law that
says they should. So; what should a good Torah observant Jew do? What would
Jesus do?
A little history. As it applied to the Jews, the Romans had 2 types of taxes they
imposed. The first was called tributum soli that was a tax on produce from the
field. The second was called tributum capitis and was a tax on personal
property that everyone paid. This second tax was usually taken by means of a
census and seems to have been a standard amount of one denarious per year
(not a very large tax). As small as the tax was, many Jews begrudged paying it
because the Pharisees had declared it against God's will and thus was a sin to
do so. This taxation was rather old news in Yeshua's day; it had actually begun in
the 60's B.C., or some 70 or so years earlier. About 25 years before the event
we're reading about in Matthew, there was actually a Jewish revolt that began in
the Galilee against paying it and no doubt it remained a major issue that
precipitated the Jewish revolt that resulted in the sacking of Jerusalem and
destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. So, for 1
st century Jews this taxation was a
huge and divisive unsettled issue and not at all hypothetical, unlike another
question about Levirate marriage that would shortly be put before Jesus.
We should notice that in response to their question Yeshua asks them to supply
a coin meaning He didn't have one. Why not? Since a denarious was not a large
denomination of coinage, then it was either because Christ and His disciples
didn't have any money with them or because He didn't want to carry a coin with
pagan imagery on it (which was as much the issue for the Jews as it was the
paying of it as a tax). Since the Caesar was considered as divine (at this time the
Caesar was Tiberius), and also as the High Priest of the Roman Sun God
religion, the words pontifex maximus were also inscribed on the denarious. His
image was imprinted on the coin with words that explained that he was the son of
the divine Augustus. Thus the more pious Jews were deeply concerned about
even touching what they considered a graven image. Yet notice that Yeshua
seems to have had no pause about handling the coin Himself.
Yeshua lets the Pharisees and Herodians know in no uncertain terms that He
sees through their ploy and calls them malicious hypocrites. Holding up the coin
He says: "Whose name and picture is on this coin?" They of course answer "the
Emperor's". So, Yeshua replies with the famous: "Give unto Caesar that which is
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
Caesars, and give to God what belongs to God!" Just how are we to take His
meaning (it certainly caught his opponents by surprise)? What would it have
meant to the Jews that were listening? Since this isn't a Parable but rather a kind
of proverb, there are a number of things we can take from it that applies to our
own time and circumstances.
There are Christians today that see paying taxes to our governments as a
religious matter and thus refuse to do so. Legally, in civil law in the West, such a
claim has long ago been settled in court and it dismisses religious belief as a
valid reason to avoid paying taxes. There are others in the several Western
Democracies, especially in the 21st century, that harbor views on the matter of
paying taxes that mixes politics with faith, and so they are deeply troubled that
we would be forced to give ANY money to a government that imposes laws,
regulations and policies that are starkly against our religious beliefs. But here, in
my opinion, Yeshua is making the entire matter trivial and unimportant. That is,
He is demonstrating that there is simply no Godly reason to think that if your
government imposes taxes on you that you shouldn't pay it. This proves that at
the least Jesus was no Zealot or rebel. Nor did He seem to oppose being
governed from Rome. When we back away and look at it from the 30,000 ft. view,
we never hear of Christ criticizing the Roman government or involving politics in
His teachings. Therefore, in His eyes there is no conflict between being loyal to
God on the one hand, and submitting to a secular or pagan government on the
other.
For those that have followed Torah Class in the past, you are aware that I have
made it clear in several lessons that as much as we might like to make it so, the
Bible is not an encyclopedia with a Table of Contents or Index that leads us to
answers for every question we might have. And, as with the issue of God
worshippers paying taxes to a pagan government, every difficult topic that is
addressed is not so simple as "yes" or "no"; the answers can at times be complex
and highly nuanced. That is the case here with paying taxes with Roman coins
to a Roman government. Even by the Apostle Paul's day, the matter was still not
agreed upon within Jewish society. So, Paul explained his position at length on it
that no doubt is meant as a reflection of Yeshua's proverb.
CJB Romans 13:1 Everyone is to obey the governing authorities. For there is
no authority that is not from God, and the existing authorities have been
placed where they are by God. 2 Therefore, whoever resists the authorities
is resisting what God has instituted; and those who resist will bring
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are no terror to good conduct, but to
bad. Would you like to be unafraid of the person in authority? Then simply
do what is good, and you will win his approval; 4
for he is God's servant,
there for your benefit. But if you do what is wrong, be afraid! Because it is
not for nothing that he holds the power of the sword; for he is God's
servant, there as an avenger to punish wrongdoers. 5 Another reason to
obey, besides fear of punishment, is for the sake of conscience. 6 This is
also why you pay taxes; for the authorities are God's public officials,
constantly attending to these duties. 7 Pay everyone what he is owed: if you
owe the tax-collector, pay your taxes; if you owe the revenue-collector, pay
revenue; if you owe someone respect, pay him respect; if you owe
someone honor, pay him honor. 8 Don't owe anyone anything- except to
love one another; for whoever loves his fellow human being has fulfilled
Torah.
What this boils down to is that God allows preferences, but demands obedience
to moral issues (although out of our morals ought to flow most of our personal
preferences). Taxes definitely fall into the preferences category and not into the
moral one. Some try to make taxation a moral issue but only if they disagree with
the current policy. No doubt taxation can be intentionally destructive and feel
completely unfair and unjust. Yet as Jesus states in Matthew 22, and Paul in
Romans 13, we can be deeply unhappy about taxation, but we are to suck it up
and pay it and not misconstrue it as a spiritual or faith issue. In the West, we can
choose through our voting who governs over us and thus who makes taxation
policies. But as we all know, in a Democracy our voting does not ensure that our
preferred candidates will win and thus become the ones who rule. So whoever
rules and makes the taxation laws, once made, as Believers we are obligated to
abide by them. This is not opinion; Jesus said so and Paul expanded upon it to
make it crystal clear.
On the other hand, will there be instances of clear conflict between government
edicts and what God requires of us? Absolutely; and we live with this reality every
day. We can begin to resolve the conflict by giving to our government what
belongs to our government, and giving to God what is God's. Thus money that is
issued by our government would, in Christ's eyes, fall into the category of what
belongs to the government. Civil contract law, even criminal law, in most cases
belongs to the government. However, our highest allegiance, and obedience to
our highest authority... the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... may at times call
for us to defy our government on clear moral issues. How we go about that
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
defiance is not entirely explained. I'll give you one such example that is front and
center in America today: the very serious issue of gender and sexuality.
The government law that makes legal the marriage of two people of the same
sex is patently immoral by everything biblically taught. That much of our society
has accepted it is as good and desired is one thing; that many of our Christian
denominations have (or some segments of those denominations have) is
another. To try to put a Godly stamp of approval on * marriage is wrong and
immoral in every sense. I have had numerous emails from folks about a person in
their family who is * and getting married to a same sex partner and some of
the family is terribly conflicted on whether to go the wedding to show love to the
family member or to boycott it as a matter of faith in God. My answer is always
the same: as a Believer you cannot be involved in such a thing. Your involvement
implies your ascent to what is immoral and an abomination before the Lord. This
sort of stance will win few friends, perhaps even cause a rift in the family; but it is
a price we pay for being a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Yet that doesn't
mean that we have to now completely shun or to hate that * person. Yeshua
sought out some of the worst sinners among the Jews (at that time the worst
were considered as the tax collectors and prostitutes) because they too must
hear about God's love that so much wants them to repent, obey Him and thus to
have peace with Him.
In any case, Christ's answer to the Pharisees and Herodians set them back on
their heels. They were amazed at it, and had no rebuttal. So, they left Him and
walked away... no doubt wounded and humiliated.
Beginning in verse 23 we read of yet another encounter that Yeshua had with
one of the spheres of Jewish religious authority. Open your Bibles again and we'll
read it together.
READ MATTHEW 22:23 - 32
The next group of Jewish religious leaders to confront Jesus were
representatives of the Sadducees. These were the Temple associated Jews, and
were for the most part aristocratic and very well off. The core subject isn't
hypothetical, but the circumstances they put forward to present it are highly
hypothetical and the core subject is about something they don't believe in:
resurrection from the dead. So from the get-go this is nothing but another fancy
and malicious attempt to try to make Jesus stumble. Their question very nearly
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
approaches the age-old, but silly: how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin? However this short section offers us a great deal of insight into a matter that
we all wonder about: our afterlife, our own resurrection from the dead and into
what state of being? Perhaps even when will it happen?
What Christ is going to expose is that this batch of Sadducees not only don't
know Scripture, or how to properly interpret it, they also don't understand the
power of God. I'll tell you up front that this subject and what Yeshua says about it
is as deep as it is wide. Mark's Gospel also contains this encounter so let's read it
as well.
READ MARK 12:18 -27
These accounts are very nearly identical, yet by reading Mark's, it gave us the
opportunity to essentially read this complex passage twice. First off, the
Sadducees don't believe in resurrection from the dead. Therefore it will make it
nearly impossible for them to accept Yeshua's resurrection that is but days away.
Yet the subject isn't about Yeshua's resurrection per se but rather about the
belief among most non-Sadducees that there someday would be a general
resurrection of the dead (of Jews). So when this passage talks about "the
resurrection" it is actually referring more to the resurrected group than to the
event itself.
What did the Sadducees believe about death and what happens afterward? The
Jews as a culture didn't really have a universal doctrine about death and afterlife.
They certainly didn't believe that after a person died their soul went to Heaven to
be with God. Rather, the Sadducees (as did most other Jews) thought that there
was some kind of shadowy existence after death, but what it amounted to and
where it happened was mostly earthbound. That is, whatever social status that
one went into the grave with, this shadowy existence more or less was lived out
on the same status level. We have to be careful not to equate the Jews' thoughts
about life after death with the resurrection; they were separate issues.
The precise circumstance the Sadducees presented was Levirate marriage and
how that would tie to resurrection. Levirate marriage is a Law of Moses. The
Levirate marriage law is that if in a marriage the husband dies before his wife
produces an offspring (and really it meant a son), then the husband's brother (the
oldest one if he has several) MUST marry the widow. Then he also must have a
male child with her. This male child will be considered the son of the deceased
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
man for the purposes of inheritance and continuing on with his family line.
In Judaism this is called Yibbum. What makes the Sadducees' question all the
more hypothetical and insincere is that this practice of Levirate marriage was
nearly extinct in Jewish society by Yeshua's day. So the circumstance they
present is that a man gets married but dies before a male child is produced. His
brother marries the widow, he too dies before a male child is produced, the same
thing happens to a third brother and continues all the way until the seventh
brother marries the 6-time widow and he, too, dies before the woman produces a
son. And so the question is: in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Now the idea is to poke fun at the entire concept of resurrection by showing that
there is no way it can work and still abide with the Law of Moses; so it would be
absurd to believe in it. Yeshua aims for the throat. He says the reason these
Sadducees believe this way is because they are ignorant of what the Scriptures
say and what it means when properly interpreted. He says that in the resurrection
there won't be marrying so the example they give is pointless. And the reason
there won't be marrying is because upon being resurrected, the resurrected
group will become like angels (who don't marry). This opens a huge can of
theological worms that the Rabbis and Christian scholars have debated for
centuries. Let's jump in.
To begin with, Christ unequivocally says that there will be a resurrection. As
Believers we have no reason to doubt it and every reason to rejoice over it. While
we can debate exactly what our afterlife will be like, and then what the
resurrection will be like (2 different things), the fact that both exist is confirmed by
Yeshua. Now about this issue of angels and what resurrected humans will be
like. I want you to carefully notice that this does NOT say that resurrected
humans will become angels. It says that in respect to marriage, we will be like
angels. When the New Testament uses an analogy or Parable to show how one
thing will be LIKE another thing, it does not mean that the one thing becomes the
other thing. Perhaps a better phrase in modern English would be that when it
comes to marriage, for resurrected humans it will be AS IF we were angels.
The Bible is frustratingly short on information about angels. Clearly they seem to
have some ability to procreate because we read about fallen angels procreating
with human females to produce what in Hebrew is the Nephillim. The legendary
offspring from their illicit mating were called giants and it is believed that the line
that Goliath came from were Nephillim giants. We know a few things about
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
them; but most of what Christianity teaches as angel doctrine has come down
from Jewish Tradition. Because the original purpose of marriage was to procreate
and to form a social unit called a family in which to raise those children, then it
would be logical that once the resurrection occurs and we become immortal, the
purpose of marriage evaporates. There's no need to marry and produce children
because now people never die.
But what about the immense value of relationship and love within a marriage? Do
the angels not enjoy that, or is there something even greater to be enjoyed? In
fact, are angels sexless, so we become beings without gender? Or does the way
that God created the differences in humans, not just physically but emotionally
and also in gifts and abilities and roles between male and female... come to an
end? Big questions, important questions, but the Bible is silent on them. Some
Christian commentators that are obviously unsatisfied with that lack of
information, and who (like me) probably place huge value in a good marriage...
commentators like Ben Witherington III... say that although Christ said that there
would be no marrying after the resurrection, it's what He didn't say that we should
notice. He didn't say that there would be no marriage. And he means that in the
sense that if one is married prior to the resurrection and both spouses are
Believers, then the marriage bond would continue AFTER the resurrection and
for eternity. But, if a person had never been married or had been married and
was divorced, or had been married to a non-Believer (who of course wouldn't
have been resurrected... or at least not into the same condition and status as a
Believer...) then that resurrected person was stuck being single forever. I think
that's reading way more into Christ's statement than what is there. Further, if
what he suggests were true, then it would indeed make the Sadducees' example
of the Levirate marriage of one woman to seven brothers a legitimate possibility
and a dilemma that had to be solved upon the resurrection. But Christ discounts
it.
The Sadducees, all current information on them seems to say, didn't believe in
angels. So when all the evidence is laid down side by side, as Tradition bound as
were the Pharisees, yet they seemed to have a more sound and biblically based
doctrine than the Sadducees who were supposedly experts in the Torah and
went by nothing else. This is why it stung them so deeply that Yeshua told them
how ignorant they were of the Torah. As a proof text, Yeshua quotes
Deuteronomy 25:5 - 6. "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob". And then
He follows that up with: "He is the God of the living and not of the dead". Sounds
great; but that is a very tough statement to decipher. So does it mean that the
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
minute we die, God is no longer our God? Does it mean that Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob didn't really die? Or is Yeshua saying that they are already in a resurrected
state and thus alive in that sense? Or something else?
Here's one way to unpack what Yeshua just said. The Deuteronomy passage
that speaks of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, does NOT say that "I WAS the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" but rather that "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob". Thus since God is not the God of the dead (I WAS), He is the God of the
living (I AM), then in that sense Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive. And yet in
no way does Jesus imply that the resurrection has already happened; so in what
sense are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alive? And how are they proof of the
resurrection? The context can only be in the afterlife sense and not in the
resurrection sense. And at that moment, the "alive" Patriarchs were residing in
Abraham's Bosom waiting for Yeshua to die and be resurrected as the firstfruits
of the resurrection so that they along with myriads of other captive souls could be
freed from their pleasant and safe captivity and allowed to go to Heaven.
Despite my disagreement with Witherington over the issue of marrying not
continuing but marriage does, he does make an insightful comment that I'd like to
quote to you. He says:
"In Matthew 19 we have seen that Jesus grounded normal marriage in the
Creation order, not in the order of the Fall, which is the case with Levirate
marriage (instituted because of death and childlessness and the need to
preserve the family name and line)"
I'm sure you don't have Matthew 19 memorized so here is what he is talking
about.
CJB Matthewl9:3-8 3 Some P'rushim came and tried to trap him by asking,
"Is it permitted for a man to divorce his wife on any ground whatever?" 4 He
replied, "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them
male and female, 5 and that he said, 'For this reason a man should leave his
father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two are to become
one flesh'? 6 Thus they are no longer two, but one. So then, no one should
split apart what God has joined together."
1 They said to him, "Then why did
Moshe give the commandment that a man should hand his wife a get and
divorce her?" 8 He answered, "Moshe allowed you to divorce your wives
because your hearts are so hardened. But this is not how it was at the
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Lesson 73 - Matthew 22 cont
beginning.
So even though the circumstance in Matthew 19 is about dissolving a marriage,
Yeshua explains the rationale for marriage and how due to mankind's hard
hearts, things weren't like they were in the beginning (in the Garden of Eden).
Upon the Fall, death entered the world, and child bearing became a necessity
because the intended immortality of humans evaporated. Humanity had not only
the duty of populating the earth, but also re-populating as replacements for the
dead ones. Upon the resurrection, then that entire issue is resolved and no
longer relevant because death has ended and the number of humans begins
becomes fixed: no increase or decrease... forever.
While I cannot say so with absolute certainty, I think that the final chapters of
Revelation teach us that upon the re-creation, with the destruction of the current
heavens and earth and the formation of a new heavens and earth, the
boundaries that currently exist between spiritual Heaven and material Earth
disappear. The two habitats morph and come together as one. Those seemingly
impassible boundaries between the two spheres of existence... Heaven and
Earth... are there to keep impure and sinful man from polluting the purest
holiness of God. Heaven and Earth will someday merge and there will no longer
be a distinction between the two. As it stands today Heaven is the angels' habitat
and the earth the human habitat; but this is only a temporary condition.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there. 2 Also I saw the holy city, New Yerushalayim, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared like a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband. 3 1heard a loud voice from the throne say, "See! God's Sh'khinah
is with mankind, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and he
himself, God-with-them, will be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes. There will no longer be any death; and there will no longer
be any mourning, crying or pain; because the old order has passed
away." 5 Then the One sitting on the throne said, "Look! I am making
everything new!" Also he said, "Write, 'These words are true and
trustworthy!"'
We'll finish up Matthew chapter 22 next time.
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 74, Chapter 22 Continued 2
When we follow Yeshua's career on earth and especially His Wisdom teachings,
we find that just as in the manner our teachers taught us in elementary, High
School and college, over time He built-up knowledge in His followers by starting
with the simple principles and moving them to the more challenging. From the
straightforward to other matters that weren't so black and white, yes or no, do or
don't. Matthew chapter 22 stretches us to the point of discomfort with the more
nuanced and it only gets tougher as we soon begin chapter 23. In fact, these
chapters have caused major heartburn within institutional Christianity especially
from the late 3
rd century onward as much for what Jesus doesn't say as for what
He does say.
We hear of Christ talking about resurrection, but He never gives a definition of it
let alone any details about it. He leaves whatever it is or what it looks like sort of
hanging in the air. Matthew's Gospel chapter 22 verse 23 says that the
Sadducees don't believe in resurrection, but goes no further to help us
understand what that even meant to them or to the Jews in general, except to
use the topic in yet another effort to test Yeshua. Adding in another arcane topic,
Levirate marriage (a Law of Moses), the Sadducees want to know if in a family of
7 sons if the oldest marries but dies before his wife produces him a son as an
heir, and then in obedience to the Law of Moses the 2
nd oldest brother marries
the widow but no son is produced before he dies and so on through the 7
th of the
brothers, then in the resurrection which of 7 brothers will be the husband of this
woman? Christ responds that in the resurrection there will be no marrying. Again,
other than for this tantalizing tid-bit, we learn nothing more about the resurrection
other than that the Jewish processes and customs of a couple getting married no
longer occur. Nor do we learn what the status of an already married and living
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
couple is at time of the resurrection of the dead.
Then the issue of angels is brought up; and other than saying that the reason
there will be no marrying is because the angels don't marry, we learn no more
about angels (although the amount of Christian doctrine about angels is
enormous, neither Jesus nor the Bible tells us much of anything about them).
Next Yeshua says that God the Father is not the God of the dead but of the
living, and this in reference to the resurrection in general and the Patriarchs of
Israel... Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... in specific. Christianity has never had a
consensus on the interpretation and application of this statement.
But now we get into yet another strong statement by Yeshua that is alternately
ignored and misstated, or at other times twisted and applied wrongly by various
of the Church denominations and branches. That section of chapter 22 begins at
verse 33. Open your Bibles to Matthew 22.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 22:33 - end
We're told that the crowds were astounded at Jesus's response to the
Sadducees. So even though He was having this debate directly with the Temple
leadership in the Temple grounds, a lot of people called "the crowds" were within
listening distance and paying attention. This meant that how this was all going
down, and with the way Christ was able to completely disarm first the Pharisees
and now the Sadducees, the news of it would have spread like wildfire inside and
outside the walls of Jerusalem. That is the last thing any of the Jewish religious
leadership wanted; but it was too late.
As a house keeping matter, there was a typo in earlier published Complete
Jewish Bibles in verse 34 that says "when the Tz'dukim learned that He had
silenced the Tz'dukim" {Tz'dukim is Hebrew for Sadducees) obviously the
first Tz'dukim was in error; it should have told us that when the Pharisees
learned that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees that such and such happened.
This was corrected in later volumes.
So we see how carefully the leaderships of the Temple and the
Synagogue... usually these two groups opposed one another... were working in
concert to defeat what was now perceived as a common threat to the entire
Jewish religious establishment. So verse 35 says that after consulting one
another about the matter, it was the Pharisees' turn to try to discredit Yeshua.
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
We're told that they sent a "lawyer" to confront Him. In Greek the word
is nomikos and it means an expert in the law. Of course what this was speaking
about was not Roman law but rather Jewish religious law. Nearly certainly that
had to mean the Law of Moses as opposed to Jewish
Law... Halakhah, Tradition... which is what the Pharisees more adhered to in the
Synagogue. Thus this "lawyer" was a special Pharisee because of His knowledge
in an area that the Pharisee leadership was lacking: the Scriptures. Thus
whereas some Bible translations say "lawyer" that word is misleading for Western
Christians. Rather a better translation would be "an expert in the Torah".
So this Torah expert puts forth a challenging question for Jesus to answer: which
of all the mitzvot (the commandments, the many rules and laws of Moses) is the
most important? To butter Him up a bit, the law expert begins by calling Him (in
Greek) didaskalos, which means "teacher". Now in modern times we have
millions of school teachers so the title doesn't carry a lot of weight. In the Jewish
and most other 1st century cultures, it did. Teachers usually had flocks of
disciples. They were revered, admired and held up as experts in various fields. In
the New Testament "teacher" almost exclusively means a teacher of the Word of
God or at least of religious matters. The CJB says Jesus was here called Rabbi;
this is doubtful because unlike what so many think, rabbi doesn't mean teacher; it
means "master" or "great one" or something like that.
And the question is one that almost every child that has attended Sunday School
knows or at least has heard: what is the greatest commandment of God that rises
above all others? And Christ's answer is (according to the CJB): "You are to
love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your strength." There is a second part to this that we'll get to momentarily. The
KJV says it in a way that is more known in the broader world of institutional
Christianity: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind." I have two things to say about this. First: the Greek
word that the CJB translates as Adonai, and that virtually all other English
translations I have consulted translates as Lord, is kurios. It is a generic Greek
word that is not specifically religious or secular. It means master or lord; lord in
the sense of any person who holds status and rank. Christians have a tendency
to assign one of the several titles for Jesus or for God the Father as "The Lord".
Yet what we must grasp is that the term is less meant as a divine title and more
an acknowledgement of that person's or being's status and rank. The term
properly used in the Holy Scriptures is to characterize the status and rank of
kings, teachers, leaders, aristocrats and of God. Notice here in Matthew when
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
English translations use the term "The Lord" in interpreting what Jesus said, it
can only be applied to God the Father. Christ is certainly not indicating Himself.
And yet, ask most any Christian who "The Lord" is and they'll just say (in a
generic way) "God" or just as often "Jesus". Thus far in Matthew (and in all the
Synoptic Gospels), during the time when Jesus was still living, "The Lord" is
ONLY God the Father in Heaven.
I cannot begin to tell you how guilty and ashamed I still feel when I look back on
my own life up until nearly the age of 40, about how I marginalized God the
Father. For me there were really only 2 persons in the standard Christian Trinity
doctrine that had any relevance in my life: Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In fact, while
I cannot say that I specifically recall any Pastor or Minister saying out loud that
God the Father was a relic meant only for the Jews, while Jesus was now
preeminent and only for Christians, the implication of it was so thick and baked-in
to every Sunday School lesson and every sermon, that believing anything else
would have been totally foreign to me.
When I began to study on my own, and the reality was in black and white on the
pages of my New Testament that Christ never held Himself up as above or equal
to the Father, and He directed all glory and honor to The Father, praying to His
Father, and when we read even the Book of Revelation and see that The Father
plays such a leading role, it amazes me how I never noticed it or (even more)
why the Church has so misinterpreted this juxtapositioning of the roles and
hierarchy of the Father and the Son. Actually I know the answer to this, and I
occasionally get some nasty-grams for generalizing, but the truth is that the
gentile Church early on knew that to gain separation from the Jews and to
redefine the Church of Jesus Christ as a gentiles-only and new religion, they had
to marginalize God the Father and re-make Him as the old God... the one the
ancient Hebrews worshipped... and make Jesus as the new God... the one Christ
followers worshipped. And yes... not every last Christian Church or every last
Christian individual believes this way. But by far the bulk do and it is something
which the Church leadership that teaches this way needs to repent about, and a
great reformation needs to take place because this issue represents the molten
core of truth of our understanding of who God is, and even how to go about
worshipping Him.
The second thing I want to tell you is that there are all manner of understandings
about how to translate and to interpret the part of Christ's statement about how to
love God the Father, when it says "with all your heart, soul, and strength". Other
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
Bible versions might say: "with all your heart, soul, and mind". Still others "with all
your heart, soul, and understanding". We won't get into a debate over the precise
interpretation because it leads us in the wrong direction. What Yeshua meant by
what He said is that we are to love God the Father by our entire lifestyles with
total allegiance and devotion. Those 3 attributes that Christ uses as to how we
are to love God are meant to represent the entire person... every aspect of our
being... however we wish to phrase them. We can't behave one way in Church,
another at home, and yet another at our places of work. We can't set God's
ethics and morals on the shelf for our business or leisure practices. God's laws
and ways apply to every aspect of our lives, at all times. Any time we try to
compartmentalize our behaviors according to the circumstance is to
compartmentalize our obedience and allegiance to God, no matter how we might
attempt to rationalize such a choice.
Especially for Christians watching or listening right now, and those who have not
first gone through the TorahClass.com study of the Torah with us before
attempting any New Testament teaching, what Yeshua says is simply a quote
from Deuteronomy 6:4, which is known among the Hebrews as the Shema.
Verse 38 has Yeshua saying (in many translations including the CJB) that this is
the greatest and most important commandment. Others says that this is the first
and greatest commandment. Those are somewhat less than adequate
translations. The KJV has it the most correct.
KJV Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Did you catch the difference? The Greek word that is most often translated in our
Bibles as "greatest" is megas and it does not mean greatest. Greatest versus
great indicate something a bit different if we will think about it. Yeshua calls the
commandment in the Shema to love God as the great commandment. In fact, I
think that because of the modern Western and English way of thinking and
speaking, Great Commandment probably ought to be capitalized to make it a
formal title and not merely a description as calling something the greatest, does.
Greatest denotes that there are others to consider. For instance, if I say that God
the Father is the greatest god, it necessary implies that there are other gods, but
He is the greatest among them. But if I say He is the Great God, He stands
alone. Yeshua is separating that commandment to love God with all our being,
and making it unique and the foundation for everything that follows. But He says,
there is another one like it. We need to be so very clear on this as this is a
difficult but vitally important understanding that we need to try to work through.
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
The Greek word is homoios. It means similar; it bears a likeness. It means
"same as" but only to a point. It does NOT mean equal. It does NOT mean
identical. There cannot be 2 "Great Commands" or the word "great" loses it's
meaning. It certainly means there is an important relationship and similarity
between the two, and together they represent the foundation of the Hebrew faith.
But only one is the Great Command: to love God.
It troubles me that tremendously good scholars and linguistic people will try to
pound a word or phrase into * a preconceived doctrine, rather than letting it
speak for itself or acknowledging that there is more than one possibility. The 2
most popular explanations for the 2
nd of the two commands (the one that is
similar) is that it means second numerically. Or that it means it is equal to. In no
way is homoios meant numerically, like meaning 2
nd in a sequence. And it does
not mean the equivalent.
Mark's version of this story backs-up my position on this. I'll quote to you the KJV
interpretation because some liberties were taken in the CJB on what was said.
The KJV says:
KJV Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than
these.
So, says Mark, even though there is the "Great Commandment" of placing loving
God uniquely alone on its own level, a similar one to it is loving one's neighbor.
And together these two stand apart.
For some time now as we have read about Yeshua's Parables where He says
something on the order of: "To what can the Kingdom of Heaven be compared".
Or "The Kingdom of Heaven is like". He certainly doesn't mean that His
illustration IS a replica of, or equal to, or the same as The Kingdom of Heaven.
He means there is an important attribute or illustration that we can use to
approximate what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like when it is fully manifest.
This statement about something that is similar to (but not equal to) the Great
Command is "You are to love your neighbor as yourself", and it is another quote
from the Torah... this one from Leviticus 19:18.
So what makes these commands similar? They are both about relationships. The
first command is about our relationship with God. The second command is about
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
our relationship with other humans. The first command gives us the basis and
rules of engagement for our relationship with God. The second command gives
us the basis and rules of engagement for our relationships with our fellow man.
Yet, because the first command is the Great Command, it stands above and pre␂empts the second. Our relationship with humans is important; but our relationship
with God trumps our relationships with humans.
A very famous (and, for some, troubling) statement Yeshua once made embodies
this concept of a definite hierarchy of our relationship with God first, and with
humans second.
CJB Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his
mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own
life besides, he cannot be my talmid.
This is about relationships. As difficult as this statement is, I think I can help ease
the pain that can come from this rather cryptic passage by replacing but one
word to help us better interpret its intent: replacing the word Me with the word
God. "If anyone comes to God and does not hate his father, his mother, his wife,
his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own life beside, he cannot
be God's disciple." Thus Yeshua is speaking from His divine nature perspective
as God's agent on earth as opposed to a typical human to human relationship. If
no human can come before God, then no human can come before Jesus.
Briefly: as I have previously taught on this passage, the term hate is used in the
sense of not having proper loyalty. Love and hate were regularly used political
terms even in the KJV Bible era. To love one's king was be in total faithful
allegiance to him. To hate one's king was to NOT be in total faithful allegiance to
him; therefore one had divided loyalties. The term hate had nothing to do with
emotions such as extreme dislike. Thus while all our loyalty is to be with God, if
we are properly faithful then we will obey His commandments. And His
commandments teach us not only how to love and follow Him, but also how to
love our fellow man as we love ourselves. Thus the connection.
I have heard over and over especially from well-intentioned men that their first
obligation is to their family. Among human relationships, that's how it ought to be.
But to put that before our relationship with God is not proper loyalty. This is not
God's command to us. He unequivocally says that He is our first obligation;
obligation to our family is similar but not at the same level. Loving God is the
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
Great Commandment. Loving our fellow man is second only to loving God. But,
together they form the greatest (the most important) of all the commandments
that covers all our relationships. Thus as Christ says in Luke 14, be prepared to
choose your loyalties. Your family... your fellow man... may demand something
from you that is in direct contradiction to what God demands. Your family... or
fellow man... may say that you can't have it both ways. Go their way, or go God's
way. God says the same thing. What to do? Align with God and let the chips fall
where they may with humans, including family. And it may just lead to
heartbreak. I pray you are never put into this sort of dilemma.
Verse 40 has Christ saying the intriguing words that all the Torah and the
Prophets are dependent upon these two mitzvot.
The KJV says: On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets.
This passage alone destroys any notion that the Torah and the Prophets are no
longer for gentile Christians. And if one says, well He was only talking to Jews so
it doesn't apply to me (a gentile), then intellectual honesty demands that not one
thing Jesus has said to this point in His ministry has anything to do with
Christians or the Church because everything He has taught to this point has been
directed to His fellow countrymen. Not even the Sermon on the Mount can be
applied to Christianity. In fact, those Bible scholars that do possess intellectual
honesty on the matter acknowledge this unsettling reality, and there is a large
sector of them that now say that there must be divide between Yeshua's pre and
post-Easter teachings. That is, on one side of the divide everything He taught
prior to His death and resurrection were meant only for Jews, and on the other
side of the divide only what He taught after His resurrection is for the Church.
Otherwise, they fully understand that the foundational Church principles that have
been at the heart of Christianity for 17 centuries that the Law and the Prophets
are dead and gone, replaced by love and grace, and that God the Father is the
God of the ancient Jews but Jesus is the God of Church, and that God is done
with Israel and has turned all their blessings over to the gentile Church, fall to
pieces. I know these are strong words, and I regret that this is likely to cause
some offense. But what I'm telling you is biblically true; you have seen it for
yourself. These truths are not buried beneath the words of the New Testament;
they are right there floating on the surface for all to see.
So what Yeshua is saying is that to love God and to love our fellow man are the 2
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
foundational pillars upon which every following command and law of God is
established. Upon those 2 pillars sit, first, the 10 Commandments; the first basic
principles given to Moses, that give us direction on how to love God on the one
hand, and on the other how to love our fellow humans. And then upon those 10
basic principles rest all the remaining commands that God gave to Moses on Mt.
Sinai (the Hebrew Sages and Rabbis say there are 603 more) that are primarily
ritual law, priestly rules, and case examples in the Law of Moses about what it
means... what it looks like... the application... for how to obey those 10 basic
principles, which themselves are based upon those 2 foundational pillars. In the
end, it really isn't all that complicated, is it?
And yet Daniel J. Harrington asks this important question in his commentary on
Matthew:
" Did Jesus's summary mean that His followers could disregard the other
611 precepts of the Torah? At least Matthew didn't take it that way. His
claim that on these two commandments "hang the whole Law and
Prophets" assumes that the whole Law remains in force (at least in
theory)
Although other well known biblical scholars have said something similar, I chose
his statement as representative of the others because at the same moment that
he admits it is simply not deniable that Yeshua is here saying that the entire
Torah remains in force for ALL of His followers, Mr. Harrington muddies the
waters by including the proviso that "Matthew didn't take it that way". In other
words, he takes the words out of Christ's mouth (something Jesus actually said)
and turns them instead into merely Matthew's opinion on the matter. Look: either
the Gospel of Matthew is the inspired word of God and is true, or it isn't. If all it is,
is a journal of Matthew's viewpoints and personal opinions disguised as Christ's
words and His actions, it is no better than a modern self-help book. When
studying the Bible we always have to allow for a low level of miscopying,
misspelling, and the occasional later Christian gloss added (but that can usually
be exposed by looking at the oldest of the Greek manuscripts). But those words
in Matthew that Mr. Harrington throws suspicion upon fit none of that criteria and
Mr. Harrington doesn't claim that it does. You see, his dilemma is that once
again, the actual words of the Bible... what Jesus said... interfere with long held
Christian doctrine and dogma. And so the question for him and others can at
times be: how do we rid ourselves of those pesky passages that speak so plainly
for themselves and disrupt the fine new religion that has been created? Easy.
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
Discredit the Gospel writer as needed, by at times throwing suspicion on his
motives. But when we do, we can't at the same time call the Gospel itself inspired
of God. We must choose.
Verse 41 opens up a matter that I spoke about at the introduction to today's
lesson. We have entered a time when Jesus's teachings and the questions He
asks are no longer simple and basic. Nor are they necessarily so easily
answered even by the greatest minds...Jewish or Christian.
Yeshua more or less says: Ok, you've been putting these difficult questions
before Me, now I have one for you. Whose son is the Messiah? In good
traditional Jewish fashion, the religious leaders answer "David's". OK then, says
Yeshua, so how is it that David says... and then Yeshua goes on to quote from
Psalm 110.
When we recognize an Old Testament quote in the New Testament, it is always
best to turn to the source of that quote especially in the Hebrew Bible and not
necessarily in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) because often it will
give us some needed insight. Looking at Psalm 110, the CJB says this:
CJB Psalm 110:1 A psalm of David: ADONAI says to my Lord, "Sit at my
right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool."
The KJV puts the same verse this way:
KJV Psalm 110:1 <A Psalm of David.> The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou
at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Not much to argue about here except that the CJB uses Adonai, whereas the
KJV and nearly all English versions say Lord. But wait. Here we run into another
of those translation matters that when revealed gives us some interesting info. To
begin, Psalm 110 is (rightly) designated as a Messianic Psalm by both Judaism
and Christianity. So it is understood that much about this Psalm speaks about a
future Messiah of Israel. Therefore, according to the Church, we get this strange
set of words (like we see in the KJV) that says: "The Lord said unto my Lord". A
typo? A miscopying somewhere in the distant past?
Actually the issue is easily remedied. The word that Hebrews say is Adonai and
Christianity says is Lord is in fact Yehoveh: God's formal name that He gave to
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
Moses on Mt. Sinai. Due to a taboo within Judaism against saying or writing
God's name, the word "Adonai" has been substituted; but the Church has no
such taboo. So why insert the word "Lord" when the original Hebrew (that is
available to all to see) clearly says Yehoveh... God the Father's formal name?
Because within Christianity the term Lord became reserved mainly for Christ.
So what the opening verse actually says is: "Yehoveh said unto my Lord, sit thou
at My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool". If you look through
your English Old Testaments, you may find as many as 10 times that the name
Jehovah (the English version of Yehoveh) is used. Yet in the original Hebrew it is
written in the Old Testament over 6000 times (this is not disputed, by the way)!
5990 or more of those times, the word is removed and papered over with "lord" in
our Bibles in order to drive home a desired impression for Christians. Not the
best thing to do for truth seekers.
In verse 43 of Matthew chapter 22 Yeshua says that when David penned those
original words of Psalm 110, He was inspired by the spirit. That is, David was
writing under God's inspiration about prophetic things. There is no conceivable
way that David didn't get it that what he was writing somehow involved a future
time. But the topic gets deep, quickly, when Yeshua asks the Pharisees to
explain how it is that David could possibly be calling the Messiah (his son), Lord?
That is, if the Messiah is truly David's son, then there is no way in the Hebrew or
in any Middle Eastern culture that David could refer to his own son as "my Lord".
It is the father that is revered and held high in a family. Even the firstborn was
completely in submission to the will of his father. So Yeshua implies that it is not
possible to suggest that David could have been speaking about his own son
when he called him Lord.
We must also understand that how the Pharisees replied would have been the
standard answer most any Jew would have given. And, it makes sense as to
why.
CJB 2 Samuel 7:8-16 8 "Therefore say this to my servant David that this is
what ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: 7 took you from the sheep-yards, from
following the sheep, to make you chief over my people, over Isra'el. 9 1have
been with you wherever you went; I have destroyed all your enemies ahead
of you; and I am making your reputation great, like the reputations of the
greatest people on earth. 10 1 will assign a place to my people Isra'el; I will
plant them there, so that they can live in their own place without being
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'"

Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
disturbed any more. The wicked will no longer oppress them, as they did at
the beginning, 11 and as they did from the time I ordered judges to be over
my people Isra'el; instead, I will give you rest from all your enemies.
"'Moreover, ADONAI tells you that ADONAI will make you a house. 12 When
your days come to an end and you sleep with your ancestors, I will
establish one of your descendants to succeed you, one of your own flesh
and blood; and I will set up his rulership. 13 He will build a house for my
name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. 14 I will be a father for
him, and he will be a son for me. If he does something wrong, I will punish
him with a rod and blows, just as everyone gets punished; 15 nevertheless,
my grace will not leave him, as I took it away from Sha'ul, whom I removed
from before you. 16 Thus your house and your kingdom will be made secure
forever before you; your throne will be set up forever.
Here the Prophet Nathan is bringing God's message to King David that his son
will be established on the throne of Israel forever. We know, of course, that King
Solomon followed his father David and became a great ruler over Israel; and he
built the first Temple. Yet, there are additional things in this passage that cannot
possibly be talking about Solomon such as his throne lasting forever...and then
the "forever" part is repeated. So from the vantage point of 20 centuries after
Yeshua's death and resurrection we can understand that the "forever" part of it is
about Yeshua, who indeed was in King David's royal lineage. But who could have
understood such a thing until well after Messiah Yeshua departed this earth?
It's not that the Pharisees were wrong; it's just that it only reveals half of the truth.
The remainder of the truth is that David's so-called son, the Messiah, is also
God's son. Yeshua never says that, though; He just leaves everyone hanging on
a thread. His implication is unmistakable; the hoped-for Messiah is far greater
than what the Jewish leaders had taught the people to envision. Their vision was
of a human warrior-king Messiah, like David, that would come and rescue Israel
from Rome. Sure; God's hand would be in it. But not in the sense of the Messiah
being divine or eternal.
We should not indict the Jewish leaders or the lay Jews for not being able to put
this incredible puzzle together. The mystery of it to those of us, Believers, that
have the benefit of hindsight is still so great as to be dumbfounding. And do not
think that Yeshua is in any way making some kind of recognizable implication
that He, Himself, is this Messiah... Son of David and also Son of God. So as we
close this chapter of Matthew, none of the Jewish people or their religious
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Lesson 74 - Matthew 22 cont 2
leaders as yet understood the fullest gravity of who Yeshua really was... of what
their Messiah was... not even His own 12 disciples.
We'll open chapter 23 next time.
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 75, Chapter 23
In opening Matthew 23, if I were to give it a title, it would be "Exposing the
Hypocrisy of the Leadership". It is an interesting reality that as a person gets
older and knows that death is not far off, or at most any adult age a person
becomes aware that their death is imminent, they see that continuing to hide
behind any kind of personal facade of one's own building no longer serves a
useful purpose. Therefore we hear of "death bed confessions"; people who
reveal starkly truthful things they have done (good and bad), or they speak of
things they might know about others or about a traumatic event that needs to be
confessed, but had never wanted to talk about it for whatever reason. Sometimes
because it might have involved getting in trouble or causing upset or facing the
past.
My own father served and fought in WWII; but he avoided talking about it. About
all any of me or my siblings knew about it was that he was in the Navy, and that
he was a Sonar man. It wasn't until several weeks before he passed away in his
early 70's from cancer that he finally opened up and told me some of the hair␂raising and deeply traumatic experiences he suffered, some of his regrets, and
how he felt about them. Yeshua has been building up for some time, now, to the
no-holds-barred diatribe He unleashed against the Jewish Leadership beginning
in earnest with Matthew chapter 22... but had been holding back. He was acutely
aware of His purpose and His impending fate, and to some degree, at least, the
timing of it. He also knew that when He finally did set His filter aside and said
exactly what He thought about that corrupt, deceived and deceiving religious
leadership, His demise would be swift and certain... as what happened to His
cousin and forerunner, John the Baptist, when he spoke his mind. So knowing
that He had but days and hours left to live, Jesus let fly all that He had been
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
wanting to say to these leaders, but also in a forum that the common people
could hear it as a warning to them.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23 and follow along.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23 all
If you can accept it, this chapter has Yeshua displaying a distinctly negative if not
pessimistic tone that we're not used to hearing from Him. Might I even suggest a
good old-fashioned rant of sorts? Many Bible academics are so taken aback by
Jesus's tone that they express doubts as to the authenticity of the account and
say that perhaps the Gospel writer Matthew was embellishing. Assuming those
particular academics are wrong (which I do) with his life in the balance, Christ no
longer sees a need to harness His feelings. And while His ire is directed at
certain of the Jewish Religious leadership, the effect He's hoping for is to the
benefit of the onlookers who can only be astonished if not shocked at this
Galilean Tzadik so publicly and frankly taking on these men of such great stature
and authority in Jewish society.
It is critical to grasp that while Rome was indeed the formal civil and legal
governing authority over the Holy Land, the day to day operation of Jewish
society was under the watchful eye and de facto control of the Jewish leaders of
the Synagogue system. For Jews, there was no such thing as separation of
Church and State. Their religion was the basis for everything they did. Behaviors,
ethics, morals, the system of families and how businesses operated... virtually
everything... was set by the Synagogue leaders who seem to have been (nearly
exclusively) members of one branch or another of the sect of the Pharisees. So
when Jesus was attacking those Synagogue leaders it is because He saw them
misleading the common people and putting their spiritual condition, and eternal
future, into great jeopardy.
While the Temple was similarly guilty (and in chapter 22 Yeshua specifically
called them out as well) the Temple leadership had far less daily influence over
the lives of the people, except perhaps for the ones who lived inside Jerusalem at
the site of the Temple and thus those folks resided at the seat of Jewish religious
government. The Sadducee leadership controlled the Jewish court system and all
matters concerning the Temple; meaning that they controlled all aspects of what
went on during the 7 biblically ordained feast events, on Sabbaths, and the
various sacrificial and other Temple-oriented rituals. But for the average Jew, the
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Temple was far away from where they lived and so their local Synagogue was
where they looked for guidance on everyday matters and without doubt the
Synagogue leaders represented the greatest influence in their lives.
So in verse 1 we read that Yeshua turned His attention away from the religious
leadership and now directly addressed the crowds that included His ever-present
disciples. He was essentially serving up a scathing criticism of the Pharisee
leadership... the people's spiritual and daily life leadership. He calls these leaders
the Scribes and the Pharisees who sit in the Seat of Moses. The Scribes were in
this era those who were at the top of the leadership of the Synagogue system.
They were considered experts on the Law and more often than not they were the
ones who taught at Synagogue congregational meetings. While most Scribes
belonged to the Pharisee sect, not all did. However the vast majority of Scribes
were Pharisees such that, when speaking of Synagogue leadership, the terms
Scribes and Pharisees were nearly interchangeable the same way that only a few
decades ago in the United States the terms American and Christian were nearly
interchangeable even though we all knew that technically they meant different
things.
There remains much debate about what the Seat of Moses meant in the
1
st century. Was it literally some kind of chair located in a religious facility? Or
was it a colloquial way of speaking about the position and authority that each
Synagogue leader held? In Christ's era very few synagogues were actual
dedicated buildings used the way Church buildings are today. Synagogue in its
simplest sense means assembly. The Talmud claims that around Jesus's time
there were 400 Synagogues in Jerusalem alone. Archeologists have found none.
And considering the size of Jerusalem, it boggles the mind to think that there
would have been 400 dedicated Synagogue buildings there. No doubt nearly all
so-called Synagogues were what we might term "house Churches". A few Jews
would gather together for various religious reasons at someone's home and it
was called synagogue. So there could indeed have been many, many house
Synagogues in Jerusalem at that time, each one composed of but a handful of
individuals.
As for dedicated purpose-built Synagogue buildings, very few have been found in
the Holy Land. And those that have been found are from a later era. It is from that
later era (3rd century and beyond) that Synagogues have been unearthed that
have a special seat carved out of stone, located inside the Synagogue at the
front of it. Although no inscription identifies it, it is assumed that this chair is the
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Seat of Moses. Later and modern Synagogues have Seats of Moses in them. But
as for Christ's day, probably not. The likeliest scenario (although it is speculation)
is that the Seat of Moses referred to the one person in each Synagogue that was
its supreme authority and teacher, and then eventually a chair of honor was
included in the structure of the Synagogue building for this supreme leader to sit
upon during services, and so that is how the special chair got its name. Bottom
line: Jesus was speaking about the person that was at the head of each
Synagogue.
Yeshua gives His listeners an instruction. He tells them to do what these
Synagogue leaders tell them to do. But... don't behave as they do because while
these guys talk a good game they must not really believe what they're saying or
they'd do it themselves. Western culture has a saying that probably came from
this: Don't do as I do, but do as I say. What this is talking about is hypocrisy. In
other words, Jesus is telling the people to continue to listen to the teachings of
the Synagogue authorities... obviously He means that what they teach is
generally true. Now does that mean that He holds with everything they teach?
Goodness no! He has already accused them of misleading the people and will
accuse them of it again in the next verses. However, no human is going to teach
God's Word and His truth in perfection. Those of us who teach God's Word are
(hopefully) sufficiently aware of that reality so that we ourselves remain teachable
such that when one way or another we are made aware of an error we can admit
it, correct it, and move on.
What is rather astonishing to me is Yeshua's acceptance of the authority of the
Synagogue leaders, and His call to the people of the crowd to acknowledge it as
well. It reminds one of the Sermon on the mount when He said:
CJB Matthew 5:17-20 77 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven!
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
Just as Yeshua is telling the people to continue to listen to what the Scribes and
Torah Teachers say, so it is that He tells the people to do what the Torah and the
Prophets say. It is the Scribes and Torah Teachers that instruct the people in the
Torah and the Prophets. And, just like in Christ's speech to the crowds here in
Matthew 23 where Yeshua is specifically calling out those same Scribes and
Pharisees as not living righteously themselves, He did the same in the Sermon
on the Mount...only not quite as harshly.
We know from their writings and what Yeshua Himself says about what these
Scribes and Pharisees teach is from what we could call a doctrinal viewpoint.
That is, while Scripture passages most certainly were read in the Synagogues,
what those passages said were often effectively overridden by
doctrines (Traditions) created by these Scribes and Pharisees. So while these
leaders claimed they were teaching the Torah, in fact they were teaching the
preferred manmade Traditions of the Pharisees. Back in Matthew chapter 15
Christ said this:
CJB Matthew 15:7-9 7 You hypocrites! Yesha'yahu was right when he
prophesied about you, 8
'These people honor me with their lips, but their
hearts are far away from me. 9 Their worship of me is useless, because they
teach man-made rules as if they were doctrines.
Notice something that matters for us to ponder, taken from what Yeshua said in
Matthew 15 (quoting the Prophet Isaiah). It isn't just that manmade rules and
traditions can be technically incorrect (that is, interpretations of the Torah that are
regularly off the mark in order to justify the beliefs of a sect), and thus the details
given by the religious leadership are in error or are agenda oriented. The far
larger issue is that the result of too much bad theological information (that comes
by replacing God's Word with manmade doctrines) is that the substance of these
wrong doctrines inevitably builds up, one upon the next, to become the accepted
basis for how we think we ought to worship God. In our eyes it is good worship;
but in God's eyes it is vain worship that He does not and will not accept. Folks: if
God does NOT accept our worship of Him then we have lost our relationship with
Him. I wish I could tell you at what point believing and living out and trying to
worship God based on incorrect doctrine given to us from the pulpit reaches a
tipping point that God finally says "no more; I don't accept it, so I don't accept
you"; but I don't know where that point is.
We also need to notice that Yeshua was not teaching hypothetically; this was
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happening in His day and it was a very dangerous problem... even though the
people were entirely blind to it due to the leadership's irresponsible behavior. And
I assure you the same thing is happening today just as it was in His era... it is
prevalent throughout our faith institutions... and it is something we must address
as Believers or bear consequences that I don't think any of us are prepared to
face. As I said earlier, we'll not reach perfection of teaching or learning this side
of Heaven. But we can understand and acknowledge that there is a problem and
respond by seeking teaching and learning that is based on the biblical Word that
isn't watered down, or papered over, in order to agree with new and changing
societal standards. Or even worse (to my way of thinking), to continue to
intentionally validate long held doctrines and traditions that never should have
had a place in our worship of God.
As is our custom, when another of the Synoptic Gospels relays the same or
nearly the same message from Christ, we read it to gain as much information as
we can glean about the event and what He said. The Gospel of Luke has much
of this message that we find in Matthew, but Luke sets the scene in an entirely
different arena, spoken to different people. Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 11. READ LUKE CHAPTER 11:37- 54
It is hard to know exactly where the setting of Luke's narrative took place, but it's
easy to see the difference in settings between it and Matthew. Wherever it was in
Luke, it certainly wasn't in Jerusalem at the Temple. In Luke the context is that
Jesus was in the home of a Pharisee, dining with him, and the issue of ritual
hand washing came up. It was out of this that the diatribe against the religious
leaders came, as well as the prophesy of the 7 woes. Back to Matthew.
At this point Yeshua is no longer speaking to the Pharisees but rather they are
hearing what He is saying to the crowds. It seems that Christ has determined that
the most hardened of the Jewish leadership cannot repent, and therefore they
are not redeemable. Thus to spend any more time trying to teach them and show
them the error of their ways is useless; all that remains is a pronouncement of
their fate. Again: Yeshua is not condemning all of the Jewish leadership, or all of
the Pharisees; only those whom He is addressing (probably also including those
that "if the shoe fits").
I think perhaps the reason that Yeshua deems these particular religious leaders
as irredeemable is reflected in the words of verse 3. That is, they know the truth,
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
they speak the truth, but they don't live the truth. So in verse 4 He lays out one of
the offenses they commit. It is that they place heavy burdens on the people, but
do little to help them. Paul, who called himself the Pharisee of Pharisees, knew
better than most the inside workings of the Pharisee sect and what it is that they
demanded of their followers.
CJB Acts 15:10-11 10 So why are you putting God to the test now by placing
a yoke on the neck of the talmidim which neither our fathers nor we have
had the strength to bear? 11 No, it is through the love and kindness of the
Lord Yeshua that we trust and are delivered- and it's the same with them.
What are these burdens that Jesus and later Paul are referring to? The most
common answer that we hear is that the burden too great to bear is the Law of
Moses. But finally among the more modern conservative Bible scholars comes
the admission that this cannot be talking about the Law of Moses as the burden.
For one reason, the Pharisees were not about the Law of Moses, they were
about their Traditions...Jewish Law. The burdens Jesus and Paul spoke of were
what came from the demands of the Pharisees, not from the demands of God. So
this is yet another complaint by Yeshua against Halakhah... Jewish law... not
against the Law of Moses. Thus we see what is essentially additional context to
help us understand what Yeshua meant by something He said back in chapter
11.
CJB Matthew. 11:28-30 28 "Come to me, all of you who are struggling and
burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from
me, because 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."
The struggling and burdened were made so by the teachings of the
Pharisees. The people were constantly trying to meet the expectations of their
Pharisee leaders, whom they trusted, but as Jesus tells us in chapter 23, they
told people how they ought to live but didn't do so themselves. Thus Christ says
to take on His yoke. The term yoke was a Jewish expression that simply meant
the teachings of the teacher or religious authority that they followed... the teacher
they were connected to... yoked to. Compared to the needless and fruitless
heavy demands of the Pharisees' Traditions, Yeshua's demands came ONLY
from the Law of Moses and so were far lighter. One example of this that we can
use in modern times is Kosher eating. Biblical kosher eating isn't hard at all. If
one avoids shellfish, certain birds, pork and a few other meats that most of us
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
would never eat anyway, that pretty well satisfies God's commands on the
subject. But the Halakhah, the Jewish laws, on Kosher eating are complex,
burdensome and very difficult to follow. Entire volumes of the Talmud are
dedicated to rules for Kosher eating. It was this sort of thing that Christ railed
against.
I don't think the final part of verse 4 is meant literally; rather the entire verse is a
play on words. That is, the Pharisees tie heavy things on the backs of people, but
then don't offer to shoulder some of the load. This is meant metaphorically like a
master tying a much too heavy load on his employee or servant, and then not
offering to help to carry it because he didn't want to exert himself. Rather, for
these Jewish leaders, it was all about appearance and public perception; not
authenticity
Thus verse 5 says that in order to get public attention and admiration, the
Pharisees made their t'fillin broad and their tzitzit long. The t'fillin were the
small boxes attached to leather straps that were wrapped about one arm, and
another box strapped to the forehead. Tzitzit were what the English Bibles tend
to call fringes or tassels (as though they were some kind of decorations used on
Hebrew garments). Interestingly, these items were NOT Tradition; they were
specified to be worn in the Law of Moses. However Yeshua says that while on
the surface what the Pharisee leaders did had a basis in truth, their exaggeration
of it made it no longer Godly, but rather was intended as attention seeking.
Exactly how these men broadened or enlarged their t'fillin is not certain. Perhaps
they widened the leather straps, or made the little boxes bigger. Some scholars
think that maybe they wore them for longer periods of time than required; we
really don't know. As for the matter of the lengthening of the tzitzit, that is no
doubt literal. The Pharisees made them very long and much more visible as a
sign of their piety. No doubt there was additional cost involved in these actions,
and no doubt it served their purpose; they indeed were believed by the common
man to be especially righteous men on account of it. In truth it was a deception
and while the people were fooled, God wasn't.
By the way: while we never hear of Yeshua wearing t'fillin (no doubt He did or
He would have been roundly criticized for not donning to fulfill the
commandment) we do hear of Him wearing tzitzit... unfortunately our English
translations obscure it.
CJB Matthew 9:20 A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
approached him from behind and touched the tzitzit on his robe.
Most English Bibles mistranslate this verse and make tzitzit into the "hem of His
garment" or "the fringe of His cloak" rather than what it was. And what it was, was
undeniable proof of Jesus's intent to follow the Torah and the Law of Moses
since the entire purpose of tzitzit is to display that intent and to remind the
wearer to do so.
CJB Numbers 15:38-40 38 "Speak to the people of Isra'el, instructing them to
make, through all their generations, tzitziyot on the corners of their
garments, and to put with the tzitzit on each corner a blue thread. 39 It is to
be a tzitzit for you to look at and thereby remember all of ADONAl's mitzvot
and obey them, so that you won't go around wherever your own heart and
eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves; 40 but it will help you remember and
obey all my mitzvot and be holy for your God.
We don't need a lot of explanation for verses 6 and 7. The self-glorification that
these Pharisee religious leaders sought of course included insisting on having
the best seats at fine banquets (which, of course, only occurred at the homes of
wealthy aristocrats), and they wanted to be seated up front at the Synagogues as
a sign of their status. They also wanted people on the streets and in the
marketplace to notice them and to greet them deferentially by addressing them
as "rabbi". What rabbi exactly meant at that time is a little hard to ascertain; it
probably meant something like "teaching master" (Yeshua was regularly called
this). It was not yet an official office or position or title as it would become in only
a few more decades. Later on it would take on the meaning of "great one". So the
honor of being called rabbi evolved over time.
Yeshua interrupts His white-hot criticism of the Pharisee leadership to tell the
people how they should behave and that meant they shouldn't imitate their
leaders. In this instruction there is a direct application to the Church that,
unfortunately, has been all but ignored over the centuries. Jesus's followers are
to shun honorific titles and instead we are to just view ourselves as brothers;
brothers, equals, assuming different roles in the community of Believers. Why?
Because while humility is to be the prime virtue required for Christ's followers, it is
the opposite behavior that is displayed by these Jewish leaders.
At first blush this passage might be a little difficult to cope with. For one reason,
nearly every society I've ever known of bestows titles upon people in order to
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
establish a societal structure and hierarchy. I have no idea how we could even
operate on this earth within our societies, or within the Church or Synagogue,
without some means to distinguish people of different offices. The intent of
seeing one another as brothers (and sisters, of course) in the Lord, is being of
equal value and worth. Paul expressed this concept in a great and memorable
way that is at the core of how we are to see and treat one another. We'll take a
couple of minutes to read it.
READ 1CORINTHIANS 12:12 - 27
What better metaphor for which to compare the congregation of Christ than to the
human body. We all understand how invaluable each part of our body is and this
is the way that a congregation of Believers needs to think of it. Every part of the
human body has a purpose and without each part the body doesn't function as it
should. I can't tell you why, but this is one of those passages that has always
affected me deeply. When we formed this Seed of Abraham Torah Class
ministry, because of this passage I didn't want a title. I sort of feared having one.
I well understood how easy it is to become a bit puffed up by it and I am in no
way immune. I had worked too many years in the corporate world not to
understand how much titles mean to people, and how much deference to people
of higher title that was expected and shown. Yet, in time it became clear to me
that even in ministry a title was needed or especially visitors and new comers
wouldn't know how we were structured or if we had any structure at all. How do
you ask for a person if you had no name for them? So reluctantly, I accepted the
title of Pastor. But as you that are here today know, as do most of our many
visitors, I much prefer to just be referred to as Tom. Yet if someone calls out
"Pastor" I of course respond.
The point is that I don't think Christ was declaring the end of titles or structure or
hierarchy nor that titles are evil and should be abolished. Rather He is saying that
we are not to use titles and position the way that the Pharisees and others in the
higher classes of Jewish society did as a means of self-glorification and self␂indulgence, and frankly as a means as "putting others in their place"... which
always means that the place of the others (their status) is below the ones with the
lofty titles.
We must also factor in what those titles meant to the Jews of the 1
st century.
Some of them may sound a bit mundane to us, but they weren't back then. So,
says Yeshua, do not let yourselves be called rabbi (probably meaning master
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
teacher) because they have only one rabbi. Who is this one rabbi? It is usually
thought to mean either God the Father or Yeshua. And yet God the Father seems
awfully abstract for what Christ is saying (God is not usually thought of as the
"master teacher"), and it is also not usual for Yeshua to give Himself honorific
titles. So I'm rather torn on this one. I do have one other possibility that I lean
towards without discounting the others. This may be a rather oblique reference to
the Holy Spirit (which had yet to indwell, but that hardly meant He wasn't
present).
CJB John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Ruach HaKodesh, whom the Father
will send in my name, will teach you everything; that is, he will remind you
of everything I have said to you.
CJB Luke 12:11-12 11 "When they bring you before the synagogues and the
ruling powers and the authorities, don't worry about how you will defend
yourself or what you will say; 12 because when the time comes, the Ruach
HaKodesh will teach you what you need to say." There are other verses (Old and New Testaments) that characterize the Holy
Spirit (the Ruach HaKodesh) as our teacher. And if one was to give the Holy
Spirit a worldly title, rabbi (master teacher) might not be inappropriate. As Yeshua
says, don't call anyone rabbi as there is only one.
Another title that He says ought to be shunned is Father (abba in Hebrew). It
cannot be that ones' own parent can no longer be called "father". I see much
disagreement and not a little discomfort among very good Bible scholars as they
wrestle with the point Jesus is making here. Once again I think the issue is not
the word father but rather how it is used to establish an honorific title in the
religious sphere, which will inevitably be used to establish a pecking order of
status. It seems that the desire for status is something that Yeshua has been
battling against all during His ministry. Especially since Yeshua anointed Peter as
the Rock upon which Yeshua will establish His congregation of followers, His
disciples have worried incessantly about which among them was the greater and
how they would be placed in a hierarchy of authority (and thus status) once
Yeshua was king or He died.
Jesus had taught in Matthew chapter 6 how we are to pray, and He says our
prayers are to be addressed to one person and only one: "Our Father" in
Heaven. God the Father. So to Christ it would be incongruent to accept any
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Lesson 75 - Matthew 23
person on earth giving himself a title among His followers so unique and high as
"Father". It is sad that in some Christian denominations this clear instruction is
altogether ignored and the title "Father" is bestowed on certain people of
authority within the Church, with the inevitable results.
This section next turns to the term "leader". Again, one has to ask how any
organization can even operate if there are no leaders or the leaders can't be
identified as the leaders. Yeshua has proved Himself time after time to be a
practical man, and He certainly doesn't get bogged down with minutia. Thus His
point must be that His body of followers is not to set anyone on a pedestal as
supreme "leader"...except for the Messiah! Still Jesus doesn't identify Himself to
the public as the Messiah, although He has already revealed Himself to His inner
circle of 12. The commonality among the forbidden terms rabbi, Father, and
leader are that they are all divine in the rather veiled sense Jesus is using them. I
think "rabbi" is probably pointing to the Holy Spirit; Father is obvious as God the
Father, and "leader" as the Messiah is outright said. Did the crowd get Christ's
meaning? I don't think so. But it would make a good and memorable point to His
disciples and later to his millions of followers as history unfolded. If only we'd pay
attention to it.
We'll continue with Matthew chapter 23 next time.
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 76, Chapter 23 Continued
Our study of Matthew 23 continues today, but bear with me before we re-open it's
inspired pages. Early in the Book of Genesis we learned of a fundamental
governing dynamic of God: He divides, elects, and separates. One of the most
obvious examples of this dynamic was when He called Abraham to become the
inaugural leader of a new group of people set apart for a divine purpose: to be a
kingdom of priests for Him. Being elected, however, was not sufficient; this newly
created division meant that Abraham had to separate from his past and his
present. He had to leave his father and his siblings, and even his homeland; we
should not minimize the severe pain this would have caused all involved. Later
when Abraham's wives and concubines bore him children, there was yet another
uncomfortable and painful division, election, and separation between his sons
Isaac and Ishmael, and some years later it happened again among his
grandchildren Jacob and Esau. The Believer's life journey with the Lord
necessarily exposes us to this same and ongoing challenge and pain of division,
election, and separation.
Yet if there is a common theme within the worldwide Church community it is
"unity". Unfortunately the type of unity that is usually contemplated is entirely
human in its nature despite the spiritual overtones used to try to achieve it. If ever
there was a strong biblical example of the wrong type of unity (the type God
does not want... the type that is against God's nature and His governing
dynamic), it must be in the story of The Tower of Babel. Human unity was so
desired and actually accomplished that God devised a simple way to divide and
separate Nimrod's subjects: He gave them new and multiple languages such that
communication among Babel's citizens became impossible and so people were
forced to scatter; they divided themselves into groups based on speaking one of
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
the several new languages God imposed upon Babel.
I've commented numerous times that culture and language are organically
coupled together. Language is human speech that expresses cultural norms and
historical customs, and it is language that provides the necessary unity and
cohesion for a society of people to best operate and thrive. People of course can
learn a second language, but unless they are also immersed into the native
culture that is the mother of that language, talking can occur but communicating
meaning and nuance likely will not.
The Heavenly kind of unity that God does want for us is when we each connect
ourselves to Him (through Christ), and then He becomes like the hub of a wheel
through which this kind of unity occurs. The irony is that this kind of unity only
happens when people are divided, elected, and separated from the community of
the world. It is when those who trust in God's Son, Yeshua, become a new and
separate order apart from all others... much like for Abraham. Thus this is how
those who worship God become Abraham's seed... the Seed of Abraham. This
event or process is a co-operative venture of and between God and His elect.
God does the dividing and electing, but it falls upon us, His worshippers, to do
the separating. Separating is the painful but mandatory part that is at once the
hardest to do but also is how the community of Christ on earth is formed.
CJB John 17:11 Now I am no longer in the world. They are in the world, but I
am coming to you. Holy Father, guard them by the power of your name,
which you have given to me, so that they may be one, just as we are.
CJB Revelation 18:4 Then I heard another voice out of heaven say: "My
people, come out of her! so that you will not share in her sins, so that you
will not be infected by her plagues,
CJB Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, his
mother, his wife, his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, and his own
life besides, he cannot be my talmid.
I could quote you a couple of dozen more teachings in the New Testament alone
about God's type of unity, and about dividing, electing, and separating; but the
point is that separating is not an option if we are going to follow Yeshua, and be
part of a Godly society on earth; and much of it depends upon us bending our will
to the Lord's and thus taking the required steps. This doesn't mean becoming
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
isolated or cultish. We are to separate ourselves spiritually from this
world, behaviorally from this world, and to fellowship with the like minded. Yet
until we die we will always be physically connected to this world and it is our duty
to take the Gospel that has saved us and changed us to the people of the world
who don't know God and His love for them. This is a tall task and so difficult at
times to balance and reconcile. We can stay so attached to this world while still
claiming to have trust in Christ that we become what some call Carnal Christians.
We can also become so cut-off from this world that we are so Heavenly minded
we provide no earthly good. Division, election, and separation is the undertone of
all that Jesus has been instructing and demonstrating in His own life, throughout
His earthly ministry, and it is especially front and center in Matthew chapter 23.
Let's re-read a portion of it.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23:8 - end
We ended our last lesson by briefly going over a short list of titles that Yeshua
says ought not to be used within the Hebrew faith: Rabbi, Father, and Leader.
The term Rabbi didn't yet mean quite what it means today, but within a few
decades after Yeshua's earthly ministry came to a predestined close, it would
begin to transform from indicating a greatly admired teacher of God's word, to
meaning "great one" in the sense of a person who holds a special office in the
hierarchy of the religion of Judaism. The term Father was actually a term already
in use within the various Semitic religious sects (and so also within the sphere of
authority and reach of the Synagogue) to indicate a highly positioned Elder.
Leader is a little harder to decipher except it seems to mean anyone who has
exalted themselves above others within the Synagogue religious structure.
Obviously Christ's idea wasn't to abolish these words from the Hebrew language
but rather it was dealing with the worldly norm of setting some men upon
pedestals such that it led to them glorifying themselves and the people
acquiescing to their unquestioned leadership. This leads us back to the purpose
for my opening words of today's lesson. Essentially Jesus was using the
Pharisees and Scribes of the Synagogue religious system as examples of the
wrong way to do things within the Hebrew faith as God originally intended it to
operate. Jesus thoroughly denounces them as He continues to set the
boundaries, priorities, entrance requirements and even the structure of the new
Believers' community that He is establishing. This new community is being
formed out of the existing Jewish community, and its members are those who
trust in Yeshua of Nazareth as God's Son. Each member is be neither higher nor
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
lower in status than another; rather whether a leader or a follower in the Jesus
community, everyone is to see themselves as equals... as "brothers".
In verse 11 Jesus sums it up by saying that the greatest among them (the
necessary leadership) are not to see themselves as having attained a higher
status than the rest, but rather they are to see their purpose and function as
servants to the others. This is the way the Kingdom of Heaven is to operate: it's a
complete reversal from the way the world operates. It was also a reversal from
the way the Jewish religious system had come to operate in Christ's era. And, in
too many cases, it is the way that the Christian Church of the 21st century
operates and has since about the 2
nd century. Too often people serve the Pastor
or the Rabbi or the Priest, not the other way around as it ought to be. Too often
the Pastor, Rabbi and Priest are seen as elevated and above the others...
deserving of special privilege and honor. I know of many Church and Synagogue
leaders who believe they are elevated and thus rightfully should be catered to;
and I know of others who are wonderful servants in the mold that God intends,
who daily sacrifice their personal needs for their congregants. No doubt this, too,
was the case among the Scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus was talking to the
ones that needed to be taken down a notch; not to all of them. Even Flavius
Josephus speaks about how there were many Pharisees that were fine and
humble men, loved by the people for their kindness and mercy.
But there was a far deeper consequence to what Yeshua was speaking and
demonstrating. He was demanding that His followers were to become a separate
sect... the Messianic sect (lacking for better words)... which would operate both
within and outside of the present state of the Hebrew faith that had been
morphing into what Bible scholars (Jewish and Christian) loosely call early
Judaism. That is, the Hebrew biblical faith had evolved into a human-devised
system of behaviors as defined by the Synagogue leaders, and far from the true
meaning and sense of the God-given Law of Moses. This helps us to gain more
comprehension of a core principle that Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount.
CJB Matthew 5:17-20 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than
that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the
Kingdom of Heaven!
In this passage that I've quoted to you so many times, Yeshua was speaking
about the same type of Synagogue leaders that He is now chastising so severely
in Matthew 23. The term "righteousness" that He used in characterizing the
Scribes (Torah teachers) and the Pharisees was almost meant sarcastically. Or
perhaps better, Jesus was referring to the fake righteousness that the Scribes
and Pharisees assigned to themselves that was far off the mark of biblical
righteousness, and so it amounted to little to no righteousness whatsoever in the
Father's Kingdom. Rather, Jesus describes true biblical righteousness.... as
what? As obeying the commandments of the Torah and the Prophets, and
teaching these commandments to others. The Scribes and the Pharisees are
condemned by Yeshua because they weren't teaching God's commands, but
rather they were teaching their own manmade doctrines... a system of
behaviors... that brought with them heavy burdens but not much righteousness.
With all this in mind, beginning at verse 13 Yeshua unleashes a torrent of 7 woes
upon these Synagogue leaders who are misleading their people. Interestingly,
some Bible versions (perhaps the very one you are reading from) add an 8
th woe.
It is this (for those of you who don't have it in your Bible):
NAS Matthew 23:14 "l/l/de to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because you devour widows' houses, even while for a pretense you make
long prayers; therefore you shall receive greater condemnation.
In reality this verse is a much later Christian gloss that was added to Matthew's
Gospel. It never existed in the earliest Greek manuscripts, so the addition must
have occurred in the 5th century or later. Probably (as we've already seen
happen in earlier chapters) a Christian Bible editor saw those words in Mark
chapter 12 and thought the Gospels would harmonize best if those same words
were also included in Matthew. Therefore we'll not deal with that verse and
instead only look at the 7 woes that Matthew records.
I wonder if by now, after working our way through 22 chapters in Matthew, some
who are listening or watching would still insist that Jesus can only be described
as "love". That is, love is the only attribute of Christ or at least the only one worth
mentioning. Yet if Jesus really can say "if you've seen Me, you've seen the
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
Father" and mean it, then the same attributes of the Old Testament God that
wholesale destroys entire evil cities and their citizens, and who judges Canaan
and turns it over to the refugee Israelites, and who killed 185,000 Assyrian
soldiers in a single day, must live within Yeshua. And indeed, that is more or less
what we find in God's Word if we'll only lay down our manmade doctrines that
often merely function as a cover-up (although certainly in His 1
st advent Jesus
states that He didn't come to condemn). On the other hand, if He did not come to
condemn it is difficult to fit even a thin sheet of paper between that and when we
find Him using such strong language to set the Synagogue and Temple
leadership back on their heels, and here during a non-stop diatribe against them
since entering Jerusalem, He now harshly judges the Synagogue leadership that
stands before Him by pronouncing 7 woes upon them.
What's a woe? For the sake of illustration, I think it is not too big a reach to
equate the woes of Jesus with the plagues of Moses. Since Jesus is the "prophet
like me" that Moses promised would come, and since throughout his Gospel
Matthew has made an obvious implied comparison between Yeshua and Moshe,
then for the sake of trying to best describe what a "woe" meant to Him, we could
probably replace woe with plague. That is, in verse 13 where it begins "But woe
to you hypocritical Torah teachers and Pharisees" it could just as easily say "A
plague upon you hypocritical Torah teachers and Pharisees". I'm not saying that
the meanings of the two words are precisely the same; I'm saying that they are
close enough in purpose and effect that it might help Christians in the
21st century to get the sense that Jesus is talking to these Scribes and Pharisees
as though they were foreign enemies, and so how deeply offensive it must have
been to them.
Since I am occasionally called out by mainstream Church leaders and Christian
laymen for saying uncomfortable things such as I just said (that Jesus is not only
love), I would like to quote someone of note who at least sees Him more or less
similarly. Ben Witherington III in his commentary on Matthew says this:
"Most people reading this commentary would like to have a user-friendly
Jesus, an approachable Jesus. A Jesus who is threatening and who warns
of coming judgment and * does not produce warm feelings. Those of us
who love Jesus need to do our best to avoid the tendency to whittle down
or lop off the hard edges of His teaching. If there are parts of His teaching
that make us uncomfortable, perhaps we should allow that to tell us
something about where we are and what we believe rather than saying
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
Jesus could never have said something like that. The human tendency to
minimize what we find disturbing or painful or hard to swallow needs not to
be given free reign when it comes to Jesus's teaching. Jesus must be
allowed to have His say, whether we are happy with His words or not."
I don't know whether that makes you feel any better, but it certainly does me.
The 1
st woe sort of sums up the why and what-for of the 6 following woes upon
these religious leaders whom Yeshua finds as despicable and dangerous. He
calls them hypocrites; but we shouldn't focus on that word because in His day
and for many centuries before and after, one Jew calling another Jew a hypocrite
(especially when arguing religious issues) was common banter. It's not too far
from English speaking people calling someone a * or a phony. The problem is
that while we common people can do that to one another with little more risk than
perhaps someone being a bit put-off, it is not without its consequences when said
to people who consider themselves as having a privileged status and having
power over you. We must always factor in the reality that to the minds of these
revered Scribes and Pharisees of privileged status and rank, Yeshua was
essentially an intruder; an uneducated, trouble making, itinerant Galilean Holy
Man that was saying these condemning things to them and making them look
bad in front of crowds of people. How dare He!!
Yeshua says that not only will these esteemed Scribes and Pharisees not be
welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, but also their error-filled teaching,
arrogant behavior and bad example to others is leading those who believe that
their religious leaders' instruction is God ordained, and who long to be able to
someday enter into God's Kingdom by following their instruction, instead are
being led into the same abyss that these leaders will eventually fall. Following up
on those hard-hitting comments by Witherington, I'll once again risk the ire of
many fellow Christians by saying that as those who love Our Savior we are much
too close within the Church to epitomizing the very people Yeshua is speaking to
and speaking about. Every time I say these sorts of things my email inbox over␂floweth with notes that say: "Stop Church bashing". Or "Well, MY Church isn't like
that." As with Yeshua, just as He wasn't bashing the Jewish faith,
but was bashing the Jewish leadership for their wrong teaching, so it is my intent
not to Church-bash but rather to shake up those among the Church leadership to
re-think the many doctrines that they teach, which often as not say something
quite different than what the Word of God says.
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
It is the job of Bible Teachers, Pastors, and Messianic Rabbis to teach the biblical
truth; not to teach denominational doctrines. It is our job to lead people into the
Kingdom on God's terms and not on ours nor those stated terms of the
denominational councils. It is our job to be willing to bear the anger and rejection
of others... even of our fellow brethren... because what we teach and do will not
always meet their expectations or will it make their lives more comfortable. On
the other hand it is not our job to be people pleasers, but rather God pleasers.
Yeshua was willing to displease the Jewish faith leadership and most of His
fellow Jews in order to reform the Jewish faith back into what God had given to
Moses at Mt. Sinai. This bold teaching of truth was the catalyst that led Him to
the cross.
The next woe Christ hurls at the Scribes and Pharisees is in verse 15 (remember;
some Bibles have a verse 14 and some don't). It is about their great efforts to
proselytize. There is reasonable disagreement among good Bible scholars over
whether Jesus is referring to Jews proselytizing gentiles, or the Pharisees
attempting to sway Diaspora Jews to their Pharisaical Traditions and doctrines.
Other than this rather ambiguous statement from Yeshua, there is no historical
evidence that prior to the destruction of the Temple and the birth of Rabbinic
Judaism that Jews ever tried in the least to convert gentiles to the Jewish faith.
We do read in Josephus's Jewish Wars of many gentiles being attracted to
Judaism. He never accused the Rabbis of proselytizing gentiles, although
certainly some small level of outreach must have occurred. Even so, he was
writing specifically about a time well after 70 A.D. ... some 40 or more years after
the death of Christ and a few years after Paul died. Therefore my opinion is that
the viewpoint among some Bible scholars that the Jewish missionary activity
spoken of here is directed towards pagan gentiles is born out of the Church
wanting to connect this passage to the dreaded "judaizing" that we read about in
some of Paul's Epistles; a term that Christians generally regard as wholly
negative, ungodly, and an arch enemy of the Church. However that view seems
so entirely out of place from what we know historically and from what we read in
the Bible. Rather it seems to me that considering the Jewish culture, customs
and faith of the times, and that when we hear of Peter and other Jewish Believers
going to gentiles that they risked being shunned or worse by their Jewish friends
and religious leaders, that what must be happening is that the Pharisees went
about trying to sway some of the millions of Jews in the Diaspora to adopt their
particular doctrines and Traditions that were far more onerous and strict than
what they had been practicing in their Synagogues in Europe, Asia, and Northern
Africa. In other words, the Pharisees' traveling far and wide was a competition to
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
acquire adherents to their own Jewish sect, from within the many far-flung
colonies of Jewish culture, and it never involved gentiles. Even Christ instructed
His disciples to go ONLY to the Jewish people with the Good News. In fact,
Yeshua railing against the Scribes and Pharisees for teaching their misguided
Traditions to other Jews has been the central focus for a few chapters in
Matthew, now. So to interpret this passage as indicating Pharisees proselytizing
gentiles just doesn't fit any context that we've come across.
So what is being spoken of here is the passionate determination of the sect of the
Pharisees that spares no time or expense or travel dangers to convert marginal
Jews to the strict Halakhah (doctrines) of the Pharisees. The least we can say is
that while the Pharisee leadership might not have practiced what they preached,
they seemed to believe most of what they taught. In Christ's mind this great
passion made them all the more threatening to the spiritual welfare of the Jews
who expected to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven nearly exclusively by means
of their birth as Jews. And, says Jesus, whenever these Jewish missionaries
convert another Jew to their Halakhah, it makes the convert fit only
for Gei-Hinnom... or in English, Gehenna. No, this was not speaking about the
Christian *. Clearly this was some kind of ancient Hebrew religious expression
that meant those Jews excluded from God's Kingdom... Jews that were so sinful
(like prostitutes and tax collectors) that they were not allowed to be part of it.
However since the Jewish faith didn't contemplate the idea of gentiles EVER
being part of God's Kingdom anyway, then being cast
into Gei-Hinnom generally speaking was not meant as a possibility for gentiles.
The 3
rd woe begins in verse 16. I have so far mentioned that the issue with the
Synagogue authorities (the Scribes and the Pharisees) is their Halakah (their
Traditions) that rule the sect and therefore become the lifestyle of the common
Jews, almost all of which belong to one Synagogue or another. So after the first 2
woes being rather general in nature, this 3
rd one specifically addresses certain
Traditions that Jesus finds as absurd on their face. I want to be clear: Yeshua is
not being hypothetical. He's also not exaggerating. These are actual Jewish
Laws of at least some of the Pharisees. It takes up a few verses so let's re-read
about the 3
rd woe.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23:16 - 22
What connects these various examples that Christ gives is Temple ritual. And,
since this scolding by Jesus is taking place at the Temple... and it's during the
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
Passover festival in Jerusalem... the object lesson about Halakhah as concerns
Temple ritual makes sense. To be clear, however, this is ritual based upon
Pharisee Traditions and not so much rules imposed by the Sadducees (although
the 2 religious factions could well have agreed upon them). This begins by
dealing with the important matter of oaths. Oaths were important in Jewish
society because most business transactions were settled orally and were not
written down. But also because people, in regular conversation, had started using
oaths to amplify their "yes" or "no". These business transactions among Jews
were seen as guaranteed by God if an oath was pronounced by both parties and
so an oath was part of nearly every business matter. Thus the religious
authorities determined what constituted a valid and binding oath... and what
didn't. Naturally since all oaths among Jews necessarily invoked the God of
Israel, then indeed it was a religious matter.
The Pharisees then had all sorts of built-in loop holes by which someone could
declare an oath, but it was non-binding. Yeshua's position was that all oaths are
binding because all oaths invoke the God of Israel. He calls those who make and
enforce those rules "blind guides". There is no question to exactly whom He's
referring because in chapter 15 He used the same epithet for the Pharisee
leaders.
CJB Matthew 15:14 Let them be. They are blind guides. When a blind man
guides another blind man, both will fall in a pit."
In this point and counterpoint session about the different oaths being used, notice
how the Pharisees sought to avoid using God's name. That is, for a couple of
different reasons they sought to avoid directly invoking God. First, it was because
beginning late in the 4
th century B.C. a superstition had broken out against saying
God's formal name (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh... Yehoveh). It soon expanded to not
saying the word "God" out loud and then soon after to not writing it. This taboo
remains intact to this very day in the 21st century within Judaism. The second
reason to avoid directly invoking God is because it can make the oath more
malleable and so a business partner can find a way out or a way to keep it
enforced. No doubt the particular oath formulas Yeshua spoke about were real
and commonly used; this was not a joke even though it might sound ludicrous to
us when we read of it.
So, if a shrewd Jew swore an oath using the Temple as the guarantor, then he
could back out. But, if He swore an oath on the gold used inside the Temple, then
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
he couldn't. "You blind fools", says Christ (not exactly a nice thing to say, was
it?). He asks, which is more important (that is, which has more gravitas)? The
Temple or the gold inside of it? Then Yeshua teaches something that the
Pharisees would have known if they had been Torah scholars instead
of Halakhah scholars. He says it is the holy Temple that makes the gold holy.
This is the principle that holiness can be spread through contact. That is, a
common object (like gold) coming into contact with a holy object (like the Temple)
transfers holiness to the common object making it holy as well. The Torah
explains that holiness must NOT be accidentally spread or maliciously
misappropriated by human device.
We should remember from the Book of Numbers the terrible outcome for the
Levite Korach who rebelled against Moses and argued against God's command
that only a certain clan of Levites (and it wasn't Korach's clan) would be allowed
to come near to God's holiness and serve in the Tabernacle (a great honor).
Moses put Korach's assertion to the test. Korach and 250 other men approached
the Wilderness Tabernacle with their incense burners. Moses said that God
would then reveal who had the authority to be near holiness. As the men
approached the Tabernacle, God struck them all down with fire from Heaven,
even destroying their fire pans (their incense burners). Why? The men in
consequence of their rebellion, and the fire pans because they had contracted
holiness from being so close to the holy Tabernacle. God wouldn't allow objects
that maliciously and wrongly misappropriated holiness to continue to exist. God
and God alone controls who and what can be holy.
Using this same ancient Torah principle Yeshua says that another common
dodge used by shrewd Pharisees is to swear by the altar, because that Pharisee
believes this can allow him to easily renounce his oath. But, if he swears by the
offering (the sacrifice) that is placed on the altar, he cannot back out. Yeshua
says that their logic for this Tradition again is hugely faulty because an offering of
itself is not holy; it is merely common. It is only the holiness of the Temple altar
that gets transferred to the offering that makes the offering holy once it is set
upon the holy altar.
CJB Exodus 29:37 Seven days you will make atonement on the altar and
consecrate it; thus the altar will be especially holy, and whatever touches
the altar will become holy.
In verse 22 we find that it had become another Tradition that one could swear by
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Lesson 76 - Matthew 23 cont
Heaven, and it too wasn't binding on the oath maker. There's a nuance here that
is not visible to us unless we understand it in 1
st century Jewish cultural terms.
Using the word "Heaven" in that era was simply a way to refer to God without
breaking the taboo against saying the word "God" or saying His Name. This is
why we see the Gospel writer Matthew (the righteous Jewish Believer) using the
term Kingdom of Heaven so often instead of Kingdom of God as the other
Gospel accounts do. Heaven and God were essentially synonymous terms, but
saying Heaven was a religiously and culturally allowable loophole while saying
God was not. This rule was Halakhah... Jewish Tradition... and not scripturally
correct. However says Christ, since Heaven is God's throne and it represents the
One sitting on it, then saying Heaven is just as binding as if God Himself were
invoked. So, the terms Heaven and God meant essentially the same thing and
one couldn't wiggle out of it just because some Pharisee with religious authority
said so. This isn't because the 2 terms technically mean the same (they obviously
don't), but because the leaders of Judaism thought they could be clever and refer
to God by saying "Heaven" and thus obey Jewish Law.
Please follow along with me on this. I think it is fascinating and very revealing that
the only time in the Book of Matthew that we find the phrase Kingdom of God is
when Matthew is quoting Yeshua. Only 5 times in Matthew do we find the phrase
"Kingdom of God", but we find him using "Kingdom of Heaven" more than 40
times. In Mark we never find the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven"; rather only
"Kingdom of God" and it is the same in Luke. Why the stark difference? Because
Mark and Luke were gentiles and so didn't observe the Jewish taboo of not
saying "God". They were also not writing their Gospels for use by the Jewish
community by rather by the gentile community, so saying "God" would not have
brought a swift negative reaction. Equally fascinating is that Christ is quoted in all
the Gospel accounts as sometimes saying "Kingdom of God". This means that
Yeshua did NOT adhere to the Traditional Jewish taboo of refraining from using
the word God. Jesus saying "God" out loud would have surprised any Jew; and
would have deeply upset the Pharisees.
Next up is the 4th woe, which we'll get into next time.
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 77, Chapter 23 Continued 2
Because I had the great privilege of being raised in a Christian household from
my earliest age, my family and I spent every Sunday in Church. Child
Psychologists and most parents (especially moms) can verify that even when a
child isn't paying the best attention, it is quite astounding how much they hear
and store away, often subconsciously. During Church services, even while I was
coloring some masterpiece upon the Church program, using a hymnal for a
suitable table, as the Preacher spoke I, too, absorbed things that just became
part of my understanding of Christianity without even knowing it was occurring.
During that era when the Church still talked about sin, one of those things that
took root within me was: a sin, is a sin, is a sin. Any sin, no matter how trivial, is
an offense to God and so (in that respect) there is little difference between
stealthily sliding a nickel off my father's dresser to buy a candy bar than there is
in brazen armed robbery of a bank. And while this thought probably kept me from
not escalating my childhood criminal career into pilfering dimes, as it turns out
learning God's Torah reveals that this nearly unconscious belief I had of all sins
being equal in God's eyes, wasn't entirely true.
Because the New Testament assumes that we already have the knowledge and
wisdom of the Torah as our foundation for understanding, then when we read
about Yeshua's many encounters with His fellow Jews and His numerous
confrontations with the Jewish religious authorities it is within the principles of the
Torah and that broad Jewish cultural context of understanding that we must
comprehend His words. So as we continue today in Matthew chapter 23 and
Jesus is pronouncing 7 "woes" upon the Synagogue leadership (Pharisees) we'll
do it by adding in more instruction about what His words would have meant in the
cultural background of His 1st century Jewish listeners... who knew of nothing but
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
the instruction of the Old Testament (since that is all that existed in Christ's era)...
because that is exactly the intended meaning that we are to absorb and act upon
even though we must adapt that to apply in the 21st century.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23:23 - end
This begins what is called the 4
th woe; it is the 4
th of 7. As a reminder, in our last
meeting I likened the meaning of "woe" to the word "plague", while not intending
to suggest that the meaning of those 2 words are the same, but rather only to
paint a better word picture in our minds. The Baal Shem Tov Hebrew version of
Matthew begins with Oy lachem, which has a meaning that sort of combines the
words pain and a rarely used Hebrew word meaning war. It is more than a strong
indictment of the Pharisee leadership, it is a severe divine judgment pronounced
upon them that I think was meant to call to mind the plagues of judgment that
God sent upon Egypt many centuries earlier. I also imagine that on
the Remez level (the "hint" level) of interpretation the Jewish leaders and the
listening crowds were not meant to miss the connection that just as the plagues
were delivered upon Egypt to affect the leadership (the Pharaoh) in such a way
as to cause the release of God's people from their burdensome bondage that
they might go and properly worship Him, so it is that Christ is pronouncing a
"plague" upon the Pharisee leadership that they might release God's people from
their burdensome Traditions that were keeping them away from proper worship of
Him. And, therefore in a certain sense, I think Yeshua is implying a similarity
between what the Pharisee leadership were doing to the Jewish people, to what
Pharaoh did to all Israel.
Yeshua says that the Scribes and the Pharisees pay their tithes of mint, dill, and
cumin. While the requirement to tithe upon the produce of the land is contained in
the Law of Moses, the reality is that mint, dill, and cumin are spices and were not
classified as "food" or "produce of the field" per se. Rather it had become another
Tradition that even the spices that grew (some of them wildly and not through
cultivation, although some were expensive to purchase) were to be tithed upon.
Since tithing is a subject that I very infrequently talk about, we'll take just a few
moments to do so. And I must say in advance, it is perhaps the topic that gets
some Christians most visibly perturbed because we so badly don't want to hear it
or obey it.
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
Most produce of the field was tithed at the rate of one-tenth.
CJB Leviticus 27:30 "'All the tenth given from the land, whether from planted
seed or fruit from trees, belongs to ADONAI; it is holy to ADONAI.
However, such giving and gifts (korban in Hebrew) were not as straightforward
as this statement in Leviticus 27 makes it seem. There were different rates for
different kinds of produce (or animals) and for different times; but never less than
one-tenth. We won't get into that today, but if you are really interested you can
learn about it in the TorahClass.com lessons on the Book of Leviticus. Over time
as Hebrew society evolved and fewer people were rural farmers, and more were
city dwelling merchants and tradesmen, and as they scattered at far distances
from the Temple that made regular sacrifices and offerings impossible, then the
standards and means of "tithing" also evolved. Thus a general standard of 10%
of either the actual harvest or the value of the harvest or of whatever one's labors
and business produced was to be given to the Temple. The concept of money
(coins) as being "frozen labor" that could be given instead of produce or animals
was created (a very good way to look at it, to my estimation). Although some of
that tithe became diverted to the Synagogue, it was not in any official way that is
known nor that the Temple would have sanctioned. Thus tithing is a word that
combines the idea of biblically mandated giving with the rate of giving at a
minimum of 10%; it was the standard in Yeshua's time, and it has carried over to
Christianity from as far back as it can be traced.
So, yes, you and I have a biblically mandated (an Old and New Testament
mandated) instruction to give at least 10% of our increase. But to whom or to
what do we give? That question is not so easily (or honestly) answered. The
mandate was certainly not, in Bible times, meant to be taken as "any religious
organization". And, yet, because there is no Temple to give to today (nor has
there been for nearly 2000 years), and because the body of God worshippers has
grown exponentially, is present in the farthest reaches of our planet, and the
organizations that were created to lead God's people... both Church and
Synagogue... have evolved, then while the concept of tithing lives on, the exact
application of it has had to evolve as well. To my way of thinking, tithing 10% of
our increase (our incomes) to a specific or to various Believing organizations
properly represents the spirit of the Law of tithing.
I have spoken much to you over the years about the Synagogue in ancient times.
One of the several things I said was that the Synagogue can nowhere be found in
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
the Bible as a God-ordained religious organization. Rather, biblically the Temple
and its activities were not just the center but the only authorized place of Israelite
religious leadership, ritual, and communal meeting. The Synagogue concept was
born out of necessity; the conditions necessitating it essentially caused by human
sin. It was created by the Jews that were hauled off to Babylon. The Temple had
been destroyed, the Priesthood disbanded, and so the Jews had all means of
proper worship and ritual... and especially of sacrificing to atone for their sins...
ended. This was a direct and intended punishment from God, and He used a
foreign nation and foreign king to deliver this judgment. Thus we can read in
Daniel that Daniel instituted the practice of praying 3 times per day towards
Jerusalem.
Then we read of the disheartened exiles meeting together. And out of this the
Synagogue system was eventually born; it was an alternative means of having
communal worship and prayer. Yet, it was an entirely manmade organization, not
ruled by Levite Priests but instead by laymen... in Christ's day it was Pharisees
and Scribes. It has fascinated me that by the time we get to the New Testament
era, the Synagogue had become the unquestioned center of Jewish communal
worship, prayer, and learning. Although no sacrificing occurred at the
Synagogue, it played a prominent role in everyday Jewish life... religious and
otherwise. Yeshua was raised under the Synagogue system because that was at
the core of Jewish culture. Never do we find any New Testament writer nor
Yeshua Himself ever speaking against the Synagogue system as something that
ought not to exist (even though the Temple was back and operating under Levite
Priests), nor was the Synagogue portrayed as being against God's will.
I tell you this to say that we must look upon the Church similarly. The Church, as
an organized institution, is not God-mandated. In fact, it is not an off-shoot of the
God-ordained Temple but rather is modeled after the manmade Synagogue
system. Biblically speaking the Body of Christ is people... not buildings nor even
organizations or institutions. Thus some Christians say that when going strictly by
the letter of the biblical Law, they have no obligation to give to the Church
because the Church as defined today is merely an institutional organization that
has infrastructure that the leadership seeks to be supported. I would agree;
except that Jesus taught us to look beyond the letter of the Law and to the spirit
of it. So what I am about to say to you is my opinion and interpretation, however I
have no doubts about it. We are to support the organizations that serve the Body
of Christ. That might mean the local fellowship you attend, or an online one that
you follow, or some good Believers' based organizations that do God's work on
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
earth. I also think that first and foremost, if you regularly attend a local fellowship,
that is your first and most important point of tithing because as you must be
aware, it is quite costly to operate a fellowship organization and structure in
modern times... especially in the West. Choosing not to tithe at all is absolutely a
sin; tithing is not optional.
The most often used Bible quote for this (because it is simple, unequivocal and
straightforward) comes from the Prophet Malachi.
CJB Malachi 3:7-10 7 Since the days of your forefathers you have turned
from my laws and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to
you," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot. "But you ask, 'In respect to what are we
supposed to return?' 8 Can a person rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask,
'How have we robbed you?' In tenths and voluntary contributions. 9 A curse
is on you, on your whole nation, because you rob me. 10 Bring the whole
tenth into the storehouse, so that there will be food in my house, and put
me to the test," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot. "See if I won't open for you the
floodgates of heaven and pour out for you a blessing far beyond your
needs.
Because I'm not in the habit of sugar-coating things, here's the bottom line: if you
want to try to find a way around this command... be my guest. Many of you do.
Oh, I have to pay for my child's college. Oh, I have to get my car fixed. Oh, but I
really need a vacation. Do I pay on the gross or net of my paycheck? Since I
don't know, I'll put it off. I'll start tithing when I get a better paying job. I can't tell
you the same dozen or so reasons (thought to be good justifications) that I hear
so often for not tithing. The duty to tithe is not because I tell you, but because
God tells you. And, the consequences for not tithing are yours to bear; and you
are promised by God that you will bear them. But it also negatively affects the
body and fellowship you are part of and the many things that could (and should)
have been done in Christ's name to show His love and mercy to so many who
need it. There; that's your tithing sermon for this year.
So, after acknowledging that the Pharisees are punctilious about tithing, even to
the point of tithing on spices they acquire to flavor their food, Jesus then throws
down the hammer. He says but you have neglected the weightier matters of the
Torah... namely...justice, mercy, and trust. Other versions say "weightier matters
of the Law". And then they say justice, mercy, and faith (or faithfulness), and
others replace mercy with kindness. What are the weightier matters of the Law?
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
Does that mean the harder and more difficult things? And what law is being
referred to? Jewish law (Halakhah) or the Law of Moses?
So should they NOT have tithed mint, dill and cumin and instead done these
weightier things? No, says Christ, they indeed should have done them without
neglecting the others. That is, they should have done justice, mercy, and trust in
addition to tithing. It's not an either/or scenario... it's both.
But wait: I thought tithing on spices was Jewish Tradition while performing justice,
mercy and trust was Torah based? The reality is that Christ is not telling them
that their Tradition on this matter is a bad thing. It's only that when they point to
that as their demonstration of righteousness, instead of doing justice, mercy, and
trust, that's where the problem comes in to play. I have little doubt that Yeshua is
drawing upon Hosea for His indictment against them.
CJB Hosea 6:4-7 4 "Efrayim, what should I do to you? Y'hudah, what should I
do to you? For your 'faithful love' is like a morning cloud, like dew that
disappears quickly. 5 This is why I have cut them to pieces by the prophets,
slaughtered them with the words from my mouth- the judgment on you
shines out like light. 6 For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices, knowledge
of God more than burnt offerings. 7 "But they, just like men, have broken
the covenant, they have been faithless in dealing with me.
Look: Tradition is fine so far it goes... Church or Synagogue. But Tradition can
never be holy because it is man contrived and not God-ordained. Traditions can
be enjoyable, or beneficial, and perfectly fine with God when they operate within
the spirit of the Law of Moses. It's when Tradition, doctrine, and custom twist,
turn, or effectively replace God's commandments that the trouble begins. And
that is what Yeshua is accusing the Pharisees of.
So what did the idea of "weightier things" mean to Jesus and to His listeners?
Such a debate was not new to the Hebrew faith, and continued well beyond His
time. In the Targum Herios Beracot, we read: "In the words of the Law there
are some things light, and some things heavy, or weighty; but those
weighty things they omitted, and regarded those there light. Yes, they had
no foundation in the law at all; and no wonder since in the place last cited,
they say that the words of the Scribes are all of them weighty, and the
sayings of the Elders are weightier than the words of the Prophets".
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
While this quote is from much later Judaism, nonetheless this is precisely what
Yeshua was damning the Pharisees and Scribes for doing. They made their own
rules and Traditions more weighty, in general, than even the words of the biblical
Prophets. Further, they omitted what was truly weighty for their own thoughts on
matters. So another way of saying it, within the context that both Jesus and this
Rabbi meant it, is that biblical Law had been overridden by the edicts of other
Rabbis. It was reprehensible and it was grievous sin. This is why Yeshua issued
a woe (a painful and severe judgment) against these leaders.
As to that weightier matter of justice, mercy and faithfulness or trust, a good
place to start is the Prophet Micah who mirrors much of the sentiments
expressed in Malachi.
CJBMicah 6:6-8 6 "With what can I come before ADONAI to bow down before
God on high? Should I come before him with burnt offerings? with calves
in their first year? 7 Would ADONAI take delight in thousands of rams with
ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Could I give my firstborn to pay for my
crimes, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 8 Human being, you
have already been told what is good, what ADONAI demands of you- no
more than to act justly, love grace and walk in purity with your God.
Part of the reason I wanted to use this passage is to show you how grace and
love was always part of what God expects of mankind... not just the Israelites...
but it is also something that institutional Christianity has for centuries claimed
was a new innovation that only began with Jesus. That is, the old God...
Yehoveh... was all about blood shed, retribution, and anger. That, my friends, is
an 1800-year-old slander that is without biblical basis and it was devised to put a
wall of separation between Jews and Christians. Also notice how Micah says that
all God demands of humanity (Hebrew and gentile) is to act justly, love grace,
and walk in purity. So, by the logic applied to a famous and most-quoted section
of the New Testament, then here we have Micah abolishing the Law in favor of
justice, love, grace and walking in purity with God.
I'm going to read to you a lengthy section of the Book of Acts that will
immediately be familiar to you, but I want you to consider it in light of what
Yeshua has said, and what Micah has said, what are the weightier matters of the
Law, and what God wants of us all.
CJB Acts 15:7-20 7 After lengthy debate, Kefa got up and said to them,
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
"Brothers, you yourselves know that a good while back, God chose me
from among you to be the one by whose mouth the Goyim should hear the
message of the Good News and come to trust. 8 And God, who knows the
heart, bore them witness by giving the Ruach HaKodesh to them, just as he
did to us; 9
that is, he made no distinction between us and them, but
cleansed their heart by trust. 10 So why are you putting God to the test now
by placing a yoke on the neck of the talmidim which neither our fathers nor
we have had the strength to bear? 11 No, it is through the love and kindness
of the Lord Yeshua that we trust and are delivered- and it's the same with
them." 12 Then the whole assembly kept still as they listened to Bar-Nabba
and Sha'ul tell what signs and miracles God had done through them among
the Gentiles. 13 Ya'akov broke the silence to reply. "Brothers," he said,
"hear what I have to say. 14 Shim'on has told in detail what God did when he
first began to show his concern for taking from among the Goyim a people
to bear his name. 15 And the words of the Prophets are in complete
harmony with this for it is written, 16 "'After this, I will return; and I will
rebuild the fallen tent of David. I will rebuild its ruins, I will restore it, 17 so
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, that is, all the Goyim who have
been called by my name," 18 says ADONAl, who is doing these things.' All
this has been known for ages. 19 "Therefore, my opinion is that we should
not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to
God. 20 Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from
things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from
blood.
Can you see the similarity of thought and principle here? Just as Micah was in no
way abolishing the Law for either Hebrew or gentile, neither was Christ's brother
James when he spoke of the things that Gentile Believers ought to do and not do.
Rather, both scenarios and both men were instructing in the weightier matters of
the Law that had to be observed, and pushing the lighter matters to the
background but only as a relative measurement: not doing away with the one
while replacing it with the other. What did Christ say about that?
CJB Matthew 23:23 ...These are the things you should have attended to␂without neglecting the others!
This is the mindset with which we are to approach obeying God: obey the Torah,
obey the Prophets, and obey God's Son, Yeshua. Not one or the other: all. Yet
the reality is that we'll always be faced with choices in this world when we must
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
put the weightier ahead of the lighter without neglecting either. Nor should we
pretend that the weightier has replaced the lighter. Justice, mercy, and
faithfulness are relationship terms. They apply to our relationships with God and
with people. But how do we know what justice is? What mercy is? What
faithfulness is... in the God's eyes? We study, first, the Torah and the Prophets to
find out.
Yeshua sums up in verse 24 what the Synagogue leaders' condition is in His
estimation. They are blind guides. They think they are leading others but in fact
they don't know where they're going. They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
While this is an illustration of a tiny creature versus a large creature, there's also
other elements at play here. First, both are creatures deemed by the Law of
Moses as prohibited to eat (not kosher). Second, when the text speaks of
straining out a gnat, it is envisioning the common process of straining wine
through a fine cloth prior to it being put into containers. The straining was to
remove things like grape seeds, dirt, debris and of course insects before it was
put into containers. The mental picture Yeshua painted was as though a camel
had fallen into the wine vat, but the Pharisees didn't bother to strain it out... they
went right ahead and swallowed it. Now obviously this was meant as metaphor
and it was simply another way of Christ demonstrating the weightier versus
lighter principle, and not getting the two mixed up, to get His point across. Verse
25 moves us to woe #5.
Once again Jesus says that the Pharisees pay attention to the less important
while neglecting the more important. More metaphor is used: Christ isn't talking
about actual cups and plates. This isn't about performing proper ritual law (that
Jesus perfectly upholds). Rather this is about external ritual cleanness that
ignores the more important internal state of a person. This continues Yeshua's
theme of hypocrisy; the intentional outward appearance of righteousness while
inside being full of wickedness and deceit. Just so we don't wander off and begin
to apply willy-nilly what Jesus said, this is entirely aimed at leadership. It's not
that hypocrisy doesn't occur at every level of human social order; but this entire
chapter is pointedly directed to leadership because of the effect leaders in a
position of power and authority have. They can ruin not only themselves, but
many others as well.
While politics seems to be never ending talk over coffee or a dinner table, as
important as politics are to our earthly well-being our spiritual well-being is far
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
more important and often directly tied to what we see and learn from our spiritual
leaders. Not because spiritual leaders have the power to determine our condition
before God, but they can influence it for the better or worse. They can convince
us of lies to believe in that can trap us in the very spiritual bondage that Christ
came to free us from. Political beliefs can nowhere be found in Christ's teachings;
only spiritual beliefs. Bottom line: be very cautious whom you choose to learn
your spiritual beliefs from. Should it turn out that they prove themselves clean on
the outside but wicked on the inside, run from them and render everything you
ever heard from them as suspect. Bibles are cheap and easily available in the
West and almost everywhere else. All you have to do is to invest your time to
read the truth for yourself. Measure your chosen teachers against God's Word
and if doesn't line up... find another teacher.
The same point is more or less made in the 6
th woe that begins verse 27. Yeshua
employs the metaphor of whitewashed tombs to describe the false pretense of
the Synagogue leadership. I cannot say it often enough: Jesus is in no way
indicting all Scribes and Pharisees as a class of leaders: only the ones before
Him and the ones like them. Nor is He indicting Israel. This has nothing to do with
Israel or even the common Jews in general. Likely the "whitewashed" is referring
to plaster being added to some tombs as an ornamental feature... to make them
more beautiful. During this period the Jews for some reason became quite
interested in creating beautiful tombs for the bones of the ancient Prophets, long
dead and gone, as monuments (could it have been out of a sense of collective
guilt?) In fact, one of the most outstanding examples of this lay below the City of
David, in Jerusalem: Zechariah's Tomb, which can be visited to this day. It is
known to have been built during this period of time and very probably was
already built by Yeshua's day. I point this out because of what we'll encounter
after a few more verses. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70
A.D., when the Priesthood was again disbanded, and a few years later the
Rabbis became the new and undisputed leaders of the Hebrew faith (when
Judaism could finally be said to be the name of the Jewish religion), revered
Rabbis often were placed into expensive and ornate burial chambers upon their
death. Sometimes the ornamentation can be shocking to see.
In a fascinating place in Israel called Beit She'arim are some tombs housing the
remains of wealthy and influential Rabbis that can be visited today; I've taken
several tour groups there. Much can be learned from the visit. Indeed plaster
(whitewash) was used on the tomb walls, and the individual sepulchers many of
the residents lay in were amazingly adorned and made out of expensive
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
materials. In fact some were ornamented with recognizable pagan symbols that
reveals the direction Judaism had already begun to drift. So the metaphor
Yeshua was using of whitewashed (white plastered) tombs, was not hyperbole; it
was something that was already happening.
Woes 4, 5 and 6 are sort of summed up and their meaning made abundantly
clear in case there was any doubt. Yeshua says:
CJB Matthew 23:28 28 Likewise, you appear to people from the outside to be
good and honest, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and far from
Torah.
So to be certain that the Pharisees and the crowd didn't confuse His metaphors
in place of the actual subjects of His ire, there can be no doubt remaining. It is
instructional to see this verse in other Bible versions. The KJV says that the
Pharisees are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. The NAB says they are full of
hypocrisy and evil doing. The word that all of these versions is translating
is anomia: it means without law. Lawless. Certainly a person that is lawless must
also be full of iniquity, but by saying iniquity or evil doing it circumvents the literal
meaning: not following the Law of Moses. Or, close enough is the CJB of saying
"far from Torah". Lawless or lawlessness is the most literal translation, and when
used in the Bible it always meant only one thing: disobeying the Law of Moses.
Iniquity or evil doing leaves open the question of the cause of the iniquity or evil
doing, or what the standard is for determining it. I'll leave it to you to decide the
motives of Christian translators that chose to obscure the meaning of this rather
straightforward Greek word that is attempting to communicate a well understood
Hebrew thought and concept.
Then in verse 29 is woe #7. Yeshua says that it was their fathers who killed those
Prophets for whom they had recently been making these fine tombs (which was
but another act of hypocrisy). Of course the Pharisees say that had they been
alive at that time, they never would have participated in such a thing. Right. In
fact in simply denying what they would have willingly done, it is only a further
evidence of the true evil nature of their inward selves. Hypocrisy can be hidden
for a long time; but not forever.
"Go ahead and finish what your fathers started". Yeshua is saying He knows full
well how this is all going to end. Their fathers (meaning the ancestors of the
Pharisees) are to be blamed for killing the Prophets, something which Jesus is
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
likening Himself to. And while the term "killing" is used in the English Bible
versions, in reality these Prophets weren't killed, they were murdered. I must say,
this feels a little like Christ is baiting these Jewish religious leaders into murdering
Him.
This brings up a thorny issue that Cranfield and Davies at least touch on, and I
think it is worthwhile for us to confront. There is a heavy implication, here, that
God stores up His wrath and then at some breaking point He lets fly with
devastating results. This has led to a doctrine within Christianity that more or less
says that God's wrath in the End Times will only come when God has become
sufficiently fed-up with Israel's disobedience and faithlessness towards Him.
Interestingly, Judaism teaches that God's wrath will only fall when He has
exhausted His patience with the Gentile world. Now, while it seems to be
biblically true that God will use some measure of evil within both Israel and the
world in general to decide when to finally act in full divine vengeance, our current
passage remains as not about Israel (or gentiles) but about the Jewish religious
leaders. Thus Christ says:
CJB Matthew 23:33 33 "You snakes! Sons of snakes! How can you escape
being condemned to Gei-Hinnom?
\Now. I sure don't want to be on the wrong side of matters when standing before
Yeshua on Judgment Day. Those words alone are enough to melt us where we
stand. So what can only be implied here is that these leaders are already judged;
there is no escape or hope for them. Enough is enough. God's had it with them.
They are hereby judged as irredeemable. Yes, dear friends, there does come a
time when God can make a decision to let us rot in our sins without the possibility
of atonement. And the instant of our death isn't necessarily that moment when all
is decided. I don't know where that line is or when the moment comes, and it is
not a one size fits all matter. So my advice is to not come near enough to that line
to have to worry about it. Or to try to time when you finally give up your wicked
ways and the sins you enjoy best, to follow Jesus (like the way some try to time
the stock market). Trust Christ now! Obey the Father now! And the rest will work
out fine.
Being condemned to Gei-Hinnom was a Hebrew expression. It meant to be
judged to the garbage dump where the fires never stopped burning in order to
destroy the disgusting things that were in it. It was considered as about the worst
thing that could happen to someone upon death. I'd say around half of the
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Lesson 77 - Matthew 23 cont 2
English translations that I checked used the word * instead of Gei-Hinnom; the
word * is not present. * is a Christian concept of what this statement is
thought to represent. Sometimes while we will find the Greek word Hades used in
the New Testament (Hades is the Greek underworld of the dead), it isn't used
here. Gehenna is the word used so again Yeshua is not only using the vernacular
of the day, He is also using something that was present and known in His day.
He was, after all, in Jerusalem at the moment, where Gei-Hinnom (the Valley of
Hinnom) and the famous (and smelly) always-burning garbage dump in it was
located.
We've now completed the "woes" section of Matthew 23. This chapter has been
all about the theological disputes Yeshua is having with the Synagogue
authorities; or more accurately, about Him arguing against Jewish Halakhah that
these authorities foisted upon the people; something that had gone much too far.
What long ago began as reasonable customs and good traditions borne out of
trying to be fully obedient to the Law of Moses had become an Article of
Corrections and Additions formulated by the Jewish Sages and religious leaders.
Naturally this was not how the Halakhah was characterized by the leaders,
rather it was said to merely be a proper interpretation of God's Word. And, by the
way, much of their interpretation was quite correct.
The Traditions Yeshua was arguing against would become even more formalized
as the centuries passed, and those who formulated those Traditions would soon
gain absolute control over the entire Hebrew religious system; it remains so to
this day.
We'll finish up chapter 23 next time.
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 78, Chapter 23 Conclusion
As we inch closer and closer to Yeshua's death on the cross in Matthew's
Gospel, there's so much context and background and many subjects that we
encounter that are in need of explanation and fleshing out that at times we're
going to need to pause to confront them (although, I pray it will be an interesting
and spiritually profitable pause). So, let's go where angels fear to tread to open
today's lesson.
There is precious little teaching in the modern Church on the subject of *
(probably because there is also precious little teaching on the subject of sin),
even though finding considerable tradition-based reading material on the matter
isn't difficult. The reality is that particularly in the West the ideas of being told
we're wrong about much of anything, or that we are accountable and have real
consequences for our actions, are simply not liked. Much has been done by
governments as well as by the institutional Church to sort of dance around
personal accountability in order to appeal to a broader public; whether that
accountability is to a particular society or to God. As Ben Witherington III put it in
his commentary on Matthew chapter 23:
"l/l/e want no-fault relationships: no- fault divorce, no-fault auto accidents,
nolo contendere legal verdicts, and the like. No wonder we do not want to
talk about some people going to * forever." Nolo contendere means a plea by which a defendant in a criminal prosecution
accepts a conviction as though they had pled guilty, but they do not admit their
guilt. In the American court system the defendant is hoping that they will have a
personal conversation with the Judge to explain their side of the story that of
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
course has what, in the defendant's views, are mitigating circumstances that
dilutes their responsibility for their illegal behavior. Thus behaviors that are
knowingly wrong or against the law might become less illegal due to
circumstances; or maybe a sympathetic Judge will render a merciful and lesser
sentence or even suspend the sentence altogether.
When I was in the military there was a kind of nolo contendere argument that
was commonly used (and joked about) when we had to stand before our superior
to explain our actions that were most definitely against the orders we had been
given: "Guilty with an excuse, sir". The hope was the same: guilt but little or no
accountability, or perhaps less severe consequences for it
The questions that all those who seek God, and especially Believers, must ask
are: will we really be held accountable for our sins now that Jesus has come?
And if so, does that accountability include the possibility of *? Which leads to,
does * even exist? Is there really a place where our accountability to God can
involve a consequence for our actions that is beyond terrible and painful, and is
also without end? Two well known former mega-church pastors Rob Bell and
Carlton Pearson say "no" there isn't; they say a loving God like Jesus wouldn't do
such a thing. I have had this same notion confidently and directly expressed to
me on more than one occasion by Christians who have lost family members that
had never expressed belief in Christ, and by others that use the concept of *
as but another reason to avoid any relationship with Jesus.
I bring this up because, first, * is a vitally important subject that we need to
face. And second because of how we ended our previous lesson. In Matthew 23
verse 33, as Yeshua was condemning some of the Pharisee Synagogue
leadership, we read:
CJB Matthew 23:33 "You snakes! Sons of snakes! How can you escape
being condemned to Gei-Hinnom?
It is close to a consensus among Christian scholars (and I share their view) that
this statement by Christ was a kind of rhetorical question that is more a
statement. That is, Yeshua is not asking them if there might be a way for them to
escape the divine judgment of Gei-Hinnom (Gehenna). Rather He is saying in a
rather mocking way that they have already been judged; their eternal damnation
is certain. They are not redeemable. While being "not redeemable" is itself a
huge subject with much disagreement and high emotion involved, I don't want to
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
bog us down with that today except to say this: I am personally convinced by
what the Bible tells us that before we are born, God knows who shall and shall
not (by our own free-will choice) accept a redemptive trust in Him. So it's not as
though before we're born God creates some babies to enter into this world that
He has willed in advance to have no hope of redemption in their lives. Rather, it
is a foreknowledge of whom will accept the gift of salvation that is freely offered,
and therefore whom will not.
One may ask, then, if He has this foreknowledge why allow these who will
destine themselves for * and eternal damnation to ever enter this world in the
first place? Wouldn't it be better for the person never to be born, never to attain a
consciousness of their own existence, than to have to suffer eternal punishment?
The best answer I can give you is that even the determined and permanent
unrighteous can have a pretty good life on earth; they can have good fortune,
perhaps become fabulously wealthy, enjoy the best material and pleasurable
things this world has to offer, and die relatively peacefully after a full life span. We
also know from the Scriptures that God has always used some of the
permanently unrighteous and wicked for His purposes. Sometimes that purpose
is to test His chosen; sometimes it is to punish His chosen (as with the exiles of
Israel); sometimes it is to benefit His chosen in some improbable way. But the
truth is that most of the time, from the human and earthly perspective, it is hard to
find much rationale behind God allowing the wicked to live let alone thrive, and
therefore I lump all those instances together and see them as divine mystery that
I choose not to waste my time ruminating over.
It seems that these particular Pharisees Yeshua is chastising so severely in
Matthew 23 are among those determined to never trust in Him, and therefore
they have destined themselves for Gei-Hinnom. In other words, while the final
judgment is an End Times event that will happen at a later time, in an entirely
different venue (with Jesus as the Official Judge), the verdict that comes later is
already known. Christ's hope for expressing it now is that the listening crowds will
be shocked enough to seriously re-examine their own earthly lives and spiritual
beliefs, realize their sinful condition, repent in the Name of Yeshua, and be
Saved.
So, was Christ actually talking about *? Or was He merely using the Hebrew
word for * (Gei-Hinnom)? Or was it only a Jewish expression that was meant
to tell someone just how bad they were (as far this particular person was
concerned), but it had no spiritual or eternal overtones built into it? The best way
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
we can examine this is to explore just how this concept of a place of the wicked
dead who would suffer, began. And although we find such a concept in many
ancient cultures, we'll only deal with it as concerns the Hebrews, the Bible, and
Christianity.
The Christian concept of * as we know it today developed over many
centuries, and it began well after the Bible (Old and New Testaments) were
created and closed up. Early in the Old Testament we read of something
called Sheol, which we can best be described as the grave or the place of the
dead. It is not a well fleshed out concept in the Bible. Yet, because we regularly
read in the Bible of terms about death like "so and so went to be with their
fathers", what we are actually reading about is remnants of pagan ancestor
worship that remained as part of early Hebrew thoughts about death and the
afterlife. Thus among some Hebrews there was a belief that departed souls took
on some kind of shadowy existence in an afterlife, residing in some kind of
underground world of disembodied souls. The Bible is very hazy, and has little to
say, about death and afterlife especially in the Old Testament. Death was terrible
and feared, and what happens afterward was a total mystery... which is what
made it all the more scary. The New Testament offers us more information that
actually brings hope, telling us that (at least in the present age) a righteous
person has nothing to fear from death. A Believer that dies goes immediately to
be with the Lord in Heaven.
We also learn of a place called Abraham's Bosom. This was a real place where,
prior to Yeshua's death and resurrection, the souls of the righteous dead were
held captive in a pleasant and safe place. It was essentially a waiting room. What
was the wait about? First, Abraham's Bosom is not the equivalent of the Catholic
Purgatory. Although the Catholic theological conception of Purgatory is at least
partly based upon Abraham's Bosom, the Catholic version is born out of its very
name. Purgatory comes from the Latin purage, which means "to purge". Thus
the doctrine is that those who die in a state of grace (as determined by the
Church) go to a sort of middle stopping point and waiting area called Purgatory in
order to be purged of their sins so as to be made ready for Heaven. The process
is of an undetermined length of time, and some may never succeed in being
made ready-enough for a variety of reasons, sometimes including actions (or
inactions) of their living family members.
So along with the concept of Abraham's Bosom came its opposite... the Place of
Torments (one recalls the story of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus).
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
Abraham's Bosom contained righteous souls waiting in a pleasant and never␂needful place for Messiah to come and pay the price for their sins, while the
Place of Torments contained wicked souls waiting in a dry, ever-needful
unpleasant place for their final judgment.
Centuries later the idea of what happens to the righteous dead was still mostly
unchanged, but a newer term for the condition or destiny of the unrighteous dead
became Gei-Hinnom. Gei-Hinnom simply means the Valley of Hinnom. It is
essentially a long canyon that runs alongside one edge of the city of Jerusalem,
and part of it came to be used as a dump site for the constantly over-crowded
Jerusalem and its nearby suburbs. Everything that was waste was thrown there.
While we tend to think of a garbage dump more in terms of paper and plastics
and cloth and unused food, that is not what it was like in the 1st century. The
waste thrown into Gei-Hinnom came from the hundreds of animals sacrificed
daily at the Temple along with the waste parts of animals used for food by the
general population. Body parts were known to be disposed of there (amputations
both accidental and on-purpose occurred in Bible times just as they do now).
Debris of wood items, filthy rags (they had no toilet paper in those days), and
other things more disgusting than I want to talk about also were deposited there.
So to deal with the ever increasing volume of trash, the obvious solution was to
burn it. Therefore fires were kept burning 24/7 to reduce the garbage to ashes.
However the nauseating odors created were so bad that sulfur was also thrown
onto the burning garbage as the only known means at that time to mask those
otherwise unbearable odors.
Thus the worst thing that could be imagined for a dead person would be to have
their body thrown into the Jerusalem municipal trash dump and be burned up.
Not that this necessarily happened (I've not read of any evidence of it
happening). It also gained a symbolic meaning of the souls of the wicked dead
being punished by being utterly destroyed by fire. I've taught you in the past that
in the Bible fire is used for 2 things: the first is to purge something in order to
bring out purity, or second to totally and utterly destroy it. Gei-Hinnom was
symbolic of the second of these 2 uses of fire. We really don't find much biblical
advancement of the concept of Gei-Hinnom as a place of annihilation as a
horrible punishment for the unrighteous dead. However, emergent gentile
Christianity took it from there.
The first advancement was that of Greek speakers who mixed together the Greek
religious concept of Hades with Hebrew Gei-Hinnom. Hades had long been part
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
of Greek mythology but it played no role in the Hebrew faith. Thus we will find
that because of the Greek language used to record the Gospel accounts, when in
Matthew 16:18 we hear of Jesus saying "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of * shall not prevail against it", there
is absolutely no conceivable way that Yeshua ever would have used the word
"*" or would He have said "Hades". He would only have thought of She'ol or
perhaps Gei-Hinnom. Yet, the early Greek/Roman gentile Church latched onto
this Greek/gentile insertion of the word "Hades" to depict Christ's words as
indicating something that more or less validated the Greek mythology of their
underworld for the dead. By the 5
th century the doctrine of Hades being a place
for wicked souls that suffered in some not well-defined way had become well
established throughout the Church. Medieval concepts of Hades, however,
progressed to provide more horrifying details: pits full of dark flames, terrible cries
of anguish, gagging stench, and lakes of boiling hot water filled with serpent-like
monsters.
Eventually in the 14th century an Italian poet named Dante wrote the "Divine
Comedy". In it the concept of Hades advanced yet again with the idea that one
had various levels of punishment inflicted upon them in proportion to their sins.
Therefore gluttonous people lay in heaps of putrefied garbage. Murderers flail
around in boiling rivers of blood, filled with horrifying creatures. Part of Dante's
work included what is known as Dante's Inferno; it is about an imagined journey
through * in order for a soul to be purified sufficiently to finally go to Heaven.
Naturally, Catholic Purgatory played a pivotal role in his story.
Finally in the late 15th century, an Italian artist named Botticelli painted what is
best known as Dante's Inferno. It was his immensely creative vision of what he
thought Dante was describing. The painting of fire and tormented souls and
multiple levels of punishment and purification through which a soul tried to
move... with * shaped like a funnel... has become the foundation for not just
Catholicism but almost all other branches of Christianity. As the years went on,
the thoughts of * became less complicated and more was stressed fire and the
agony of being constantly burned. These thoughts formed most of the Church
doctrines about *, and generally speaking remains so to this day. So, we have
to be rather careful when we speak of *, or think of *, because without
doubt the Bible speaks of a Place of Torments and a Lake of Fire and so on;
however the mental picture we mostly like to draw is based primarily on a
combination of manmade Greek mythology, the works of an Italian poet, and a
depiction of that work by a later Italian artist.
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
Am I telling you that * doesn't exist? By no means am I saying that. I'm saying
that I have serious doubts that the model that Dante and Botticelli concocted was
right. What we can know biblically as truth is that after death the righteous dead
go to be with God in Heaven. We also know that the wicked dead go somewhere
else and it is very unpleasant to say the least. We know that at a later time there
will be a great judgment in which all who have ever lived... including the righteous
and the unrighteous... will stand before Yeshua, and be held accountable fortheir
lives (our lives), and be judged. One judgment to everlasting joy, the other to
terrible torment. There will be no middle ground nor a waiting room. There will be
fire and/or destruction involved for the wicked; whether this essentially ends their
torment as their souls are finally fully destroyed, or they go on existing in some
painful state, into infinity, is not at all clear to me. But I do know that it is
something no sane person would want.
Much of God's Word (including Christ's statements) lets us know that we
definitely don't want to land on the wrong side of judgment. The thing is, there's
one and only one way to land on the right side... the safe and secure side... of a
judgment that can not be avoided: that way is to sincerely trust in the God of
Israel and His Son, the Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth. This will not be a no-fault
verdict rendered by Christ. There will be no nolo contendere accepted. There
will be no various levels of judgment with a menu of subsequent punishments.
There will not be a journey that once we die we must take to prove ourselves, or
divest ourselves of our un-repented sins, so that eventually we have a chance to
reach Heaven. Our death is the moment our eternal fates are sealed. Our journey
is instantaneous. There are no do-overs after we die. But knowing that some of
you who are listening or watching haven't yet made up your minds about
devoting your lives to the Lord Yeshua, I say this to you: realize that if you don't
choose, God will choose for you and what I've described will happen to you. It
doesn't have to be that way no matter what bad and wrong things you may have
done in your lives. Jesus died on the cross to save you from that fate, if you will
accept that great gift of freedom. Your sins of the past... and your present... can
be forgiven.
Let's move on and read the final section of Matthew chapter 23.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23:34 - end
There is a notable change beginning at verse 34. We begin to enter the realm of
prophecy and this will expand as we move to chapter 24. Yeshua's words will
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
attest to and give some information about the End Times. The reality is that the
stage of Christ's ministry that was all about teaching and miracle healings is
nearly closed. So it is His death, resurrection and the aftermath that will dominate
what comes next, but not before He explains about things of the future that are
certain to come. Things that His disciples didn't always understand were actually
distant as opposed to imminent.
Verse 34 says that Jesus will personally be the one to send prophets, wise-men,
and scribes from here on. The thought of exactly what they're to do is not
completed thus I think it must have been somewhat self-evident. Very likely this
is not meant to speak of 3 separate and commonly identifiable groups as much
as it is to say that every kind of messenger specially sent by God (in this case,
God's Son) is included even if they might not have any of those specific job titles.
They represent what God has always done in the history of Israel, and in the past
all too often these messengers were met with hostility and even death. Yeshua is
saying that history will repeat even though the Pharisees just finished claiming in
verse 30 that despite their ancestors murdering some of God's Prophets, they
themselves would never have done so (as the religious leadership) if they had
been present. Yeshua is rebutting that false sentiment.
Rather, says Christ, these religious leaders are going to do exactly what their
fathers did. They're going to kill some who God sends, others they will flog (beat
up) in their Synagogues, and still others they will run out of town and doggedly
follow them trying to ruin their witness whenever they may go. This group of
people that Yeshua will send are intended as righteous replacements for the
corrupt men that stand before Him; men that are leading the Jewish people away
from God's truth, from their only means of redemption, and potentially towards
eternal separation from Him.
Some commentators focus on the words "your Synagogues" as meaning Jewish
Synagogues versus gentile Churches. Others say "your Synagogues" means the
non-believing Jewish Synagogues versus the believing ones. I think that Jesus is
generalizing and not talking in precise particulars. These Pharisees are
representative of the leadership of the Synagogue system. So in that sense, all
Synagogues (at least the ones in the Holy Land, or maybe just in Judea)
are their Synagogues. It is a statement making them responsible and
accountable for what happens in all Synagogues in general.
Verse 35 is a bit of a challenge in a couple of areas. Yeshua says that these
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
Pharisees are responsible for all the blood shed on earth, even that of Abel and
of a fellow named Zechariah son of Barachiah. I think that the word "earth"
probably ought to be "land". The Hebrew word eretz means land or earth. While
that word isn't used here because we're reading English that was translated from
Greek and not Hebrew, even so Yeshua was thinking in Hebrew or Aramaic
terms and Jewish thought: not Greek. Making the Pharisees responsible for
deaths in pagan gentile nations on the entire planet doesn't fit. Rather this must
be talking about all the unjustifiable deaths in the Holy Land {eretz Israel). But
why are they even responsible for that?
Even more, how can the Pharisees be held divinely responsible for anyone's
death that took place thousands of years earlier: as with the death of Abel at the
hand of Adam's son Cain? Or closer to home, why are they held responsible for
the death of Zechariah, something that took place at the Temple? The first order
of business is to identify this particular Zechariah. Very probably, whomever it
was, was from the distant past in the same way Abel was in the distant past.
2Chronicles chapter 24 speaks about Zechariah son of Jehoiada who was killed
in the Temple area. In times closer to Christ's day Josephus mentions a
Zechariah son of Barach that was killed in the Temple. But there's no record of
Zechariah son of Barachiah that has ever been found. I won't speculate.
Whoever it was Jesus knew of, no doubt so did those He was talking to.
Another issue is that Jesus was talking to Pharisees, so they would have had
nothing to do with the Temple, and had no authority there at all. Pharisees were,
compared to the Levite Priests, laymen. So what they had to do with a killing near
the Temple altar is a head scratches Therefore Christ likely is talking in some
symbolic sense. God holds a person accountable for their own sins and not the
sins of others. So I think the answer to this puzzle might be in what Yeshua said
just a few verses earlier. I'm going to quote from the NAB not because the CJB is
wrong, but because I think the NAB more clearly says in a dynamic way Christ's
intent.
NAB Matthew 23:32 now fill up what your ancestors measured out!
What did the ancestors of these religious leaders measure out? Their wrath.
They measured out their wrath upon the innocent. And this group standing before
Yeshua is going to fill that cup of wrath of their ancestors to overflowing as they
will in time viciously go after those who follow Jesus as Messiah. Just as a note:
Paul was a hired hunter for the Jewish religious establishment that, about 30
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
years after Christ, was sent to Damascus (among other places) to seek out and
arrest all the followers of Yeshua that he could find. The persecution by the
Jewish religious establishment was so dangerous that Jesus's brother, James,
who led the Believers in Jerusalem, had to hold their meetings in an underground
grotto on the Hill of Zion (that today is the Greek section of Jerusalem) and that
grotto has been found.
So, here is what I believe to be the answer as to why Yeshua says that these
Pharisees will bear the guilt for deaths that happened long before their time. It
has to do with a core principle of the Torah that is measure-for-measure. Lex
Talionis. Proportional justice with proportional punishment. These Pharisee
leaders are shortly going to have their hostility towards Yeshua grow so hot...
their hatred going well beyond any doctrinal differences... that they are going not
only to help, but to insist, that the Romans crucify Yeshua. Therefore the
measure of judgment due to these Pharisees puts the murder of Jesus upon their
heads. And the murder of Jesus is so atonement can be made even for the
countless murderers over the hundreds of years that not only have to do with the
Hebrews of the Holy Land (the murder of Zechariah for instance), but it is
extended to all humans that have ever inhabited the planet, anywhere (Abel was
the given example). I can think of no greater measure of God's wrath due to
anyone except for that. Therefore as it stands in the context of the times of
Yeshua, it is the religious leaders of the Hebrews... throughout the ages... that
are the catalyst for God to do the things He is doing and going to do with Israel...
it has little to nothing to do with what pagan gentiles do. The pagans behave
pagan-ly because they're pagans. But God's people know better. They have the
Torah; they have God's Word. Above all, their religious leaders ought to know
better and thus will be held as most accountable.
In verse 36 Yeshua seems to say that God's wrath will not only fall on these
Jewish religious leaders, but also on all the Jews of this generation. Is Yeshua
making all Jews responsible? Or is He saying all Jews of Yeshua's own
generation (meaning currently living Jews) will suffer the collateral damage? I
think it's the latter. This generation has seen or heard of Yeshua's miracles and
His wisdom. They have heard John the Baptist make proclamations about who
Jesus is and about the Holy Spirit descending upon Yeshua. They will soon see
mind boggling things as Yeshua goes to the cross, is resurrected, and then
appears alive to many. And yet, the vast majority of Jews will refuse to believe.
Thus, they are made accountable because of their complicity and their
faithlessness to God.
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
In verse 37 Jesus utters some of the most agonizing and heart-rending words
we've yet encountered. He says:
CJBMatthew 23:37 "Yerushalayim! Yerushalayim! You kill the prophets! You
stone those who are sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your
children, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you
refused!
Here again, we must understand as much of what He doesn't say as what He
does. He does not say "Israel, Israel"; so that's not what He's talking about.
Jesus is in Jerusalem; hostile territory for Him. Jerusalem is the seat of Jewish
religious government, and Jewish religious law. Jerusalem is where the most
powerful and the elite among Jews live. Jerusalem (when the Holy Land isn't
occupied by a foreign power) is the seat of Israel's national government. But
Jerusalem is NOT representative of all the people of Israel anymore than
Washington, D.C. is representative of all the people of the USA. What Jerusalem
IS representative of is the leadership. So Yeshua is ONLY speaking about
Jerusalem and what He holds them accountable for.
He says the leadership is responsible for killing the Prophets (meaning the Old
Testament Prophets) and all those that God sent to them with messages of truth
and of warning. But what does He mean by "How often I wanted to gather your
children"? He is speaking about all the tribes of Israel, especially those we call
the 10 Lost Tribes. Jerusalem historically and theologically wasn't only the capital
of the Jews; they were and are the capital for the 12 Tribes. It is prophesied by
Ezekiel and other Prophets that in the last days God will gather His scattered
people, Israel, from the 4 corners of the earth and bring them back to their own
land, with Jerusalem as their eternal capital. Even though the fulfillment of that
event is happening right now, in our day, for all the world to see, sadly nothing is
more prevalent within the historical Church of the past 1800 years than the
teaching that God is done with Israel. Folks, Christ was NOT talking about
gentiles that He wanted to gather like a hen does her chicks. Israel remains at
the center of God's will, at the center of redemption history, and all that will
happen until the end of history. Jerusalem's children is talking about all Israel and
God's undying love for His people.
Verse 38 seems straightforward enough. Yeshua is speaking about the
destruction of the Temple. The Temple is Jerusalem's "house". On the other
hand, Ezra and 2 Baruch regularly make no distinction between the city of
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
Jerusalem and the Temple itself. Once again we can draw on a readily
understandable analogy. Neither most Americans nor the world makes any
serious distinction between the city of Washington, D.C. versus the White House
and Congress that are the buildings and places of government (even though
technically we all know the difference). So I suspect that when Yeshua said "your
house" He was thinking in the same light as Jerusalem and the Temple sort of
being conflated as one thing and being nearly interchangeable terms.
Since the term "house" is technically more representative of the Temple,
something we must always take into account in the New Testament is that the
Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat, above which God would come down
once per year and hover over it in order to allow the High Priest to atone with
blood before Him for Israel's sins, the Ark was never present in the Holy of Holies
in the entire era of the second Temple. It went missing from the time Babylon
conquered Judah and to this day has never been found. To be clear: at the time
of Jesus the Ark of the Covenant was not there. And, by the way, this was
common knowledge and not some hidden secret of the priests. So this means
that since Ezra and Nehemiah had rebuilt the Temple (called the second Temple)
the High Priest's annual visit into the Holy Holies was to an empty chamber
where he would sprinkle blood onto the floor and not onto the Golden Ark. So
had the Temple ceased to be God's House in any meaningful way, long before
Yeshua's day? Had it already become little more than a ceremonial monument
such that Yeshua could now call it "your house" (referring to the religious leaders
of Jerusalem)? My friends, I don't think God lost any sleep worrying about the
coming destruction in 70 A.D. of a Temple that had become little more than a den
of thieves, run by rich, corrupt aristocrats that didn't even belong to the proper
God-ordained line of Aaron in order to be qualified as priests.
This 23rd chapter of Matthew concludes with:
CJB Matthew 23:39 For I tell you, from now on, you will not see me again
until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of ADONAl.
Yeshua's words are mostly a quote from Psalm 118... part of the Hallel. All the
more appropriate because He is in Jerusalem for Passover and the Hallel was
chanted during this feast (and all the others as well). Let's read just a few verses
around where this statement of Jesus is constructed.
CJB Psalm 118:19-29 19 Open the gates of righteousness for me; I will enter
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Lesson 78 - Matthew 23 concl
them and thank Yah.
20 This is the gate ofADONAI; the righteous can enter it.
21 1am thanking you because you answered me; you became my salvation.
22 The very rock that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone!
23 This has come from ADONAl, and in our eyes it is amazing.
24 This is the day ADONAl has made, a day for us to rejoice and be glad.
25 Please, ADONAl! Save us! Please, ADONAl! Rescue us!
26 Blessed is he who comes in the name ofADONAI. l/l/e bless you from the
house ofADONAI.
27 ADONAI is God, and he gives us light. Join in the pilgrim festival with
branches all the way to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I thank you. You are my God; I exalt you.
29 Give thanks to ADONAI; for he is good, for his grace continues forever.
Yeshua is placing Himself as the center and focus of this prophetic Psalm, which
is about both personal and national salvation. Notice how the Psalm itself speaks
of the Pilgrim festival for which Christ is in Jerusalem. It speaks of palm branches
laid down, all the way to the horn of the Temple altar, for "He who comes in the
name of Adonai". We read in Matthew chapter 21 how Jewish pilgrims carpeted
the road with palm branches for Yeshua and His mount to walk upon, in His entry
into Jerusalem. But the most important point Christ is making is that He has just
laid down the condition for national salvation for Israel. National Israel must
acknowledge Him before Israel as a nation and as a people group will be
delivered. Still, each individual Israelite can have personal salvation in their
Messiah Yeshua, just as each individual gentile can.
We'll move to Matthew chapter 24 next time.
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 79, Chapter 24
Before we dive into Matthew chapter 24, I think it is best to first offer you an
exposition and summary of not only what we have learned thus far in Matthew
about the crucial role that Jesus plays in Redemption History, but also what we
will learn in the coming chapters. After all, is not His entire purpose as the
Redeemer our one and only hope of having peace with God?
What we've been doing for 78 lessons is creating pieces of a jig-saw puzzle,
which when assembled reveal the entire image that the pieces are cut from. I
understand that the larger the puzzle the more challenging it is to fit those pieces
into something coherent. It would be much easier for us if redemption weren't
such a complex matter that encompasses so much more time and history than is
covered in the Gospel accounts. Yet if we cannot construct this puzzle in a way
so as to arrive at a meaningful point and end that changes our understanding and
our lives, then all that we've been reading and studying amounts to little more
than a series of interesting short-stories about Jesus.
So the question becomes how to create a framework for understanding a matter
that is so immense in its scope as God's plan of redemption and Yeshua's role in
it. I believe that such a framework can be best formed by characterizing the
various historical mile marker events as the "stages along the way" of
Redemption History as opposed to listing a series of individual, encapsulated
generations each having expiration dates.
Most pertinent to our study of the Gospel of Matthew is how Yeshua self-defines
His purpose as the Son of Man and places Himself exactly where He fits in the
cosmic puzzle of the redemptive plan of His Father. But in order to understand
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
the role of the Son of Man in this plan, and the "when" of His appearance and
activities, we must turn to the Book of Daniel. Christ's firm recorded conviction
that He, Himself, is that Son of Man... something He calls Himself numerous
times... and that He is taking His cues about both the timing in prophetic history
and the purpose for His existence, comes from the Prophet Daniel. When we
work our way through Matthew chapter 24 we will encounter this passage:
CJB Matt 24:14-16 14 And this Good News about the Kingdom will be
announced throughout the whole world as a witness to all the Goyim. It is
then that the end will come. 15 "So when you see the abomination that
causes devastation spoken about through the prophet Dani'el standing in
the Holy Place" (let the reader understand the allusion), 16 "that will be the
time for those in Y'hudah to escape to the hills.
The vital point we must constantly maintain within our vision is that Yeshua's
validation as possessing the persona as the divine Son of Man happens within
the context of a fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel. In order to help us get a
better handle on this matter of the timing and the role of the mysterious character
called the Son of Man, let's read Daniel chapter 7 where this is foretold.
READ DANIEL CHAPTER 7 all
Daniel was one of the many thousands of Jewish exiles of the Babylonian
conquest of Judah. He was in Babylon serving King Belshatzar at the time when
he had a dream-vision that utterly unnerved him. It included strange animals that
we could rightly call monsters, which symbolized something that would appear
sometime in the future. His vision revealed that several kingdoms (empires,
really) would be established and then overthrown by the next one to follow until
this Son of Man finally made His appearance. He would come in the clouds, and
would also be led into the presence of the Ancient of Days (another term for God
the Father). The Father would then establish His own kingdom on Planet Earth,
with the Son of Man as its ruler (acting as the Father's agent). Unlike the previous
4 kingdoms, each of which existed only for a time, this new Kingdom of Heaven
would endure forever and never be overthrown. Even more, the real ruler over
these previous 4 kingdoms (which we take to be Satan) will be stripped of his
rulership, which will be consumed and completely destroyed (Dan. 7:26
CJB). What this is talking about is what Christianity calls the End Times when
Satan and his demons are thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is something that the
Jews also believed would happen, although they gave it different names such as
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
the End of Days or The World to Come (olam habah in the Jews' native tongue).
In a much-studied work from the 1
st century called the Assumption of Moses, also
known as the Ascension of Moses, we get a glimpse into the beliefs of its Jewish
writer (who was not a follower Christ) about the End Times. Before I give you a
short quote from that work, I'm afraid I need to hit you with a scholarly word that
is important to our study of the stages of Redemption History. That word
is eschatology. This term comes from 2 Greek words that mean "last" and
"study". So it is the study of last things, or as Christianity has adopted, the study
of "End Times". The word was coined because there has always been wide
disagreement within both Judaism and Christianity over which last things occur
when, and whom they are associated with. Eschatology, then, is a term used to
indicate the study of most anything and anyone that is thought to be associated
with End Times matters.
Of the many emails that I receive, some of the most frequent ask me such things
as "are we in the End Times?" "When will the Tribulation happen?" "When does
the Rapture occur and what does it look like?" "When, exactly, does Messiah
return?" In other words, who among us as God worshippers and Bible Believers
doesn't wish we had been given a precise, exhaustive biblical flow-chart and a
well-defined timeline of Redemption History and of the End Times events? Keep
on wishing! The Jews of Yeshua's era and before were just as interested in such
things, and so of course formed their own End Times beliefs, which is why the
Book of Daniel played such a prominent role in the minds of even the common
Jews, but especially so in the minds of the religious Zealots. The occupation of
Rome over the Jews' homeland made most Holy Land Jews certain that they
were already living in the End Times. Thus for them the End, which included
Judgment Day, was at hand. Obviously, they were wrong. Or were they?
Because of the Christian New Testament (which didn't come into existence until
nearly 2 centuries after Christ's time on earth... or until around 150 years after
Paul's death), it is usually the Gospel writer John that is given credit for giving us
the best understanding of the timing and the sequence of End Times events in
his most famous work, the Book of Revelation (which he wrote not long before he
passed away towards the end of the 1st century). However well before that time,
it was Jesus that added new dimensions to our understanding of the stages of
Redemption History, and thus when certain important events would occur, and
most importantly to nearly every Jew and every Christian, when the End would
finally arrive and what were the signs that it was near. Very interestingly,
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
Yeshua's understanding and timeline did have several similarities to what was
already believed within early Judaism. Here now is that quote from the
Assumption of Moses.
"And then shall (God's) Kingdom appear throughout all His creation; and
then shall the Devil meet his end, and sorrow shall depart with him." The question that immediately confronts us is when is the "then" that this Jewish
writer about the Apocalypse had in mind? "When" is what we all want to know.
Remembering that this was written during or near the time of Jesus, it is clear
that this Jewish writer was expecting some major change in history to occur... the
end of history to be more specific... but for him it was in the future and not
imminent. Yet in fact his belief was NOT the mainstream Jewish belief of the
times, and it was also NOT the belief of Christ's 12 disciples and NOT of John the
Baptist. All of these folks were fully expecting the prophesied coming of God's
Kingdom and the defeat of Rome, and of the Devil's destruction, and of the
fulfillment of Daniel's prophetic vision, and of the great Judgment, to happen
immediately... or at least within their lifetimes.
So, then, can we create a flow-chart of the stages of Redemption History to
better help us decipher it and get us a little closer to the "when" of End Times
events? I think we can. It would look something like this.
1) Creation to the Fall of Adam.
2) The Fall to Noah.
3) Noah to Abraham.
4) Abraham to Moses.
5) Moses to John the Baptist.
6) John the Baptist to the end of the Millennial Kingdom.
7) The re-creation of the heavens and earth
In truth, we could probably divide that 6
th stage into two: From John the Baptist to
the return of Christ who inaugurates His 1000-year reign (known as the Millennial
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
Kingdom) as its own stage, and then a separate stage that is the 1000-year reign
itself, which comes prior to the new heavens and earth, thus giving us 8 stages of
Redemption History instead of 7. I'll explain this flow chart, but before that I must
say something to try to smooth out some of the speed bumps that can happen
when studying End Times events (eschatology) from most any teacher, because
every writer and teacher that presents his or her thoughts on the matter will
speak of eras, or dispensations, or generations... and give them names or titles
along with beginning and terminating event markers. I suppose I'm doing no less.
However where I differ with many of them is this: first, dividing things up into eras
and stages involves a level of arbitrary choices and it is simply our human way of
trying to explain the complex and the mysterious. Dividing things up into more
bite-sized chunks to try to examine them individually in order to help make sense
of it all can be helpful. Yet, I have no doubt that God would not see what He is
doing in Redemption History as being a series of named stages or eras.
My second difference is that despite my own flow-chart that seems to mark
beginnings and endings of various stages, by no means is it my intent to
communicate some sharp lines in the sands of time. Or that everything that
comes before a new named stage is subsequently replaced, abolished and made
irrelevant. Rather, the mental picture I wish to impart is as if there were named
mile markers placed beside a long winding river upon which we were riding the
unstoppable current. The river never stops flowing or changes course simply
because we place some convenient mile markers on its shores, nor will we ever
find a firm line running across those waters that someone has placed there
saying that we've crossed from one stage of the river to another. Nor that what
came before any of the mile markers ceases to exist if we look over our shoulder
once we've passed by it. If any of the stages we had already passed by did
suddenly cease to exist, then the source of water for the flowing river would end
as though a dam were erected. The flow of water (the flow of Redemption
History) would necessarily stop and so everything that lay ahead on the river
would dry up, and that would be the end of our ride upon those waters.
Let me give you another analogy for the mental picture I hope you'll adopt, using
child development. Even the Bible speaks of stages of child development,
however I'll use more modern terminology. We begin with fetus, then newborn,
infant, toddler, middle childhood, adolescence, and finally young adulthood. This
represents a flow, and not sharply defined stages that have hard start and stop
points. Also, each new stage of child development does not abolish or make
irrelevant the ones before it. Rather the physical, mental and emotional
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
development of a child that often happens nearly imperceptibly, tiny steps by tiny
steps, is the result of the next stage growing atop, and on account of, all that was
learned and retained from the previous stages.
However, contrary to this concept of a flow of history, the highly popularized
system within Evangelical Christianity of the generations of Redemption History
called Dispensations (and there are other systems like it as well) defines each
generation as though they can stand alone and independent. What came before
the most current stage vanishes and Redemption History hits the RESET
button. To say it another way, we can see what happened during a previous
stage that brought us to this new stage, but when this new stage began it's as if it
broke all connections and bonds to the previous ones. The previous generations
or stages are to be forgotten and pushed aside as obsolete if not now alien to our
current existence. Therefore the only purpose of any of the stages is to get us to
the next one. Each stage is depicted and defined as a full replacement of the
previous one. Thus with such a mindset was born the errant Christian doctrine
that each of God's Covenants replaces the one that came before it; the idea
being that only one Covenant at a time can be in operation in any one
Dispensation or generation. The Covenant of Noah therefore became irrelevant
and replaced by the Covenant of Abraham. The Covenant of Abraham became
irrelevant and replaced with the Covenant of Moses. The Covenant of Moses
became irrelevant and replaced by the New Covenant, the Covenant of Christ. I
strongly disagree with that entire mode of thinking because that is not at all how
God's Word operates; it's not how Covenants operate, nor is it what the Bible
depicts. Each stage of Redemption History (each Covenant in this illustration)
only works properly if all the memory and substance of what came prior to it is
retained and used as a building block in a stack of building blocks.
So what we arrive at is this: was everything that Jesus taught about the End
Times meant only for an undetermined future time? Or was His advent in the 1st
century a sign that the End Times was underway? What I've just described to you
is not only the crux of debate and doctrine about Redemption History within the
modern Church, it was the crux of debate and doctrine on the same subject
among the Jew's of Yeshua's day. Let's take a couple of the stages of my
Redemption History flow chart to help us examine this rather large and
challenging question. I'll begin by very briefly offering a sketch of what each
stage represents. And remember, these stages are of my own concoction and
created only for the purpose of illustration to help us to understand the totality of
Redemption History and Yeshua's place within it.
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
Creation up to the Fall of Adam is essentially the period when all of God's
Creation was operating within the perfection that He created it. We're not going to
get into a debate over the length of time it may have been. Rather, the idea is
that the first stage of Redemption History marks its place with the Fall of Adam,
when God's perfect Creation was ruined by human sin. Thus, stage 1 created the
NEED for redemption and set into motion all the future stages that would follow to
satisfy this need.
Stage 2, Adam to Noah, represents a period when the result of the Fall was that
wickedness increased so greatly that God decided to purge it from the earth. He
used a calamitous flood as that purging mechanism. He saved the only 8 people
from death out of all humanity (those few that He deemed righteous) as the seed
corn to begin humanity anew.
Stage 3, Noah to Abraham, represents a time when all the world was essentially
gentiles. That is, there was only one type or category of people. Each people
group of gentiles had again become wicked and each chose its own god or gods
to worship and developed its own set of rules and ethics and morals to live by.
With Abraham, God made a Covenant that set one particular man apart from all
others to inaugurate a special people group meant to serve only the One True
God.
Stage 4, Abraham to Moses. This special people group begun with Abraham in
time became the 12 tribes of Israel (the 12 sons of Jacob, who was a grandson of
Abraham). This people group worshipped God, but their worship and their
lifestyles soon became much like the people around them. Because of a famine
up in Canaan where they were residing, they wound up in Egypt to survive
where, under the protection of Jacob's son Joseph and then his immediate
successors, they grew into enormous numbers. The Egyptian Pharaohs that
came later enslaved them and made their lives bitter under forced labor.
Stage 5, Moses to John the Baptist. God rescued the enslaved Israelites from
Egypt. This was God's first act of redemption in Redemption History. Once all
Israel was redeemed, God gave to Moses (Israel's leader) His laws and
commands for them to live by that covered virtually every area of their lives
including their relationships with God and with their fellow man. However over the
centuries these laws and commands were perverted and twisted by Israel's
leaders, effectively replacing God's laws with their own. John the Baptist
appeared and announced that a Redeemer had arrived to redeem Israel not so
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
much from a political oppressor (Rome) but rather from their own sins of breaking
the Law of Moses.
Stage 6, John the Baptist to the end of the Millennial Kingdom. The Redeemer
that John announced was Yeshua, and Yeshua represented the second
redemption. He was also Daniel's Son of Man. John proclaimed that the
appearance of this man represented the time for the Jews to repent of their sins.
Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of Heaven had broken through because of
John, and the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven was the Gospel that He
preached. It can be argued that since the Millennial Kingdom is but the Kingdom
of Heaven operating on earth at its fullest, then even though the Kingdom of
Heaven exists on earth now, beginning with John the Baptist, it is still maturing.
So then from John the Baptist to the end of the Millennial Kingdom is but one
lengthy stage that is characterized by the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yet I think a better way to view it is that from John the Baptist to the beginning of
the Millennial Kingdom (that is marked by the return of the Redeemer, Jesus) is
its own separate stage is more helpful. So while the Kingdom of Heaven is
indeed here now, it is yet nowhere near all it will be after Christ returns to purge
the entire planet of all evil people. Once that occurs, then there will be 1000
years of Yeshua personally ruling Planet Earth as it's King, there will be peace on
earth and goodwill abounding among men, and thus the Kingdom of Heaven will
be operating in all its fullness. And yet, wickedness will again raise its ugly head
and need to be purged.
Stage 7 (or 8, if you prefer) is the re-created heavens and earth. The current
Universe as we know it (Earth included) will be melted back to its elements and
re-formed (this is found in Revelation chapter 21). Even the Devil will no longer
exist. Thus from that moment forward, all will be eternal. Time comes to an end.
There will be no evil or sin or death present in the re-creation. No longer will there
be decaying of matter. It will be like an eternal Garden of Eden, only better,
because there will be no possibility of a fall. All barriers between Heaven and
Earth will be taken down; Earth and Heaven will meld together as one.
Redemption History is completed.
Getting back now to that 6th stage of Redemption History that is marked by the
appearance of the desert wild man, John, Jesus said concerning the Kingdom of
Heaven: if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God
has come upon you! (Matt 12:28 CJB) So there can be no doubt that the
primary visible proof of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was
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Yeshua driving out demons from people by the power of the Spirit of God. Yet the
arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven certainly did not mean that the Devil was
completely defeated, even though the coupling of those 2 events was central to
Jewish belief at that time. Since we know in retrospect that the coming of the Son
of Man (Yeshua) did not bring with Him the immediate destruction of the Devil,
this means that it has to occur at a later time. And since the destruction of Satan
and the Great Judgment were both to be presided over by the Son of Man, and
that those 2 things had to happen more or less at the same time, then clearly
Yeshua's presence in the Holy Land in the 1
st century represented some, but not
all, of what the Son of Man would do.
Therefore it is as with the Parable of the farmer who plants a seed and comes
back later to find that not only the good seed he planted has sprung up but so
have pesky weeds. Yet, he instructed that the weeds were not to be pulled up by
his workers just yet because it might harm the good plants in the doing.
Therefore, the farmer would wait until harvest time. Both the good plants and the
weeds would be harvested together. Afterward the weeds would be separated
away and burned up to destruction, while the good plants of the harvest would go
into his barns.
Thus what Jesus has introduced is an End Times scenario of some of the
expected things happening now (in His time), but more of the expected things
happening later. It is not an issue of one or the other. Yet even with His teaching
on the End Times that explains an eschatology that requires beginning a
redeeming process at one time, and then later returning to further that
redemptive process, few of His followers seemed to grasp it. This is the reason
that read in the New Testament of an urgency among Yeshua's 12 disciples, and
of Paul and other Apostles, to hurry and at all costs spread the news of
forgiveness of sins in Christ in order to become part of the Kingdom of Heaven...
because they felt that time was short. They still believed that the Messiah's arrival
meant that the End Times had to be coupled to it and therefore they were in the
End Times. Why did they insist on holding to that view? Because the concept that
when the Messiah (in the Son of Man role) arrived the Jews' liberation from
Rome, the Great Judgment, and the destruction of the Devil all came along with
it. And because Yeshua's followers accepted that only trust in Yeshua could save
a person at the Great Judgment, then they were willing to pay any personal price
to get that message out.
One of the more controversial things that we learned several chapters ago in
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
Matthew was that (as strange as it seems) John the Baptist couldn't accept that
Yeshua was the End Times Son of Man. He was terribly confused by Christ's
teachings about the Son of Man and the End Times. This is why the imprisoned
John sent messengers to Christ asking: "Are you the one who has to come... or
should we expect another?" Why couldn't John accept Yeshua as the Messiah
and Son of Man even after baptizing Him and witnessing the Holy Spirit descend
upon Him? It was because Jesus defined an End Times timetable that was
different from John's understanding and the one generally believed among the
Jewish public.
And so we find ourselves circling back to the issue I spoke about earlier in the
lesson: in attempting to deal with something as cosmic in scope as Redemption
History, even when we take but a portion of it to examine, we have to figure out a
framework to discuss it in terms of events that have happened, will happen, in
what order, and at what time. We also have little choice but to break it down into
smaller pieces that we can give a name to each piece for no other reason than to
be able to communicate the thought in some type of orderly fashion.
Unfortunately, sometimes we can get so caught up in names of the different
pieces and portions that we think they are God-ordained pieces and portions and
names for them, when in fact they are not. And, so, we're going to have to do it
yet again because it better enables me to explain the differences between how
John the Baptist thought things were supposed to go, compared with how Jesus
said they were going to go.
Here's what John the Baptist thought:
1) They were living in the present age of wickedness that had been ongoing for
some indefinite period time... perhaps since before Abraham.
2) Upon the appearance of the Son of Man (who is also Israel's Messiah) would
simultaneously come the Great Judgment with this Son of Man doing the judging.
3) After that the End of the World happens a re-creation of it occurs.
Here's what Yeshua taught:
1) There was an unnamed age (probably since Moses) of the righteous living
alongside the wicked that had been the norm.
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
2) Upon John the Baptist's announcement, the Son of Man appeared (who is also
Israel's Messiah), and the Messiah brought with Him the Kingdom of Heaven that
included the possibility of forgiveness of sins by means of trust in Him, which in
fact was a requirement to become a member of the Kingdom of Heaven.
3) Later in the future, the Son of Man will also come, resurrection of the dead will
happen, the Son of Man will operate in the role of the judge at the Great
Judgment, and a fully developed Kingdom of Heaven will come about with Him
as its king.
4) After all this there will be, at some point, a destruction of the present world and
a re-creation of the Universe and the Earth.
So when we see these two very different sets of End Times expectations side by
side then we can understand why John could not bring himself to accept his
cousin as the Son of Man. And this is why Yeshua would respond to John's
jailhouse inquiry to Him by responding:
CJB Matt. 11:4-6 "Go and tell Yochanan what you are hearing and
seeing- 5
the blind are seeing again, the lame are walking, people with
tzara'at are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised,
the Good News is being told to the poor- 6 and how blessed is anyone not
offended by me!"
What neither John nor the Jewish people in general could accept was the idea of
2 appearances of the Son of Man, separated by a long interim period of what I'll
call the Messianic age (again, my words not God's). That is, it is an age when
Messiah's promises and influences are in operation, and the Kingdom of Heaven
is here, but it is in a slow development process.
So one has to carefully place John's thoughts on the order of events of the Latter
Days and the End Times versus Christ's and to be careful not to accidentally mix
them together to create some fictitious hybrid of the two. In my opinion this
mixing is what has caused some of the strange Christian eschatological doctrines
to appear.
Part of what can confuse modern Believers is that 2 terms... the Latter Days and
the End Times... at times become conflated. Sometimes they are spoken and
taught about as though they are but 2 terms meaning the same thing. It seems
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
that is essentially how the biblical Hebrews took those 2 terms to mean, in both
Old and New Testament times. But what Christ taught us, and what history is in
the process of proving, is that in the course of Redemption History (all of it, from
Creation to the re-creation of a new heavens and earth), there are 2 Latter Days,
but only 1 End Times... and though related they are different things that happen
at different times. And those terms more represent eras of time rather than
specific events.
I define these 2 eras in the following way: the 1
st Latter Days were the decades
leading up to, during, and immediately following the coming of Christ and then
His crucifixion. The 2
nd Latter Days are the decades leading up to and during the
2
nd coming of Christ (that is yet to happen). On the other hand, the End of Days
(or the End Times) is associated ONLY with the 2
nd Latter Days and its
immediate outcome. The End of Days includes resurrection, the cataclysmic
conditions that result from the return of Messiah, the War of Armageddon and the
battle with the forces of the Anti-Christ, and then climactic moments that usher us
into the Millennial Kingdom when the Kingdom of Heaven has matured to its
fullest state. Clearly this has yet to happen, so the End Times did NOT happen in
Christ's era and can only be something future to us. The End of Days will also
include the pouring out of God's wrath upon the earth and the Great Judgment
as judged by the Son of Man (Jesus). This, of course, has also not happened.
While there's so much more I'd like to tell you, I think it's time to draw this part of
today's lesson to a close and I'll re-visit it at a later time.
My purpose for today's exercise was to try to bring some of the weightier puzzle
pieces of the Gospel of Matthew together to better understand the impact of
Yeshua on Redemption History as a preparation for chapters 24 - 28. I also
presented you today with a flow-chart of Redemption History that takes us from
the Beginning (Creation) to the New Beginning (Re-Creation). I gave you 7 (or 8)
stages of Redemption History as a framework for how to think about its many
milestones along the way. I also explained how what Jesus taught about the
Latter Days and the End Times, and the sequence of events that involved the
Son of Man, differed in important ways from what John the Baptist and the
Jewish people in general believed, and thus why while John ushered in the
Kingdom of Heaven, sadly he would not be part of it.
CJB Matt. 11:11 11 Yes! I tell you that among those born of women there has
not arisen anyone greater than Yochanan the Immerser! Yet the one who is
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Lesson 79 - Matthew 24
least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he!
So in the stages of Redemption History as I defined and named them, where in
that mix are we in the 21st century? Without doubt we're somewhere in the
6
th stage. We're in the stage when the Kingdom of Heaven has been planted
here on earth and is still developing. We are still in the same stage that was
inaugurated by John the Baptist. That was 2000 years ago, wasn't it? So we've
been living in this same stage of Redemption History for 20 centuries, which
means that it must be very ripe, waiting to flow into the next stage, which is the
return of the Son of Man as the Great Judge and King of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Next time we'll jump right into the inspired words of Matthew chapter 24 and the
several revelations from Yeshua that come with it.
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 80, Chapter 24 Continued
Last week I installed a framework for us to try to better comprehend not only what
we have learned thus far in the Gospels about Yeshua's role in Redemption
History, but also about the several stages of it. And that beginning in Matthew 24
in particular so very much of what Jesus says is about things in the far future to
His era. These future things are what in modern times we refer to as the End
Times. Scholars call the study of these same future things eschatology.
Part of the point of the discussion was to draw our attention to the reality that
redemption does indeed have a history and that Jesus's activities are directly
involved only in part of it. Further that redemption is a process, not an event, and
it does have a known and definable beginning and end. The beginning came
upon Adam and Eve's rebellion against God and thus committing the first sin; so
was born the need for redemption. The long process ends only upon the
destruction of the current Universe (along with the earth we presently live upon),
and with it the re-creation of a new system to form a dynamic that has never
before existed; a dynamic in which all barriers between creatures and Creator are
erased, in which evil and its leader are eliminated, and therefore sin, decay, and
death become impossibilities.
I will be incorporating a number of prophecies from the biblical Prophets that in
most cases Yeshua will be referring to in His own prophesies that are not
attempting to be disguised as new ones or as replacements for the originals, but
rather He will be adding information, clarification, and context (much like John
does in the Book of Revelation) about what was long ago spoken and written
down. I will also be speaking about application and some Church doctrines that I
think are misguided and can lead us into chasing our tails instead of running after
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
the truth.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 24.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24 all
The general nature of Matthew chapter 24 presents Yeshua as a prophet in the
sense of one who can see the future. What can be so demanding of us is to
decipher the meaning of the things He says as it pertains to WHEN these things
are to happen. Are they only connected to Yeshua's era? Are they only just a few
more years away (such as in Paul's day)? Or are they only to take place in some
very distant and unclear future? We have learned in many earlier Torah Class
lessons in both the Old and New Testaments that one of the attributes of Old
Testament prophecy is that prophesied events tend to happen somewhat
immediately, and then happen again at a later time, and sometimes yet again in a
far later time. The tendency is for Bible scholars and commentators to pick and
choose from an either/or mindset as to which of the fulfilled prophesied events is
THE actual prophesied event, with the other fulfillment-like events being mere
coincidences or contrived look-alikes.
As hard as it can be for us to do... and especially for those listening who are
Seminary or Theological School students... we must re-calibrate our thinking
about the realities of prophetic fulfillments to match what the Scriptures tell us
versus what our vast array of Christian denominational doctrines tell us. And as
of late there are also many works of fiction about the End Times that further
muddy the waters of our thinking on the subject. These fictional works can
become mixed together with what the Bible says, and so sometimes Believers
can think that whatever is portrayed in those novels is an accurate account of
what will happen and how End Times events will look. For example: the Rapture.
This mysterious event is, in modern times, most popularly depicted as Believers
suddenly flying up into the air, apparently naked, with their clothing either
fluttering back to earth or left behind neatly folded from the place they were
launched. Could this be true? I can't say that it is impossible; but the Bible
certainly doesn't suggest the nature of the Rapture as this. Rather this kind of
portrayal comes from the fertile imaginations of fiction writers. The unintended
consequence is that this is how many Evangelical Christians so smitten by these
books honestly think the Bible tells us that the Rapture is going occur. So if it
doesn't happen like that, then many will not believe it when it has occurred.
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We (you) should not feel alone or think this tendency to be misled is a new
dynamic, or that we are biblically uninformed about this dilemma. Christ Himself
has warned us about this. He has been openly challenging the doctrines and
beliefs of the Hebrew faith as it was currently being taught and enforced by the
Jewish leadership of His day. He stood nearly alone in His resistance and
reformation. And when I say doctrines I mean it in the sense of the term as it is
used in contemporary times as opposed to its technical meaning. That is,
doctrines as a list of faith principles established and believed by a group of
humans, said to be the proper interpretations of the Holy Bible with all other
interpretations being wrong. This is the same worldview as what the Jews refer to
as Traditions. So the primary shared characteristic of Jewish Traditions and
Christian doctrines is that they are manmade. This is not to say that all Traditions
and doctrines are incorrect; but many are... and at times dangerously so. Often
they are established with the result that God worshippers become divided up into
to segments, with each segment becoming loyal to a particular sect,
denomination, or leader.
The bottom line is that much of what Yeshua is prophesying will happen BOTH in
or near His day and then again in the future. Naturally it was easier for the Jews
of His day to grasp and mentally picture what the prophesied event will look like
and how it could happen in their time, versus what it could look like and happen
in some unknowable distant future. It is the same for us. When we read about the
End Times and the Apocalypse in Jesus's prophecies, and John's in the Book of
Revelation, we subconsciously form a mental picture based on the context of
how things currently look and exist in our day (in this case, in the year 2021). And
if these End Times events were to happen within a decade or so, perhaps we
have formed a pretty accurate mental picture. But if they were to happen beyond
that relatively short timeframe? Then I promise you that as we gather today, we
have no real way of knowing what it's all going to look like, or to factor in the
coming world-changing events like the Covid pandemic, or the development of
new ever-more intrusive technologies, or of the evolution of societies and
national governments either towards extreme religion or extreme secularism, or
of the waning and rising power of nations, or of what seems to be never-ending
and ever-increasing deadly cataclysms, and more. Yeshua spoke on that
problem for us, if only we'll take notice and heed His words. So in Matthew 24
listen carefully as Christ reveals the future and how we are to respond to it.
In verse 1 the location of what has been going on since about chapter 21 is going
to change. So far, since Christ's arrival in Jerusalem, all has centered around the
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
Temple. To be clear: not the Temple in the sense of the actual Sanctuary where
the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies exist behind a huge veil. But rather in the
sense of the vast Temple grounds where there were numerous places to meet
and teach. This was Herod's Temple. Herod the Great had spent enormous sums
of money and many years totally remodeling and expanding the Temple grounds,
as well as beautifying the Temple Sanctuary building. In Yeshua's time the
Temple Mount had grown to 35 acres or so. While that may not seem so terribly
large to us, in that day it was monumental and was seen as one of the wonders
of the world that wealthy gentiles would travel long distances merely to marvel at
its size and magnificence.
It was along His way to outside the city walls of Jerusalem and then across the
Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives that Christ's disciples sort of wondered out
loud about the stunning nature of the Temple and Temple Mount. They didn't
really ask a question of their Master, and weren't necessarily looking for a lesson;
it was only casual conversation as they strolled by. But Yeshua used the
occasion to make a prophecy about the Temple. Mark 13 and Luke 21 both
report on this same conversation, making it clear that the disciples were
specifically pointing out the enormous size and quantity of the many finely cut
stones used in the construction. Yeshua's response put a damper on their
enthusiasm. He says that the Temple (meaning the Sanctuary and the huge walls
of the entire Temple Mount area) would not only be destroyed but also
disassembled. It is mostly from this comment that the bulk of modern era Bible
scholars and commentators conclude that the Gospel writers must have put fake
prophetic words into Christ's mouth. That is, these scholars claim that what the
Gospel authors did was to write well after the destruction of Jerusalem and
dismantling of those walls that would come in 70 A.D., or some 35 or so years
after Yeshua spoke the prophecy. So the Gospel writers were looking in
hindsight, back to when the Temple was destroyed, and so Jesus never actually
said anything about the fate of the Temple, but their words do make Him look like
a seer and a prophet.
I want to pause here momentarily. While I know this can be hard to accept for
followers of Messiah Yeshua, the unseemly truth is that some of what is written
and taught about Christ in the Bible is seen by even somewhat conservative
Bible scholars as but fictional narrative added by the Gospel writers for effect.
The same scholars that do so very well in translating the Greek into English (and
into other languages as well), and agree that indeed this is what the earliest
Gospel texts that we have actually say to be true, don't themselves believe all the
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
substance of it. So, for instance, they claim that all but the End Times prophecies
of Jesus that are meant for the far future are but fraudulent (if well intentioned)
claims by the Gospel writers. They are writing about events that had already
happened by their day, so they were able to put fake words into Christ's mouth
that we could someday look back and marvel at what He seemed to foreknow.
Naturally this conclusion filters down to Seminaries and eventually what is taught
from the pulpit. In fact, belief in the inspiration of the New Testament is on the
wane, and so a newer trend is to take what comes in the Gospel accounts prior
to Yeshua's resurrection with a rather large grain of salt, and only what comes
after is to be taken more seriously.
So let me state for the record that all of us at Seed of Abraham Ministries who
teach believe that the Gospels are indeed the inspired word of God and that
when we read of Christ prophesying, it was true prophecy that was prophesied
before the fact. The reality is that if this were not so, then we all belong to a failed
religion and follow a false Messiah, or at least one who is very different from what
the Gospels claim.
About 35 years after Jesus's prophesy, the Temple was indeed destroyed by the
Romans and the stones of the walls disassembled. With some recent
excavations under what is called Robinson's Arch, there have been found
hundreds of these enormous stones that the Romans had pushed over the top of
the Temple Mount foundation into heaps of rubble. Tourists have full view of it
today.
I highly recommend for study of the Temple in its various stages and eras
perhaps the most extensive, up to date, and beautifully illustrated book that exists
today. It is a Carta Publishers of Jerusalem book by Leen Ritmeyer called The
Quest. There's not a lot of places where you can obtain it, but is available at
HolyLandMarketPlace.com.
Verse 3 moves us to the Mount of Olives. After telling His disciples what was
going to happen to the Temple Mount that they so admired, they naturally wanted
to know when. Mark says it was only Peter, James, John and Andrew that were
sitting there with Christ at the moment, asking the question of "when?" Before we
address Yeshua's answer, make note that knowing what we know in our time
with so much history in our rear-view mirrors, and when considering especially
Zechariah's, Ezekiel's and Jeremiah's prophecies of a new Temple that is to
come later, then this prophetic fulfillment of the Temple's destruction must be
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taken in a rather typical fulfillment fashion: it happens, and then it happens again
in the future. In other words, Jesus is speaking not only of the 2
nd Temple
(Herod's Temple) being destroyed, but also of a 3
rd one being built and then it
being desecrated and destroyed (or at least significantly damaged) in a far future
time. In fact, later still a 4
th Temple seems to be prophetically described in the
Prophets, one that comes during the Millennial Kingdom days. Whether this is a
brand-new Temple or a reconstructed 3
rd Temple I'm not at all sure because the
Holy Scriptures don't give us enough definitive information about it.
As for the destruction of the 3
rd Temple (something that does not yet exist) and of
Jerusalem, we need to go to the 14th chapter of Zechariah.
CJB Zechariah 14:1 Look, a day is coming for ADONAi when your plunder,
[Yerushalayim], will be divided right there within you. 2
"For I will gather all
the nations against Yerushalayim for war. The city will be taken, the houses
will be rifled, the women will be raped, and half the city will go into exile;
but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city." 3 Then ADONAI
will go out and fight against those nations, fighting as on a day of
battle. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies to
the east of Yerushalayim; and the Mount of Olives will be split in half from
east to west, to make a huge valley. Half of the mountain will move toward
the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 You will flee to the valley in the
mountains, for the valley in the mountains will reach to Atzel. You will flee,
just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of 'Uziyah king of
Y'hudah. Then ADONAI my God will come to you with all the holy ones. 6 On
that day, there will be neither bright light nor thick darkness; 7 and one day,
known to ADONAI, will be neither day nor night, although by evening there
will be light. 8 On that day, fresh water will flow out from Yerushalayim, half
toward the eastern sea and half toward the western sea, both summer and
winter. 9 Then ADONAI will be king over the whole world. On that day
ADONAI will be the only one, and his name will be the only name.
The Prophet Amos adds a little more to this.
CJB Amos 2:4-8 4 Here is what ADONAI says: "For Y'hudah's three crimes,
no, four- I will not reverse it- because they rejected ADONAI's Torah and
haven't observed his laws, and their lies caused them to fall into error and
live the way their ancestors did; 5
I will send fire on Y'hudah, and it will
consume the palaces of Yerushalayim. 6 Here is what ADONAI says: "For
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
Isra'el's three crimes, no, four- 1 will not reverse it- because they sell the
upright for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, 7 grinding the heads of
the poor in the dust and pushing the lowly out of the way; father and son
sleep with the same girl, profaning my holy name; 8
lying down beside any
altar on clothes taken in pledge; drinking wine in the house of their God
bought with fines they imposed.
These prophecies describe what happened to Jerusalem and the Temple in Bible
times (to a degree), and what will happen again to a greater degree. We know
that the Lord has not yet set foot on the Mount of Olives and split it in half, so this
event is of course future to us. This provides a good example of how the
Prophets and prophecy operate. In some ways it helps us to understand them, in
other ways it can make the how and when a bit harder to discern.
A most challenging portion of verse 3 is when an anonymous one of the 4
disciples of Yeshua's inner circle asks: "And what will be the sign that you are
coming, and that the 'olam hazeh is ending?" The question for us is, what
was this disciple thinking and meaning about Jesus "coming"? Typically this is
taken to mean Christ's return in the sense that He dies, is resurrected, ascends
to Heaven, and stays there until some undefined time in the future in which He
returns. Or, as Christians say it, the second coming. Actually this view is quite a
leap; there doesn't seem to have been any real or understandable discussion
that is recorded in the Gospels about such a thing. In fact, what we'll read about
after Christ's death is that the disciples were completely dispirited and figured
that their movement and their hopes had ended. Yeshua... their leader... their
Messianic hope... was dead and gone, and that was that. They were surprised
upon the proof of His resurrection and even then we will read of the disciple
Thomas who simply couldn't process the risen Christ standing there talking to
him and had to literally place his fingers into the nail holes of Jesus's wrists and
the hole in his side from the Roman spear. The point being that if what the
disciples meant and were thinking about Christ "coming" the way modern
Believers usually take it, then their reaction to His death and the surprise at His
revivication makes no sense.
The only intellectually honest way I can reconcile this conundrum is if this disciple
meant that he understood that Christ was going to go away somewhere for a time
(no doubt alive and unchanged) and then when He decided to come back to
Jerusalem as the Messiah, the End of the World would happen. So while the
disciple thought of Jesus's absence in the sense of a typical earthly retreat to
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
someplace safe and remote, perhaps for a few weeks or months (maybe to
Qumran with the Essenes?), he was only incorrect in that Yeshua's actual retreat
would be in a spiritual form to Heaven, and His coming back would happen many
centuries later but in an entirely different form and substance.
Where our CJB says olam hazeh that Hebrew term translates into English as
"the present world"... that is, the present age. The Jews saw Redemption History
as a 2-part structure. Part 1 is the olam hazeh (the present age) that comes to
an end when the Messiah/Son of Man appears, and part 2 is when immediately
the world to come (the olam habbah) appears. For them, the world to come was
largely about Israel regaining their independence and then coming into a Golden
Age that becomes its own empire. So the idea is that Messiah Yeshua will in time
come back to Jerusalem and when he does the current age abruptly ends and
next age begins. Considering the urgency in which the disciples and the later
Apostles barnstormed the region with the message of forgiveness of sins and the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, they could only have thought that Yeshua's
absence was nearing its end. This 2-part structure of Redemption History and the
connection between the Messiah and the End Times is what mainstream
Judaism of that day thought, it's what the Pharisees taught, and it is what John
the Baptist believed to the point that he had a falling out with Jesus over it. Of
course, none of these folks could comprehend Christ's return in the context of
two separate visits of the Messiah, with a very long period in between, in which
only does the second visitation of Yeshua bring us to the Apocalypse and the end
of human history... what Christians call the End Times.
Yeshua didn't at first address the where or how of His coming back to Jerusalem.
But we must never simply jump over the critical point that indeed His return IS
going to be to Jerusalem. Indeed the entire world will somehow look up into the
sky and see Him coming, but where He lands is Jerusalem. This destroys any
notion that God is done with Israel and the Jewish people. So Christ first
responds to the disciple's question with "don't be fooled" and then goes on to list
some specific things that WILL happen (these are not hypothetical or symbols).
As a born skeptic, what Yeshua says isn't terribly hard for me to accept and do.
But for many more of you, you are inherently trusting souls so questioning and
challenging what appears to be good, holy and obvious to others is not going to
be easy for you. The first case of what is going to happen is that many false
Messiah's will appear... some even coming in His name... which could mean
literally saying he is Jesus or probably meaning identifying himself as God's
Messiah. Such a scenario was actually common within the Holy Land in Yeshua's
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
day. It was one of the reasons that the more erudite Jerusalem residents turned
up their noses at Yeshua because He was just another in a long line of claimants
to the Messianic throne.
Perhaps one of the most famous Messiah pretenders to come later was Bar
Kokhba who appeared about 100 years after Christ. He led yet another failed
Jewish rebellion against Rome and disappointed so many who were certain that
he was the Messiah. This series of false Messiahs simply shut down the Jewish
hope of a real Messiah that actually fulfilled the prophecies about him, thus
making it all the harder for them to accept the true Messiah, Yeshua, who was
executed. Josephus even spoke about this sad string of false Messiahs that
pestered Israel: "The wretched people were deluded at that time by charlatans
and pretended messengers of the deity", he wrote.
Another thing that Yeshua says looking forward is that there will be a constant
drumbeat about wars near and far away. Don't be frightened, He says, for this is
not the end. Just as for any thinking Christian, it's one thing to praise God and
beseech Him to return His Son to us so that His Kingdom can be set up forever,
but it's another when we put our hands and arms back down to our sides and
soberly understand that if we're still here, the odds of surviving the ruthlessness
of the Anti-Christ and the terrible battles that lead to Yeshua's return, are slim.
The Jews also understood (to some level) that the events involved with Messiah's
coming and the End of the World were going to be horrific. In their context, they
knew Rome wasn't simply going to throw down their weapons and surrender to
Israel's Messiah. Thus Yeshua's comment to "not be frightened" was meant both
for those disciples hearing Him speak and for us 2000 years in the future.
Christ teaches His 4 disciples that all these wars and conflagrations they are
already hearing about are going to continue to happen; but this does NOT mean
the end has come. Yet no matter how much this passage is taught in Churches,
every time there are serious wars or terrible atrocities like 9/11 that happen, a
goodly number of Christians become certain this signals the End Times. No one
alive today fought in WWI and precious few are alive and old enough to
remember it. But the reality that we learn of in memoirs and history books is that
the horror of it caused the Church in general to believe that this had to be the war
to end all wars. This was the biblically foretold Apocalypse. There were Believers
that sold everything and went to live in remote places. There were small cultish
groups of Christians that even committed mass suicides. What I'm telling you is
that no wars or calamities that have happened to this current point in history are
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
the indicators that the end is near. I only draw the conclusion that the End Times
is just around the corner because of the ripeness of Christ's promises with the
extensive passage of time since he made them, and because of the one thing
that is impossible to set aside as the key to setting the stage for Our Savior's
return: the re-birth of Israel as a nation of Jews in 1948. That subject is a big one
in itself, and so it's for another time.
Verse 7 says that peoples with fight each other as will nations fight one another.
The Greek word that translates as peoples is ethnos. Although the CJB
translation of this verse does a better job of communicating the meaning than
most Bible versions, the more familiar way we read it is:
KJV Matthew 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in
divers places.
This translation gives us a wrong impression. The Greek word that is translated
here as nation is ethnos. It means people or groups of people. Ethnicities and
not nations. When we read kingdom against kingdom, the Greek word
is basileia. It refers to political entities... governments and nations. So ethnic
groups and races of people will battle one another, and also governments of
nations will send armies of their nations to battle other nations. In Bible times (in
general) races and ethnicities (people groups) didn't battle others over race and
ethnicity. Some scholars claim that there is no difference between that and
tribalism. I think tribalism is quite another thing. Tribalism is, in fact, merely a
rather primitive form of government. What we are seeing in our day of brown
skinned people battling those of other colors, and black skinned people battling
those of other colors, and of white people doing the same ONLY because of skin
color differences; and of Asian ethnicities trying to defend themselves against
those from other ethnicities... all on account of race and ethnic jealousies... is
somewhat new to the world. In the ancient past the motives for such hatred and
animosities mostly had to do with religious differences, the want of natural
resources, and governments of nations desiring to expand their reach and
power. What I'm saying is that the ethnos against ethnos as very nearly a
worldwide dynamic that has little or nothing to do with religion or governments, or
natural resources or land, is happening on a scale that we haven't seen
historically. And yet, as bothersome and heartbreaking reality as it happens in
America and a few other places in the world, Christ says that this, too, must
occur... but that is not a sign of the end.
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
He moves on to other happenings that, again, Christians often take as signs of
the End Times but in fact Christ says they are not. He says there will be famines
and earthquakes in various places around the world. And if these are any sign at
all, it is only of the beginnings of the birth pains. Just so we're clear: this is a
metaphor. Yeshua used all kinds of everyday occurrences to make His
point. Everyone understood the birth process, and how before a child passed
through the maternal waters and was born, first the mother had the beginnings of
the birth pains... those first initial twinges that could come days before the labor
pains began in earnest. So this is a way of speaking about stages in the End
Times process and the very first stage that only WARNS of the imminent entry
into the End Times is likened to those first early twinges. The problem is that
famines and earthquakes are recorded in the Bible and other ancient historical
documents as far back as there was written language. Were these things
happening all over the world? Were they less and fewer then than they are now?
There's really nothing to prove that one way or the other. It's only that with
today's instant communications around the globe that knowing what's going on
everywhere at once has become the norm, where even a few decades ago no
such thing was imaginable. Thus we are inundated with largely negative news
that has the proclivity to scare the daylights out of some, and simply exhaust
others.
What Christ is counseling among His followers is patience and endurance.
Watchful waiting. Remaining devoted as the world deteriorates. This decay and
collapse is to be expected and it is inevitable. Such deterioration is only
"abnormal" in the sense that sin and evil are abnormal in relation to the perfection
that God originally created. But in light of the way the world became immediately
after Adam and Eve broke the 1-rule Torah, it is NOT abnormal for us to
experience famines, earthquakes, wars of governments against governments,
and (especially as of late) hatred and jealousies of ethnicities against ethnicities,
just as it is NOT abnormal for a woman to have birth pains when bringing a new
life into this world.
The Greek word to open verse 9 is tote and depending on your Bible version it is
translated to "then" or "at that time". My concern is this: at WHAT time? When is
"then"? Since all the English versions I checked didn't make a paragraph change
between verses 8 and 9, and since I can't find any scholars who seemed to even
address the meaning of "at that time", then I'm left to my own devices to try to
understand it. Therefore without filtering this through denominational or traditional
thoughts, it seems to me that this can only be saying that upon the first twinges of
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
the birth pains that signals entry into the End Times, all that follows begins to
happen as well. Therefore, these things listed ARE the initial twinges. And the
first "twinge" mentioned is Believers being arrested and handed over to be
punished and even put to death, and all peoples (ethnos, ethnic groups) hating
God worshippers. Since this is a "twinge" and therefore must occur before the
Anti-Christ makes his appearance, then it means that things haven't fully
deteriorated... at least as the world sees it... just yet. However no doubt the world
is merely distracted and deluded and thus blind to reality.
In Yeshua's era and even to the latest of the Apostles (John), getting arrested for
religious beliefs, even for mere doctrinal differences within the same religion, was
par for the course. So none of this prophecy would have been much of a surprise
for Peter, James, Andrew and John to have heard from Christ. However for
people like me, in the 21st century, only a few years ago I could never have
imagined that in the developed Western world a Christian could be arrested and
prosecuted for little more than speaking his or her beliefs out loud... or even
within the confines of their houses of worship. Yet, that is happening right now.
Speaking out against the * lifestyle, or against self-determining one's own sex
apart from what is clearly biological and anatomic, or pleading for women not to
abort their babies, even standing with Israel, has put those of us who say these
things in the crosshairs of our Cancel Culture and of law enforcement. Further,
because of modern hate speech laws, the freedom to hold to our biblically based
moral views and advocate for them are, one at a time, becoming not merely
unpopular, but illegal.
Yet let's be clear: what will be the root cause of that hatred against us? Christ
says it will be: "Because of Me". The next verse says, within that same context,
that many false prophets will also appear and fool many people. What does
Yeshua mean by "prophets"? In His day this term had a range of meanings from
a seer to a teacher of God's Word. Sometimes the term was used so generically
that it carried the sense of a person representing God in some unspecified way.
Perhaps a means to think about it is as people that some in the Body of Christ
give special attention and authority to. People who claim they know something
that the Lord told only them. People who claim they know the date that Jesus is
returning, for instance. People who think they can tell you what is going to
happen tomorrow. Or simply people who teach God's Word, or doctrines and
Traditions that supposedly interpret God's Word. In Yeshua's day this referred
mostly to the Scribes and Pharisees but also included the steady stream of
charlatans claiming to be the Messiah. In our day the term false prophets means
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Lesson 80 - Matthew 24 cont
those whom many in the Church accept as having inspired insight, but God
doesn't claim them at all. So how to do we as God worshippers sort this out?
How can we know who are false prophets? Yeshua has already told us and you
will hear this from me regularly:
CJB Matthew 7:15-23 15 "Beware of the false prophets! They come to you
wearing sheep's clothing, but underneath they are hungry wolves! 16 You
will recognize them by their fruit. Can people pick grapes from thorn
bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every healthy tree produces good
fruit, but a poor tree produces bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad
fruit, or a poor tree good fruit. 19 Any tree that does not produce good fruit
is cut down and thrown in the fire! 20 So you will recognize them by their
fruit. 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will enter the Kingdom
of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven wants. 22 On that
Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy in your name?
Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform many miracles in
your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never knew you! Get
away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
We'll continue next time in Matthew chapter 24.
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 81, Chapter 24 Continued 2
The Gospel of Matthew is a delight to teach because it offers such opportunities
to provide application to our modern lives, as well as to prepare us for what lay
ahead. Chapters 24 and 25 form what is nearly universally known as the Olivet
Discourse (Olivet because it's occurring on the Mount of Olives). It is Yeshua's
final large block of teaching that is recorded. Unlike some chapters in Matthew,
chapter 24 consists nearly exclusively of Christ's words and they are far reaching
and have enormous implications for us, theologically and practically, and thus
those words need to be carefully fleshed out. Very few words (the statements
that are outside of the quotation marks) have been added by Matthew to create
background or to express his own conclusions about what Christ's words mean.
Mark 13 and Luke 21 do similarly. This means we are immediately faced with a
decision: are these words within the quotation marks truly the words of our
Messiah? Or are these words at least partly those of the Gospel writers, written
to advance a personal agenda? While most of you have probably not even
thought of such a possibility, I'd have to say that the preponderance of modern
era Bible commentators say that indeed some of what we read are the inventions
of the Gospel writers and aren't actually Jesus's recorded words. What is their
evidence for this? First, it stems from a belief that prophecy itself is a primitive
superstition and is not real. So the evidence mostly amounts to a scholarly
consensus of opinion among like-minded academics, based on the various study
disciplines of literary and textual criticism. At times it seems to involve a
predisposed (perhaps subconscious) viewpoint of the scholar, including when
they believe that a Gospel writer actually wrote, and from whom he might have
obtained his information. Another influential factor in their determinations has to
do with a desire to support certain denominational doctrines or worldviews they
openly agree with. I shall go forward believing and teaching that if we are to take
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
the Gospels as inspired of God, then except for obvious later Christian glosses
and simple copyist errors, we have no choice but to take them at face value. And
(here is an important point of application) should Yeshua's recorded instruction
interfere with our beliefs, then it is our beliefs that are to be held suspect and not
Messiah's words.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 24.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24:9 - 14
The words "at that time" (or "then" in some Bible versions) immediately tells us
that we must find (if we can) the intended connection to something that
characterizes or defines when "that time" is. That characterization is found in
verse 8 when we're told that certain things will come about that signal the "birth
pains" of the End. In the Hebrew sense of it, the birth pains are meant as those
earliest twinges that a woman feels before the labor begins in earnest. These
birth pains are events of the future that will happen as listed in verses 4-7. They
begin with an appearance of a series of false Messiahs, the leading astray of
many of God's people, the noise of wars nearby and the news of other wars that
are happening far away, of ethnic (racial) strife and hatred, of national
governments battling with one another using their armies, and of cataclysmic
famines and earthquakes in many places around the world (in other words, not
just in the Holy Land). Again: these are the signs we are to watch for that signals
the first twinges of End Times birth pains. For those who accept Yeshua's words
as actual true divine prophecy we now know what to look for... and also what to
dismiss... that reveals whether we have arrived at the dawn of the End Times.
As verse 9 says, at that same time when certain perilous conditions begin (the
first birth pains appear), then Believers in Jesus will start to be arrested and
turned over to authorities for punishment, and the distrust and hatred of Christ
followers will start to rise into what will in time become a deafening and
murderous crescendo. I would be dishonest if I didn't at this point express my
opinion (and I want to stress, this is my personal view and nothing that I could
confidently frame as "the Lord told me"). While I do see indications that we may
be living at the time of those first twinges of the birth pains, I am unable to say
with certainty that this is the case. For instance, we can look historically back to
the time of the Inquisition of the 12th century and discover something that looks
very much like what Yeshua is describing. For those of you who aren't history
buffs, the Inquisition was a period in the history of the Catholic Church of the 12th
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
century when the leadership wanted to root out so-called heretics. Heretics were
usually whatever local Church authorities defined them as. If we read a synopsis
about the Inquisition usually it will say that it was Muslims and Jews that were
singled out for examination and worse. The problem is that this is a bit misleading
as it sounds like Muslims hid themselves among Christians in order to subvert
the faith; and that Jews hid themselves among Christians in order to destroy their
belief in Christ. What is actually meant is that former Muslims who now
professed Christ, and Jews that had legitimately turned to Yeshua as Lord and
Savior, were under suspicion as liars. Christianity as it was practiced by the
Catholic Church had become so Romanized and prejudiced that they could not
accept the idea of Semitic people... Arab or Hebrew... in their fold. Thus if one
was an Arab or a Jew (a non-European ethnicity) then it was nearly
inconceivable to the 12th century Catholic Church that they could REALLY be
Christians. So in Christ's name these people were murdered by the thousands.
And by the way, this included many non-Jews and non-Arabs who merely
LOOKED Jewish or Arab to some Church authority. There is no verifiable
evidence of which I am aware that the alleged Arab and Jewish subversives were
actually anything but innocent and devoted Christ followers.
The point is that long ago Christians were arrested and turned over by other
Christians to Church leadership for punishments and even executions. Therefore
might not some Believers living through that horrific time have thought that this
must be the foretold beginning of the birth pains of the End that Jesus spoke
about? Those Arab and Jewish Christians that were arrested, tortured
mercilessly, and executed by a zealous Church surely must have. But as horrific
as it was, it was not the sign of the birth pains of the End, was it? Therefore it is
very difficult to say with too much confidence that we have arrived at the time of
these birth pains, even with rising persecution within the Church... except for one
key thing: the rebirth of Israel as a nation. This astonishing event MUST happen
first in order for us to know that the End Times are at least on the horizon. There
are several prophetic Scriptures that speak of this event, but here is one of the
most profound.
CJB Isaiah 66:8-11 8 Who ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen
such things? Is a country born in one day? Is a nation brought forth all at
once? For as soon as Tziyon went into labor, she brought forth her
children. 9 "Would I let the baby break through and not be born?" asks
ADONAl. "Would I, who cause the birth, shut the womb?" asks your
God. 10 Rejoice with Yerushalayim! Be glad with her, all you who love her!
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
Rejoice, rejoice with her, all of you who mourned for her; 11 so that you
nurse and are satisfied by her comforting breast, drinking deeply and
delighting in the overflow of her glory.
So do I think we are experiencing the earliest birth pangs that doesn't signal that
we have entered into the End Times, but rather that it is about to erupt? Yes I do.
But the only way to know for sure requires that we patiently wait and see what
happens next. Just as the expectant mother that feels those twinges knows that
whatever preparation time remains for her to be ready for the actual labor and
birth is short, so that is what every vigilant Believer ought to be doing right now:
preparing. Preparing our minds and our lives for the return of Messiah and what
comes with it. Soon, Yeshua will give some illustrations and pronounce some
Parables to emphasize this point.
Verse 10 continues by saying that many will be trapped into betraying and hating
each other. The KJV says that many will be offended and this will cause people
to hate each other. The NAS says that many will fall away and betray others.
First, we must understand that this is not talking about the world in general; this is
only talking about those who profess to be followers of Jesus... what we could
loosely call "The Church". It is Believers being trapped, or offended, or falling
away and then hating or betraying other Believers. The Greek word that is being
variously translated as trapped, offended or falling away is skandalizo. The CJB
saying "trapped" is pretty good; although the terms offended and falling away are
not as good. The idea is to picture a snare used to catch small animals. A trap is
being set by the enemy using Church insiders and many members will be
captured by it. We need to remember the context for what Yeshua is saying and
all that has led up to what He is prophesying. He has just removed Himself from
within the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives, and
from His ongoing verbal battles over Scriptural truth with the Scribes and the
Pharisees to prophetic pronouncements of the future to His inner circle. He had
been accusing the Jewish leadership of being the ones who are setting the
snares with their lies; snares that those Jews who seek God and want to worship
Him properly and to participate in the Kingdom of Heaven, are going to fall into.
This will prevent many from ever becoming members of God's Kingdom. So it's
not outside forces (pagans and tyrants), but rather inner forces of Church and
Synagogue leadership that will be the culprits; it is they who will set the traps.
Somehow... as shocking as it is to hear and painful as it may be to contemplate...
we must wrap our minds around the Jesus-spoken reality that it is not going to be
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the forces of national governments that set the snares for Believers. From a
spiritual perspective, it doesn't matter whether one lives under Communism, or a
monarchy, or a Socialist or a Capitalist Democracy. It also doesn't matter whether
one regards their civil and national government as evil or good. While some may
indeed be immoral and wicked oppressors, that is not what Yeshua is warning
about here. It is the leadership authority of the Believing community that is the
subject. It is they that He prophecies will be the persecutors just as in 1100 more
years it would be the Catholic Church during the Inquisition. Look like I do, or be
punished. Believe as I do, or be banished. Behave as I do, or be turned over for
discipline or death.
The result of being ensnared will be the falling away from God and the loss of
salvation or its opportunity for many. But, what exactly, is the trap... the snare...
which is a metaphor to illustrate something else? It can be nothing other than
what Jesus has been accusing the Pharisees of for some time: teaching false
doctrines as though they are the commands of God. What a Believer believes is
everything. Faith is only faithfulness to God when the beliefs we hold have a
basis in divine truth. Any old faith is not a saving faith. Faith in your Pastor or
Rabbi, or even in what they say, is not how God determines your faithfulness to
Him. While Yeshua was brutally combative and condemning regarding the
teaching of the Scribes and the Pharisees... the Jewish religious leadership... it is
because the common people suffered (usually unknowingly) since they had little
to no choice but to get their religious instruction from those leaders. If a Scribe
said "thus saith the Lord", the common man didn't have a ready means to fact
check him, he just accepted it as the truth. Today, however, it is very different.
Bibles are cheap and easily obtainable. Most countries have a pretty good level
of literacy so that the Bibles can be read by their owners, and Bibles are now
published in literally hundreds of languages. So what excuse is there for a
modern Christian who goes to Church, or for a Jew who goes to Synagogue, not
to take a few minutes to fact check what his or her Pastor or Minister or Rabbi
says is "thus saith the Lord"? In my book, none. It is pure laziness or disinterest
on the part of the congregation. I know this is case because at one time in my life
that was an apt description of me and my Christian friends. The point is that while
in ancient times the religious leadership bore nearly all the guilt for wrong
doctrine, it was due to the lack of accessible biblical material for the people; but
today that guilt for wrong doctrine must be equally shared between the religious
leadership and the individual members of a congregation. So an ancient Jew
might have been able to plead "but my Rabbi told me" thus and so and receive
some level of mercy from God; but can a modern Christian expect the same
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when their excuse for not obeying God is "but my Pastor told me"? Yes, I am
highly accountable to God for what I teach you; but you are also highly
accountable to Him for verifying in your Bibles if what I'm teaching you is
accurate and true.
Verse 11 says that many false prophets will appear. The issue is not so much
that they come, but rather that what they say will fool many Believers. What are
these false prophets going to fool people about? Since the subject is the
Believing communities' leaders and teachers, then again it can only be what
these leaders and teachers (here characterized as prophets) advocate about
God, His Word, and His Son. In another sense, it must also include what these
leaders prophesy in the sense of professing what the future holds; that is,
prophets as claiming to be seers. I can't imagine the number of God worshippers
over the ages that have fallen away because they placed their trust in what a
person that held themselves up as God's prophet told them, but it never came to
pass. A little speculation here and there by a Christian leader or teacher is
normal and OK as long as it is identified as such. But when that leader declares
that God has given him personal knowledge of something about the future that
He's told no one else? Be very wary and do not put your faith in that. The
likelihood that it will happen or that God truly told him, is not impossible but it is
remote.
Verse 12 is an example of what we've just been talking about. It says that many
people's love will grow cold (this, again, is talking about Believers). But what is
the cause of this lack of love among Christ followers? The CJB says it will be
"because of increased distance from Torah". The KJV says "because iniquity will
abound". The NAB says "because of the increase of evil doing". The NAS says
"because lawlessness will increase". Quite the range of translations and
meanings isn't it? So what's the reason for this variation? The word that is at the
heart of the issue is the Greek anomia. Interestingly, it's not a complex word with
many meanings; it's pretty straightforward. Nomia means "law". Anomia is the
opposite; it means the lack of or no law. Lawlessness is a very good English
translation; iniquity and increase of evil doing is off the mark so why phrase it this
way? Because the translators were likely more concerned about upholding a
doctrine from their Church sponsors. And the doctrine they wish to uphold is that
the Law (the Law of Moses) is dead, gone, altogether irrelevant, and has no
place in the lives of Believers. Because they perfectly understood that the only
law that any Jew would have given any credence was the Law of Moses and
certainly not Roman law, then the meaning had to be obscured and sent in a
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different direction. In other words Yeshua of course isn't saying that breaking the
local Roman laws or of whatever society you're part of, amounts to God's
determination of lawlessness; otherwise the standard of sin and righteousness
would be infinitely variable. Instead it is meant in an entirely religious sense, so it
is God's laws that are the issue and not human laws. Believers breaking the
speed limit or not filing a tax return will not lead to their love growing cold.
One could ask at this point whether this coldness is speaking about love for God,
or love for our fellow man. I don't think the two can, at this point, be separated.
To love God is to obey God; that is one of the first biblical principles taught.
Therefore should our God commanded love towards our fellow man grow cold,
we are disobeying God and thus through our disobedience we are not showing
love towards Him. This leads us to a matter so critical to Christianity in general
that it has formed perhaps the primary faith principle (after salvation in Christ)
that Seed of Abraham Ministry is founded upon, and at the same time it creates
(sadly) such a division between us and the institutional Church. It is our faith
principle that the Law of Moses remains in effect, for gentiles and Jews, and we
are to follow it the best we can in the circumstances we find ourselves in that are
not under our control. The Law of Moses does not save us and never has; but it
does define what sin is, what righteousness is, and what love is. This can directly
oppose a rather widespread doctrine that implies that we are to go by what our
hearts tell us, because that's where the Holy Spirit dwells in Believers. Thus, out
of this logic, the definitions of sin and righteousness are customized for each
individual Believer. What is sin for me might not be sin for you or for anyone else.
If the Holy Spirit hasn't told me that something is wrong or a sin, then I hold no
obligation to it. If my heart tells me I don't have to tithe, then I am exempt. If my
heart tells me that * marriage is OK, then it's OK. If my heart tells me that it's
OK to declare anything I desire as proper food, that's my prerogative. This leads
to the final result that God's commands in the Bible can disagree with what my
heart tells me, and I'm in the right to disregard God's laws and instead do what
my heart says to do. And this is because Jesus has made it thus.
I could easily spend the remainder of our time together today debating this
doctrine, but I don't want to turn this lesson on Matthew 24 into an apology for the
Law of Moses. I'll only say this: the earliest Christians... including the earliest
gentile Christians... certainly did not think this way. Such an erroneous mindset
only took hold once the number of gentiles overwhelmed the number of Jews
who trusted in Yeshua, and the new gentile leadership wanted to reorient the
practice of faith in the God of Israel and His Son Yeshua into a new religion that
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
was more appealing to gentiles. Two things were needed to do this: a Christian
Bible had to be created (as apart from the Hebrew Bible... the Old Testament),
and the Law of Moses had to be set aside. Thus early in the 3rd century the first
was accomplished and a few decades later the second. It was a critical turning
point in the history of the Church. Therefore we should grasp that the term
lawlessness (anomia) has no discernable biblical meaning if it isn't referring to
the Law of Moses. So the CJB saying "many people's love will grow cold
because of increased distance from Torah" while not fully literal, does indeed
capture the meaning and intent of Yeshua's thought. And since the Torah
commands love of our fellow man as second only to love for God... and since the
Law of Moses describes in some detail what love towards God and love towards
our fellow man looks like in practice... then when that standard is abolished by
humans, it becomes impossible to please God. Without the Law of Moses as our
standard, we are wanderers without map or compass.
Verse 13 sums up what Jesus has been saying. It is that those who persevere in
their love and obedience until the End during times of trials and tribulations and
temptations will be delivered... they will be saved. Let me say this another way:
within the Church body only a portion (which could amount to millions) will
maintain a saving faith as pressures increase to condone and embrace the
newest doctrinal trends. The additive effects of centuries of manmade doctrines
and traditions, and of the teaching of false prophets, will (as part of the birth
pains) finally take their full toll. Many who fill our Churches and Synagogues
today will, according to Jesus, lose their faith and fall away from God. The
confusion of volumes of conflicting manmade faith principles will finally
overwhelm and actually encourage rebellion among God-worshippers. This verse
is another that is sometimes disavowed by Bible scholars as an improper addition
by Matthew because it directly contradicts the popular (and historically recent)
doctrine of "once saved, always saved". Some Evangelical denominations,
understanding that contradiction, have worked towards a middle ground that
doesn't so much disavow this verse as it does interpret it to say that the Believers
Jesus has been speaking about were never actually Believers... they were
pretenders. The doctrine of pretenders... or anything like it... simply doesn't exist
in the New Testament so far as I have observed, and certainly it never shows up
in the mouth of Yeshua. In so many places in Old Testament prophecy, and in
Christ's words, and later in other New Testament writers' words, there are regular
warnings to God worshippers to beware and not to fall away from God. Or as
Yeshua's brother James (Jacob, actually) says it:
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CJB James 5:19-20 19 My brothers, if one of you wanders from the truth, and
someone causes him to return, 20 you should know that whoever turns a
sinner from his wandering path will save him from death and cover many
sins.
And then there is this even stronger warning in the Book of Hebrews:
CJB Hebrews 10:26-29 26 For if we deliberately continue to sin after receiving
the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, 27 but only the terrifying prospect of Judgment, of raging fire that will
consume the enemies. 28 Someone who disregards the Torah of Moshe is
put to death without mercy on the word of two or three witnesses. 29 Think
how much worse will be the punishment deserved by someone who has
trampled underfoot the Son of God; who has treated as something common
the blood of the covenant which made him holy; and who has insulted the
Spirit, giver of God's grace!
It's not enough to believe for awhile and then fall away later when things get
difficult and say "but Lord; I used to believe a long time ago, so that ought to
count permanently as my salvation". And what is at the heart of "not falling away
from God"? Obedience and perseverance, according to Christ.
After Yeshua has pronounced some pretty unpleasant things that none of His
disciples would prefer to hear, He counters with a word of encouragement. Verse
14 says:
CJB Matthew 24:14 And this Good News about the Kingdom will be
announced throughout the whole world as a witness to all the Goyim. It is
then that the end will come.
So there it is: a very general roadmap from the time of Christ to the End Times
has been laid out, with the final mile marker being that the arrival of the Kingdom
of Heaven has been proclaimed to the entire world. The term Goyim in verse 14
means gentiles; gentile individuals and gentile nations (the sole non-gentile
nation on earth is Israel). So even though to this point Yeshua has told His
disciples to NOT take the Good News of the Kingdom to gentiles, but only to
Jews, that was only meant to be the case for a short time. Once it changed the
mission became to take it to all people everywhere as it said it would in this
verse. While Jews soon after Yeshua's death and resurrection started on their
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
own to take the message of the Gospel to a few gentiles, the sort of official kick␂off moment that Yeshua set Jewish Believers on a mission to evangelize gentiles
was when He confronted Paul on the road to Damascus. Upon God's
determination that this process of evangelizing has been fully accomplished, then
not only the End Times arrives, so does the end of history as we know it. So has
this already been accomplished in our time?
Depending on whose data you believe, it seems that while this mission hasn't
been fully accomplished, we are close to it. Clearly it hasn't been completed in
God's eyes or Christ would have returned by now. I want to say, however, that
the point of Yeshua's statement was not that every last individual on earth must
have personally heard the Good News as the condition of His return and the End
of history. "AH" isn't a precise term in the Bible and it doesn't mean 100.00%. "AH"
is a general term that means the vast majority or the preponderance of
something. We must never think that God is so rigid as to make some person
who for some nearly indefinable set of circumstances has not personally heard
the Gospel in his own language, as being automatically doomed.
CJB Exodus 33:19 He replied, "I will cause all my goodness to pass before
you, and in your presence I will pronounce the name of ADONAl. Moreover,
I show favor to whomever I will, and I display mercy to whomever I will.
And, by the way, Paul employs this passage to explain one of God's attributes in
Romans 9:15. The only explanation for the adulterer and murderer King David to
be called "after My own heart" by God, and to guarantee that David's line would
produce a royal and eternal king, is God's mercy that He bestows upon
whomever He decides. So it isn't necessary that every last individual living on
earth before the last trumpet sounds must personally hear the Gospel before the
End arrives or in order for them to necessarily be shown such divine mercy. But
for those who have heard it and made a choice against, such mercy is not
available.
Open your Bibles again as we read a few more verses.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24:15 - 22
Now we enter the realm of the mysterious and contentious. Yeshua sort of
combines the quotes of 3 places in the Book of Daniel when He says that when
you see the abomination that causes desolation... the Jews of Judah are to run
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
for the hill country. Here's those 3 places in Daniel:
CJB Daniel 9:27 He will make a strong covenant with leaders for one week
[of years]. For half of the week he will put a stop to the sacrifice and the
grain offering. On the wing of detestable things the desolator will come and
continue until the already decreed destruction is poured out on the
desolator."
CJB Daniel 11:31 Armed forces will come at his order and profane the
sanctuary and fortress. They will abolish the daily burnt offering and set up
the abomination that causes desolation.
CJB Daniel 12:11 From the time the regular burnt offering is taken away and
the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.
The mysterious nature of this passage is self-evident: what is the abomination
that causes desolation? The contentious element of this is a little less self evident
to Bible students. A contention that few Christians are aware of is that some of
the most influential among modern Bible scholars do not believe that the Book of
Daniel is authentic (nor written by Daniel) and therefore the all-important
prophecies in it aren't credible. The most prevalent belief among them is that
Daniel was written in the Holy Land (not in Babylon) about 150 to 160 B.C. (and
not in the 6th century B.C.) The reason those dates are important is that 160 B.C.
is not long after the Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanies desecrated the Holy
Temple by setting up the image of a Greek god (Zeus) in its sanctuary, and then
sacrificing a pig to it on the Temple altar (the record of this can be found in
1Maccabees chapters 1 and 6). So the thought is that the writer of Daniel
essentially forged a prophecy by prophesying something that had already
happened by his day (similar to the belief among many Bible scholars that
Yeshua's prophecies about the destruction of the Temple had already happened
and so Matthew was writing about it in hindsight while pretending it was an event
yet to come).
This brings us back to the opening of today's lesson. Here we have words of
Jesus clearly SAYING that this is a prophecy of Daniel that He is personally
validating as true. And more, since Antiochus Epiphanies' desecration of the
Temple had happened going on 2 centuries prior to Yeshua's prophetic
statement, obviously that cannot be what Christ is prophesying about; it had to be
something future to Him in order to be a prophecy. It also confronts us with the
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
issue that according to much of modern Bible scholarship, Christ may not have
known that the author of Daniel had faked his prophecies and wrote them after
the fact; or as an alternative Matthew inserted fake prophetic words into Christ's
mouth in his Gospel account so that Matthew's Jewish agenda could be fulfilled.
If any of these contentions are accurate, then not only must the Book of Daniel
be removed from our Bibles, but so should the Gospel accounts.
Then of course we have the matter that Paul in 2 Thessalonians also wrote about
the abomination of desolation.
CJB 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 But in connection with the coming of our Lord
Yeshua the Messiah and our gathering together to meet him, we ask you,
brothers, 2 not to be easily shaken in your thinking or anxious because of a
spirit or a spoken message or a letter supposedly from us claiming that the
Day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don't let anyone deceive you in any
way. For the Day will not come until after the Apostasy has come and the
man who separates himself from Torah has been revealed, the one
destined for doom. 4 He will oppose himself to everything that people call a
god or make an object of worship; he will put himself above them all, so
that he will sit in the Temple of God and proclaim that he himself is God.
Since we have Paul saying these words many years after Christ's death, then the
scholarly response is that Paul must have believed the tradition of what Jesus
said about Daniel's prophecy. Meaning (for them), that Matthew was accurately
writing down what Yeshua is said to have prophesied, however Yeshua was in
error because He had been fooled like everyone else by the Daniel forgery. I
remind you: this entire line of thought has at it's core the disbelief that there is
such a thing as true prophecy.
Let's see if we can tie this together. Yeshua has been cautioning in chapter 24
that these sorts of false teachings from what He labels as false prophets, which
in our time may be reflected by some of the Christian leadership advising their
students to not trust Holy Scripture, will eventually lead to Believers falling away
from their faith. When we have modern Bible scholars and teachers whose
teachings overtly throw doubt on the authenticity of God's Word, and that forms
the basis of what our Seminaries and Christian Theological Schools lean on to
instruct their students, what do you suppose is the result? And then when the
graduates of those particular schools (certainly not all) move on to become
Pastors of Churches and for others the leaders of their denominational
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Lesson 81 - Matthew 24 cont 2
governments... well, now you can see how Christianity has arrived at a time not
unlike the condition of the Hebrew faith of Yeshua's era. If we are taught to not
believe parts of our Holy Book then what is it that we are to believe? This new
trend in Christianity is another good reason for us all to at least be alert that we
just might be experiencing some of those early birth pains that Yeshua told us to
look for; time will tell.
There's also another aspect to this that can easily escape us. Since we know that
Yeshua can only be talking about the future, then either this desolation of the
Temple he's talking about must happen within the 35 or so years following His
death (because by then the Temple will have been destroyed by the Romans), or
He is referring to a far later time. We have no record of the Romans desecrating
the Temple like Antiochus Epiphanies did. Therefore this can only be the
prophecy of an event far into the future after Yeshua's time, and well after
Herod's Temple is destroyed in 70 A.D. So in order for the desolation to occur,
yet another Temple has to be constructed and operating... a
3
rd Temple... because you can't desecrate a Temple that doesn't exist. It is
generally believed that this desecration will be perpetrated by the dreaded Anti␂Christ that is to come prior to the End; likely having a statue or image of himself
as god placed within the Temple sanctuary; something that more or less repeats
what Epiphanies did. As of now, from my perspective, this is the most likely
explanation for what we're reading.
We'll pause here for today and continue next time with more of Matthew chapter
24.
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 82, Chapter 24 Continued 3
If the End Times matters to you; if where we likely stand in the timeline of
Redemption History matters to you; then the study of Matthew chapter 24 and 25
are crucial to your understanding and I don't want to leave any stone unturned to
aid in that understanding.
When we ended last week it was at a point when we were discussing the biblical
requirement of a 3
rd Temple to be constructed in Jerusalem in order for Daniel's
End Times prophetic forecast to occur; specifically that of the Abomination of
Desolation to desecrate the Temple Sanctuary. I'll start today's lesson by
significantly expanding on that discussion since the Temple is central to
Redemption History and it seems to be of such interest (as it should be) to
Believers who wait expectantly for the triumphant return of Our Savior, Yeshua,
from His current Heavenly abode.
I'll read the prophecy to you that Yeshua made to His disciples as they sat upon
the Mount of Olives, no doubt listening spellbound and perhaps a little frightened.
CJB Matthew 24:15-16 15 "So when you see the abomination that causes
devastation spoken about through the prophet Dani'el standing in the Holy
Place" (let the reader understand the allusion), 16 "that will be the time for
those in Y'hudah to escape to the hills.
Last time we read the whole of Daniel chapter 7 where we find the primary
passage to which Yeshua is pointing. However Daniel expanded upon that
prophecy a little further in Daniel chapter 9. We won't read the entire chapter but I
will quote for you enough of it to give us proper context.
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
CJBDaniel 9:20-27 20 While I was speaking, praying, confessing my own sin
and the sin of my people Isra'el, and pleading before ADONAl my God for
the holy mountain of my God- 21 yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the
man Gavri'el, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, swooped
down on me in full flight at about the time of the evening sacrifice, 22 and
explained things to me. He said, "I have come now, Dani'el, to enable you to
understand this vision clearly. 23 At the beginning of your prayers, an
answer was given; and I have come to say what it is; because you are
greatly loved. Therefore look into this answer, and understand the
vision. 24 "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and for your
holy city for putting an end to the transgression, for making an end of sin,
for forgiving iniquity, for bringing in everlasting justice, for setting the seal
on vision and prophet, and for anointing the Especially Holy Place. 25Know,
therefore, and discern that seven weeks [of years] will elapse between the
issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Yerushalayim until an anointed
prince comes. It will remain built for sixty-two weeks [of years], with open
spaces and moats; but these will be troubled times. 26Then, after the sixty␂two weeks, Mashiach will be cut off and have nothing. The people of a
prince yet to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, but his end will
come with a flood, and desolations are decreed until the war is over. 27 He
will make a strong covenant with leaders for one week [of years]. For half of
the week he will put a stop to the sacrifice and the grain offering. On the
wing of detestable things the desolator will come and continue until the
already decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator."
I sort of chuckle at this extended passage because the Angel Gabriel says: "I
have come now, Daniel, to enable you to understand this vision clearly." Well, it
seems to me that for Daniel and for us Gabriel's explanation is about as clear as
mud. It most certainly tantalizes our thoughts, and adds some pieces to the
puzzle. So when taken alongside Daniel's recorded thoughts of his chapter 7, we
can extract a bit more information that aids with the timing of this event that
Gabriel is speaking about.
Before we go there, I need to resurrect some things that I've spoken about from
lessons in other Bible books I've taught on, so that perhaps you can better
understand what you may have already read in Bible study books or even heard
from pulpits, about the profound nature Book of Daniel, and why it matters so
greatly to a proper faith in Christ and what our future looks like.
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
Close to 3 decades ago as I dove into more serious Bible studies, I began with
the 19th century and earlier European Bible commentators because their works
avoided the modern politics of the reborn nation of Israel (which didn't yet exist in
their day), nor had WWI occurred that would reorder Europe politically and
religiously. So these commentators seemed to be less agenda driven. As I
worked my way up through them and to the mid-20th century commentaries a
noticeable change in tone started to appear in some of them. Their approach
became less a discovery of what God said and how to understand it, and more a
doubt of the veracity of the Bible. As I progressed into commentaries and
monologues written in the last third of the 20th century, a new breed of authors
emerged who clearly are not Believers (although most don't outright admit it).
These certain authors proved to be more than skeptical about the authenticity of
the Bible... or at least parts of it. Coincidental with the re-birth of Israel as a nation
of Jews, they also began to weave into their commentaries a not so subtle bent
against the idea of Israel, or at least they amplified the thought that God was
done with Israel and so the modern State of Israel and the Jews who populate it
are a bother to Christian plans and ideals. I suppose, then, that I want you to take
what I'm about to say as quite real but also as a caution that disturbs my peace
to even have to make. But serious Bible students and God worshippers need to
know these things.
I'll remind you that the Prophet Daniel lived during the time of the Babylonian
conquest of Judah; he was one of thousands of Jews carried off to Babylon early
in the 6th century B.C. He even served Babylon's king up in Babylon due to his
business acumen, integrity, and intelligence. Surprisingly not all Bible scholars
accept even this basic premise to be true. It is in vogue among modern and
especially progressive Bible academics of the mid to late 20th and early
21st centuries to contend that the Book of Daniel is essentially a work of fiction,
written around 160 B.C. or a bit later. There are a few reasons they claim this.
One is that they don't accept the basic concept of prophecy. They see it as
primitive mumbo-jumbo that was written after the fact but made to appear as
though it had been spoken before its fulfillment. Their evidence for this? None;
it's no more than a consensus of academic opinion. They don't agree that the
works of the Bible are true as written, or that they are God-inspired. The Bible, for
many of them (not all), is little more than a field of scientific, language, historic or
literary study like Anthropology, or Geology, or Egyptology; a field that interests
them and so has become their career. Many of these same academics whose
works often form the core of the materials used in some of our modern-day
Seminaries and Theological Schools also don't believe in a spirit world and
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
therefore don't believe in God... or at least the God as presented by the Bible.
Another reason that this particular segment of modern-day Bible scholars don't
believe that Daniel is authentic is because the oldest extant copies of the Hebrew
Bible that we have (the Old Testament) were written down about 100 B.C. For
the longest time, the oldest manuscripts we possessed were written in Greek.
This might seem odd except that historical records state that the Hebrew Bible
was first translated into the Greek language around 250 B.C. by scholars that
lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Therefore since there were so many Greek speakers
and readers in the world as compared to Hebrew speakers and readers, far more
copies of the Greek manuscripts were made. So it makes sense that the odds of
our discovering an ancient Bible written in Greek are greater than finding one
written in Hebrew. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, changed
much of the understanding about the ancient Bible; its source and origin. The
dating of the biblical part of those Dead Sea documents traces to around 100
B.C. (about the same time as the Greek Bible documents). The Dead Sea Scrolls
however were written in Hebrew, not Greek. The contention of these particular
scholars is that because these Greek and Hebrew writings are the oldest biblical
documents found to date, then it means that this could be the same time when
the Bible (or parts of it) was first written. Thus, because the entire Book of Daniel
as we have it today is found in both the ancient Greek manuscripts (known in the
academic world as the Septuagint) and in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls, then
this proves to their minds that Daniel had to have been written about that time as
well. This is significant in their view because it indicates to them that much of the
Bible is a fraud or a Jewish myth, and Daniel certainly must be as well.
Of course the reality is that this is what they are predisposed to believe and so
shun all evidence to the contrary. Yet this generally ignores the fact that there is
no evidence or claim by the copiers of these ancient manuscripts that those thus
far found are the original documents; the first edition of the Bible so to speak,
written directly by the hand of the original authors. Copies of the Bible in that era
were all handwritten... and had been for centuries... they had no printing presses
let alone copy machines. Therefore each complete copy was expensive, took
months if not years to make, and there were relatively few created. That
somehow nature has preserved these ancient copied manuscripts written on
animal skins and papyrus from over 2000 years ago is astounding! That the
Greek translation agrees so closely to the Hebrew as found in the Dead Sea
Scrolls is equally astounding as it attests to the careful accuracy and consistency
of transmission of the Bible's precious words over the ages.
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
The Bibles that we all study from today are of course copies of copies of copies
of various translations. But just because your personal Bible wasn't dug up from
the ground of the Middle East 2500 years ago doesn't make it any the less
trustworthy or authentic. Bottom line: if some academics begin with the premise
that there is no such thing as prophecy, then they of course look at the age of
these Greek and Hebrew manuscripts and declare that these must be the original
manuscripts (or very close to it) when the Bible was first written. By believing in
such a way it allows them to say that the fulfillment events that these Prophets
supposedly prophesied had already occurred well before the authors ever wrote
down their so-called prophecies.
I take a view more similar to the mainstream Bible academics of the mid-to early
20th century and before. I support the written historical evidence that the authors
who claim to be the writers of the various Bible books are who they claim to be,
and wrote when they claim they did. There is no doubt that the ancient people
who, over the centuries, hand copied documents as voluminous as the Hebrew
Bible... even if only one book of it... made the occasional spelling error, or
accidentally left out or transposed a word, or some such thing (it's impossible to
imagine it otherwise). As an illustration of my point, if someone were to make a
handmade copy of the original Constitution of the United States of America as
written in 1787 and accidentally made an error or two in the doing, that doesn't
invalidate the rest of it or the Constitution's original authenticity or it's purpose
and meaning, and it won't confuse us (the readers) provided we read the
document in its entirety with knowledge of its context and intent. This is why we
must do the same when studying the Bible... Old and New Testaments... and not
cherry-pick in order to reach a predetermined conclusion.
All that said, we also find that Christ clearly professed His personal trust in the
Book of Daniel. He embraces to Himself Daniel's "Son of Man" concept
throughout His ministry. However some Bible academics dismiss Jesus's words
about the Book of Daniel as His source of the prophecy concerning the
Abomination of Desolation as but the Gospel writer Matthew's over zealous
attempt to put words into Yeshua's mouth that He never uttered. That is, just as
they don't believe in the authenticity of the Old Testament in general, neither do
they believe in the authenticity of the Gospel of Matthew. Why? Because as a
baseline they don't believe in prophecy and therefore essentially don't believe
any book of the Bible can be fully authentic.
So after the unveiling of an uncomfortable reality about modern Bible scholars,
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
let's circle back and understand that what Christ prophesied regarding the
Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place (the Temple Sanctuary),
had indeed already happened once in the past and every Jewish child was as
aware of it as they were of their far more ancient exodus from Egypt. This
desecration happened nearly 2 centuries before Yeshua's time. So since
prophetic fulfillment had already happened, what was it that Christ was alluding
to? I find that the words that He finishes His thought with are the key. He says:
CJB Matthew 24:15 "So when you see the abomination that causes
devastation spoken about through the prophet Dani'el standing in the Holy
Place" (let the reader understand the allusion),
"Let the reader understand the allusion". What does He mean by that? Every
version of Matthew I can find has these same words so we must take them as
original and authentic. Since the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus
Epiphanies was so well known, documented and remembered by the Jewish
people, then the purpose for Christ saying this was for the people to form a
mental picture of this past event that will apply to a similar but later event.
The Daniel chapter 9 passage we looked at confirms the far future nature of the
prophecy because Gabriel speaks about the Messiah being involved in some
way. It is common among Bible academics to say that by invoking Daniel this is
Yeshua's way of warning about the coming destruction of the Temple by the
Romans (which would happen around 35 years after His death). Yet Daniel's
prophecy also predicts that this wicked prince who destroys Jerusalem and the
Temple will first place an image of himself in the Temple sanctuary (the
Abomination of Desolation), and then afterward this prince will himself be
destroyed. Some important pieces of this prophecy did NOT happen with Rome's
destruction of the Temple. The Romans certainly burned it down and dismantled
its stones, but there is no recorded ritual desecration akin to what Antiochus
Epiphanies had so purposely done. The Romans did not set a pagan image (an
Abomination of Desolation) in the Temple sanctuary. Therefore while certain
elements of Daniel's and Christ's prophecies happened in 70 A.D., not all of it did
and so we must see this either as a failed prophecy or it is still ahead of us. And,
to the point of this lesson, this future Temple desecration necessarily involves the
existence of a 3
rd Temple because Temples 1 and 2 were destroyed.
For centuries the assumption within the Church has been that this evil prince that
places an Abomination of Desolation in the Temple is the Anti-Christ of the End
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
Times... I thoroughly agree. But 3 things must happen for this to become a
reality. First, Israel must be re-born and exist as a nation. That became a reality
in 1948. Second, Jerusalem must return as a Jewish held city... the capital of
Israel. But also the Jews must be in control of the Temple Mount. The necessary
first part of this happened in 1967, but the second part has not come about. The
Temple Mount is by international agreement (including Israel's concession to it)
under the control of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf. Third, the Temple must be given
the international go-ahead to be re-constructed and it seems by most accounts
that the location of the Temple must be where the current Islamic holy sight, the
Dome of The Rock, currently stands. There is no situation on the horizon that
would seem to allow for the removal of that Islamic shrine, although many
modern-day Christian prophets predict an earthquake will destroy it making way
for a new Temple.
Since we know from the Bible that before Messiah returns the Temple must exist
and be in operation (including Levite Priests doing altar sacrifices), the Anti-Christ
must also be in power and he must declare himself to be god and to go so far as
to desecrate that new Jewish Temple (in a repeat of Antiochus Epiphanies'
terrible act), then it seems to me that currently it would be premature to claim that
we are living in the End Times since none of that has happened.
Let's re-read verses 15 - 22 to uncover some more information.
RE-READ MATTHEW 24:15 - 22
The pace of what will happen in the End Times apparently is going to quicken
once the Anti-Christ is revealed for who he is. Thus those who are eye witness to
the Anti-Christ placing an image in the Temple, those Jews living in Judah, are to
flee to the hills. Verses 17-20 heighten the urgency of a race for safety using
mostly terms that are appropriate for 1st century times. That is, if a person is on
the roof of their home, they are not to even take a moment to grab some clothes
or provisions. People of modern times in Judah (Israel) won't be on their roofs.
Roofs in ancient times were but another room of the house. The roofs were flat
and sturdy. In hot weather people would sleep on them. They were sometimes
used as the family dining room, or as a space to gather for conversation or even
as a place to host guests. Next this passage speaks of someone working in the
field; they must not even take the time to rush home to get a coat. So whether
one is at home or at work, minutes will matter if one is to save his or her own life.
This smacks of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt when it was so hurriedly done...
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
but even more so of Lot fleeing from Sodom. Later, many Jewish Believers fled to
Pella when the Romans began their sacking of Jerusalem because they took
Yeshua's warning in this passage to mean that event.
Running away means that some kind of travel is involved. If a person is all by him
or herself, it will be easier for them than it will be for a pregnant woman (who
probably also has other children that need her) or for a woman that is still nursing
her infant because of the complexities that children necessarily add to a journey.
Thus are added the words in verse 20 that one must hope this doesn't happen in
the winter; again, wintertime brings more complexities and the need to gather
extra clothing. Further, in Judea rain is a winter event and at altitude, snow is
common. One is also to hope that the Anti-Christ doesn't double down on his
desecration of the Temple by choosing a Sabbath on which to do it (but I imagine
he could well choose it to be on a Sabbath to further mock God and inflict
surprise on the Jewish people). Sabbath, being a holy day of ceasing, will in
some ways leave the Jews even less prepared (and probably more hesitant to
travel) than the other 6 days of the week. After all, it is Jewish Tradition that one
is to travel no further than a Sabbath Day's walk on the Sabbath... which
generally speaking is within the boundaries of the town in which one resides.
Thus to flee to the hills will be felt as violating God's Sabbath laws (especially for
the more observant Jews).
Of course to Yeshua's listeners and Matthew's readers these words from Jesus
eliminate any possibility that He could possibly be talking about something from
the past. There is also the strong hint of something else that will be said outright
later: Yeshua doesn't know when this will happen. Verse 21 sums things up in a
rather general way. In the CJB the verse begins "for there will be trouble..."
Nearly all other English versions say something more familiar:
KJV Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since
the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
The Greek word that the CJB translates as trouble and all other versions
translate as tribulation is thlipsis. The Greek lexicons explain this word literally
means a pressure from something being pressed together. But when it is used as
a metaphor, it refers to oppression or affliction. Here in verse 21 the modifier
"great" precedes "tribulation". That is, it says "great tribulation". OK; let's examine
what amounts to a Christian myth. Most any standard study of the End Times at
some point speaks of The Tribulation and The Great Tribulation. These two terms
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
are usually capitalized and presented as referring to two different named events
in Redemption History. The Tribulation represents a specific event where things
get really bad; The Great Tribulation represents a specific and separate event
when things are even worse than the human mind can imagine. The reality is that
the article "the" isn't present before either term and the better translations don't
include it. So there is no such thing as The Tribulation or The Great Tribulation.
They are not names or titles of events. Rather it is like saying you will experience
pain and then later even more pain. So here Yeshua is saying that around the
time the Abomination of Desolation occurs the world will see great affliction and
oppression, in general. In fact this period of affliction will be worse for earth's
inhabitants than has ever been known since the earth was formed at its
Beginning. And (thank the Lord), it will never be repeated. This is yet another
prophecy taken from Daniel.
CJB Daniel 12:1 "When that time comes, Mikha'el, the great prince who
champions your people, will stand up; and there will be a time of distress
unparalleled between the time they became a nation and that moment. At
that time, your people will be delivered, everyone whose name is found
written in the book.
Daniel speaks of it a little more hopefully than Yeshua does. Daniel says that as
bad as it will be, deliverance will be born out of it, although he also says that not
everyone will be delivered; only those whose names are found "written in the
book" (presumably meaning God's Book of Life). Yeshua on the other hand
merely says that when the peak of the troubles arrives and when it seems that
not a human being on earth could possibly survive it, the time will be cut short for
the sake of those who have been chosen. First, what is it that limits the time of
such great affliction? Not stated. It is concluded by most scholars (and I concur)
that this must be speaking of divine intervention. This seems the most logical
conclusion due to the stated concern that for the sake of "the chosen" the period
of these great troubles is shortened. Many English versions use the term "the
elect" instead of "the chosen". Mark's Gospel puts it this way:
CJB Mark 13:20 Indeed, if God had not limited the duration of the trouble, no
one would survive; but for the sake of the elect, those whom he has
chosen, he has limited it.
So Mark uses both "the elect" and "the chosen". A good question might be: how
are the days shortened, and who are the elect? Obviously God is in control over
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
this time of trouble on earth that defies any ability to properly describe it. So does
that mean that in some way He cuts short the number of days or weeks that He
foreknows this trouble will go on if He doesn't intervene? Or does He accomplish
this by literally shortening the length of a day (does a day becomes less than 24
hours... might the spin of the earth be caused to speed up)? Could it be that the
intangible sense that we humans have of time speeds up? I have heard young
and old speak about how fast time seems to be flying in the 21st century, and in a
very real sense. A long or short amount of time is often not perceived by humans
by using the objectivity of a clock or a calendar, but rather by how it feels to us. I
really don't have a strong sense of which of these Christ may be alluding to.
As for the issue of identifying the chosen: the chosen...the elect... seems to be
referring to a group as opposed to individuals. Those that form a group called
"the elect" have been hand-selected (chosen) by God. He decides. Jesus doesn't
at this time address the criteria used on how to be one of the chosen in order to
join the elect. In fact, biblically speaking, the terms the elect and the chosen are
rather hazy. When we look to the Old Testament for guidance, probably the best
place is Psalm 105. Verses 6 and 43 use the Hebrew word bachiyr, which in
English is best translated as chosen. It seems to always refer to the Hebrew
people in some way. I suspect that as with so much else Yeshua speaks, He
says it in a meaning that is applicable in both the p'shat and in
the remez senses, with the first referring to something immediate or that is
surrounding Him and in the second sense as something that manifests itself in a
deeper sway or at a later time. If this is the case (and I believe it to be), then in
the p'shat sense the tribulation that spoken of is meant as something that
happens locally in the Holy Land, and the chosen are meant as Jewish Believers
that live there. However in the remez sense the tribulation is meant as something
that manifests itself in a larger all-encompassing way globally, and so the chosen
refers to all Believers in Yeshua, gentile and Jew that together form the elect.
Gentiles, we must always remember that the language and the setting for the
Bible in general, and for the End Times in particular, is primarily Israel-centric.
What happens in Israel may spread beyond its borders, but the main action
begins there. The people God deals with may involve Gentiles, but it always
begins with and is focused mostly at Hebrews... members of the 12 tribes of
Israel. Odd how the Christian Church has turned this biblical reality on its head.
The problem with such a doctrine is that it teaches Christians the wrong things to
look for, as well as the wrong places to look.
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
Let's read a few more verses in Matthew 24.
RE-READ MATTHEW 24:23 - 28
Verse 23 begins with "at that time". At what time? This must be connected with
the times of the greatest afflictions and oppressions on earth that happen in
conjunction with the Anti-Christ desecrating the Temple. I think we need to be
cautious and not try to add too much Western-style precision to the meaning. We
should not think in terms of: OK, on Sunday the Anti-Christ announces He is god.
On Monday he desecrates the Temple; so before Tuesday the Jews of Judah
must flee for the hill country, etc. Some of this is going to happen in a serial order
(that is, one thing causes the next thing to happen), other things will probably
happen in parallel. And one of the things that is going to happen in parallel with
these other bad things is that false Messiahs will appear claiming to be the true
Messiah, and false prophets will arise that actually can do amazing miracles...
but they won't be doing them by the power of God, but rather of the Adversary.
I must speak of something that I've encountered for a number of years, now,
because I see it as having direct bearing on this warning from Yeshua about false
Messiahs. We cannot and must not think we can believe in any old Christ... any
old Jesus... any old Savior of our pleasurable imaginings. The biblical Jesus is
the only Jesus who saves and He is the sum of all His attributes... not just the
ones we like. One way of expressing this is to speak of a search for the authentic
or historical Jesus, which common sense says begins with the fact that He was a
Jew. I have shared in past lessons about a time many years ago that I was
teaching a multi-week seminar in which my opening words the first evening were
"Christ was a Jew". I left those words hanging in the air for a few seconds
because I knew the impact it would have on a few in my Evangelical audience. I
noticed some people shifting in their seats, but also an older man in the back of
the room leaned over to his wife and mouth the words to her "that's not true". He
and his wife stayed until the first break and didn't return to the classroom for the
next session. The next week class resumed and the wife showed up, but her
husband didn't. The following week he was back. As the seminar resumed and I
was about to speak, he raised his hand and asked if he could say something;
with much trepidation I called on him. He proceeded to confess that he had been
a Christian all his life, and had gone to Church for many, many years, but in all
that time it never occurred to him that Jesus was a Jewish man. He went home
from that 1
st evening, searched his Bible and after a couple of weeks proved that
simple statement to himself. But at first, it had unnerved him. It turns out Christ
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
was someone quite different than he had thought He was, and was ready to learn
about Him.
I suppose I'm sensitive to this because when a teacher long ago had
unexpectedly opened my eyes to this indisputable fact, it unnerved me. But once
I got over it, suddenly the door was open to thinking about Christ in a different
way. Naturally, who Yeshua is goes far beyond the simple ethnic reality that He
was a Jew, born to a Jewish mother and his non-biological but, nonetheless,
earthly Jewish father Joseph. Probably because of the recent rise and impact of
the Hebrew (or Jewish) Roots of Christianity movement, there's been a growing
push-back in some sectors of the traditional Church because the idea of a
thoroughly Jewish, Torah observant, Hebrew speaking Jesus that loved His
people has implications that threaten centuries of Traditions and doctrines that
aren't only woven into the fabric of the Church, they are the cement of the
foundation of it. Thus terms like "the historical Christ" or "the Jewish Jesus" can
be fighting words to some. I'm here to tell you that we all better be searching for
the authentic historical Christ or we're going to discover a false Messiah instead,
and be none the wiser. It may even lead to our eternal doom. In fact, Yeshua
promises it.
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
I have news for you: these false Messiah's Yeshua is warning us about are going
to be VERY convincing to Christians. They'll probably know Scripture like few do.
They'll likely have an aura of goodness surrounding them and speak in a warm
and gentle way that is utterly disarming. What I can easily predict is that each
one of them will NOT be seen as going against the mainstream of Christian
beliefs about the Messiah, but rather will seem to be the embodiment of them. If
those false Messiahs did otherwise, they'd be quickly rejected. So by what
standard will belief or disbelief of these false Messiah's be judged? No doubt for
many (most?) it will be according to what they think they know about Christ, and
much of that will be according to the Traditions and doctrines they have been
taught about Him; comforting and familiar images that these false Messiahs...
clever wolves in nearly undetectable sheep's clothing... are well aware of and will
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Lesson 82 - Matthew 24 cont 3
attempt to fulfill. These false Messiahs along with false Prophets (that in some
cases will likely join together to achieve either their intentional deceptions or to
carry out their self-delusions) are going to be so good at what they do that
Yeshua says in verse 24 they would fool the chosen (those that are part of the
elect group)... if it were possible.
Next time we are going to speak about the inoculation of Believers against the
deadly virus of the deception of false Messiahs that are guaranteed to be part
and parcel of the End Times.
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 83, Chapter 24 Continued 4
For the majority of New Testament commentators, the explanation of Matthew
chapter 24 is among the most (if not the most) extensive required of all the
Gospels combined. The main reason is because Yeshua speaks so considerably
about the future and the End Times (what academics call eschatology). That He
speaks from a 1
st century Jewish mindset, using vocabulary and illustrations that
reflect the common culture of that era, makes it all the more challenging.
Therefore, it should not be a surprise that we are in our 4
th lesson on Matthew 24
and have yet to reach the halfway point of a teaching He gave that is so
consequential to our faith in God and to our spiritual well-being.
In a previous lesson I poked a little fun at the modern age fictional writers'
visualizations and characterizations of the Rapture as Christians suddenly flying
up into the air, leaving their clothing behind, to make a point. The point was that
in every age as we strain to know what some of these future events that Christ is
speaking about are going to look like, the odds that we'll be correct are small.
What I spoke about concerning the Rapture is the late 20th and early 21st century
version of it. But certainly, such a visual as that one had never before that time
existed, and likely in a few years or decades from now it will change again. While
some amount of modest speculation about the actual manifestations of these
several End Times events such as the Rapture is only human, we must be
cautious not to mix those speculations with biblical fact. Nor should we expand
too much upon the frustratingly little biblical detail provided about the End Times
in a way that seals our expectations in stone such that when those events finally
do occur, we risk rejecting them because they don't fit our preconceptions. That
is exactly what Yeshua had been battling since the beginning of His earthly
ministry. The Jews of His day had drawn mental images derived from evolving
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
Traditions about the Messiah, and out of that came their messianic expectations,
and for the most part they had it wrong. So, when God's Messiah did
arrive... something they desperately wanted and prayed for... most of them could
not accept it. Let's be careful that we don't do likewise.
Back in verse 3 the questioning Disciple asks Christ WHEN the things of the End
Times will begin to happen and what the SIGN of them will be so that people can
know. Yeshua responds as He always does with first things, first. Most
importantly, He says, is to "Watch out and don't be fooled", and then goes on to
explain why and how people ARE going to be fooled and run after false Messiahs
and false Prophets. Further He explains what are NOT the signs of the End; such
things as wars and famines, nations fighting against one another, ethnicities
battling one another, earthquakes and other calamities all around the world.
Persecutions, even murder, of Believers in Yeshua will be part of it. But none of
these are the signs that the End has come.
Thus, much of chapter 24 is spent laying out what does and does not signal the
End Times, and that Believers are to be hyper-vigilant not so much about world
events (which Yeshua says are but inevitable distractions) but rather about the
rise of false Messiahs and false Prophets.
Magicians (the stage kind, not the spiritual charlatans), in revealing how they
accomplish such pleasing tricks, will all tell us that while we are focused on what
his one hand is doing, it is the other that is the important one. The one hand that
grabs our attention is really but a feint... a distraction... so that we don't see what
is really going on with the other. It works because of how human brains work, and
how we process and filter what our senses take in. This is a good illustration of
what Yeshua is getting at; all these noisy and scary events will absorb our
attention; but in reality, they are just a distraction. What we really need to be
watchful for are the false Messiahs and false Prophets who, like politicians will
say, never let a good crisis go to waste. False Messiahs and false Prophets
thrive on such opportunities, preying on our fears and worries, and can ruin our
spiritual lives by filling our minds with wrong information, wrong thoughts, wrong
expectations; and very quickly we find ourselves putting our faith in a god or a
deliverer of their or our own making; a god that isn't the God and Messiah of the
Bible. This can be most difficult to recover from once we head down that road,
which is why Yeshua is so concerned about it.
By the time we get to verse 24, Yeshua is still warning about how from the
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1
st century onward Believers will be faced with all sorts of distractions and
charlatans, and tells us how we can avoid being taken in and thus perhaps even
removing ourselves from membership in the Kingdom without realizing what our
choices have done. My final words of our previous lesson were that I would tell
you how you can be inoculated against the virus of deception as these false
Prophets and false Messiahs come and go. Yeshua deals with just that in these
verses. Let's re-read a short section.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24:23 - 28
Christ says we are not to pay any attention to someone who excitedly and
sincerely tells us that the Messiah has returned and he's over here or over there.
And in fact, there will be unusual men who can do what they say they can do;
impossible things that can only be taken as miracles. It's not just that we're not to
fall for it as a work of God; it's that we are to dismiss even the person who tells us
that the Messiah has come and tells us who he is and where he is, because that
person is dangerously deceived. Let's think about this for a moment: is it going to
be pagans and those who clearly don't worship the God of Israel telling others
that the Messiah has arrived? Of course not. These folks aren't looking for a
Messiah; something they know nothing about. It is ONLY going to be Christians
and Jews who will be the deceived and some will become the deceivers. In our
time there is a man, Rabbi Schneerson, whom many Orthodox Jews believe is
the Messiah, even though he died in 1994. Yet those who are most devoted to
him believe that he'll return to them. He led the large Jewish sect called Chabad;
but the belief that he was Messiah was not accepted by all its members and so
this caused an acrimonious split of Chabad. So, the sort of thing Yeshua is
speaking about is not hypothetical or unlikely.
In Yeshua's era within normal conversation, the term prophet meant anything
from a teacher of God's written Word to a seer of the future. In fact, in the New
Testament the term prophet is regularly applied to those who interpret and teach
the Holy Scriptures. This is how we should understand it. So, in our day if Yeshua
were standing among us, He would use the term prophet mostly meaning Bible
teachers, Pastors and Rabbis unless He was speaking about a particular biblical
Prophet or prophecy. What is a false Prophet? Generally speaking, we should
understand that as meaning a Bible teacher, a Pastor or a Rabbi that
misrepresents God or His Word. This is not about simple unintended error or
accidentally saying one word when another is meant (something that everyone
who teaches God's Word will do from time to time). This is about those who are
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(or claim to be) God-worshippers that either knowingly teach doctrines of men as
though they were commands of God, or they teach from God's Word but
intentionally don't do so truthfully in order to fulfill an agenda. Where the line falls
between ignorance and a willful intention to teach falsely in God's eyes I don't
know; but I do know that God holds prophets to a higher standard of accuracy
and truth than He does for listeners, students, and laymen.
In fact, says Jesus in verse 24, the things said and done by these false Prophets
and false Messiahs will be so amazing that even the chosen would be fooled... if
possible. "If possible". So why can't it be possible for the elect to be fooled if that
is exactly the people Yeshua is warning? To begin, some of your Bibles won't say
"the chosen" but rather will say "the elect". I want to be careful not to over
analyze these 2 terms and find a distinction without a difference; but when we
turn to Mark 13 verse 20, we find both the words chosen and elected used. The
first (chosen) is the Greek work eklektos and the second is the Greek
word eklego (elect). Clearly these are 2 related terms but they do have slight
differences in meaning. Eklektos seems to refer to the status of a group
while eklego seems to refer to the individual whom God selected. In Matthew
24:24 the Greek word is eklektos... so the status of that group is "the chosen".
Therefore, my interpretation is that to say that even the group of Believers could
be deceived, if possible, is to refer to the congregation of Believers... the chosen
group... as opposed to individual Believers that were selected to become part of
the group.
While this may not answer, yet, why it is not possible to fool the eklektos... the
group of Believers... it seems to me that Yeshua is building on what was said in
the Torah in the Book of Deuteronomy, which effectively deals with the same
matter.
CJB Deuteronomy 13:1-6 "Everything I am commanding you, you are to take
care to do. Do not add to it or subtract from it. 2 "If a prophet or someone
who gets messages while dreaming arises among you and he gives you a
sign or wonder, 3 and the sign or wonder comes about as he predicted
when he said, 'Let's follow other gods, which you have not known; and let
us serve them,' 4 you are not to listen to what that prophet or dreamer says.
For ADONAl your God is testing you, in order to find out whether you really
do love ADONAI your God with all your heart and being. 5 You are to follow
ADONAI your God, fear him, obey his mitzvot, listen to what he says, serve
him and cling to him; 6 and that prophet or dreamer is to be put to death;
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because he urged rebellion against ADONAI your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from a life of slavery; in order to
seduce you away from the path ADONAI your God ordered you to follow.
This is how you are to rid your community of this wickedness.
Notice the final words in this passage that speak of ridding the community of
wickedness. What precedes those final words, then, concerns the community as
a whole... as a group... as opposed to selected individuals. In the Torah, Israel is
the eklektos... the chosen group. And just as Jesus warns in Matthew, also in
Deuteronomy God says there will be false prophets that arise among Israel that
will do miracles (give signs and wonders), and when they do (when they grab
everyone's attention) some of them might even say to follow and serve other
gods. Who will these false prophets be? Pagans? Gentiles? Outsiders? Heavens,
no! They will be Israelites because they will have some amount of standing
among their brethren that they would even bother to listen to them in the first
place. However, says Deuteronomy 13:5, if you will obey God's commandments
(the Law of Moses) and serve the God of the Torah, then you will see through a
false prophet because what he says won't match God's Word. That is, God's
Word is the standard to measure everything else by. Even more, God says we
are to take these false prophets (those who teach things that go against the
Torah) and put them to death because this is the only way to purge such
dangerous wickedness from the community (from the eklektos... from the
chosen group). So how do we apply and use Matthew 24:24 and Deuteronomy
13:1 - 6 in our time? Obviously, in our day, we can't put a false Bible teacher,
Rabbi or Pastor, to death. But... we can know God's Word, and cling to it, and
thus discern when we are hearing false words of men. And when we follow
doctrines of men that virtually countermand the Words of God, and in the so
doing still claim we are following God, we are living in a deception. We have
given ourselves over to a false god... a god we have not known. Why is that?
Because false doctrines of men can ONLY teach us to construct and follow a god
of our own imagining that by definition is not the God of the Bible no matter how
wonderful, lovely, satisfying and spiritual sounding those doctrines might be.
I can only conclude then, that the truly chosen group... the eklektos... are those
who don't just claim God, but know God and His Word, and obey it. For these, it
is not possible to be fooled. Knowing God's Word and shunning the doctrines of
men are the active ingredients in the vaccine to prevent us from being infected
with deception. Knowing God's Word means to trust and obey His Word from
Genesis to Revelation. There can be no part of God's Word that we can set aside
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
because then God's Word is incomplete and it opens us up to deceptions that
claim to fill in the gaps. Those whom God has chosen are more than those who
only claim trust in Jesus; they (we) must sincerely believe His Word and actively
obey it. Otherwise, we are going to be deceived and false beliefs will likely
prevent us from being part of the chosen.
If this doesn't convict you in your spirit to get serious about knowing God's
Word... from beginning to end... and obeying it... then if nothing else I hope it
scares you into it out of self preservation.
Verse 25 continues with where we should NOT look for Christ when He returns.
He says don't search for Him in the desert or in a secret room. The idea being
expressed here is not about a list of specific places to not look for him if someone
says that's where He is. Rather it is that His return is going to be public and
highly visible. Don't listen to rumors. Rather His return will be like lighting flashing
across the sky; everyone that is looking up cannot avoid seeing it. In fact, even
those not looking will notice it because the light is so brilliant and the thunder so
loud. Although it can be tempting to try to draw some hints or mysterious
meanings from the phrase "like lightening that flashes out of the east and fills the
sky to the western horizon", I don't think it is there to flesh out. Yeshua is making
a simple metaphor that ought not be overly analyzed. His return can be
compared to lightening and thunder that is impossible to miss whether it is a
welcome and expected event or not.
His return will be so unlike His first coming when He came into this world
privately and quietly, born in the guest area of a house. The celestial sign of His
arrival was a star that moved silently through the night sky and only a few even
noticed it. A handful of local shepherds in the tiny rural town of Bethlehem were
treated to a chorus of angels announcing the coming of their Messiah; but that
was the extent of those who immediately knew of this world changing event. But
when Jesus returns, at the least the entire land of Israel will learn of it all at once,
and perhaps the extended region or even the whole planet will witness it.
Next Christ says something that must be an expression rather than some kind of
a prophecy. He says that where ever there's a dead body you'll find vultures.
That's cheery. As with the lightening metaphor, this is another illustration using
something known and obvious. If something dies out in the open, it is inevitable
that very quickly vultures will be circling overhead. Conversely when you see
vultures circling overhead, clearly there's something dead laying on the ground.
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Death and vultures are inseparable companions and one doesn't have to look for
an alternate reason for their presence. After this, Yeshua begins a new phase of
His End Times instruction. Let's read a little more.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24:29 - 35
After describing what Christ says is "the trouble" of those days (meaning
everything that He's warned of up until now), something else will happen. That is,
now that the End Times is underway, here's what happens next.
The CJB says "the trouble of those days"; nearly all other English translations
say "the tribulation" of those days. I don't want to pound the drum too loudly with
something we've already covered, but the words "the tribulation"... even though
the definite article "the" is present in this case... doesn't mean it in the sense of a
set apart and named event. It's more like saying "the pain I'm in". The pain is not
a set apart and named event; it's just common English grammar and syntax
explaining you are in pain. The point is that Jesus is announcing the coming
climax of the end of this stage of Redemption history. This means that the
fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven to its completion is about to happen. The
entrance into the 1000-year reign of Christ is about to begin with all the people in
the world under the government of Yeshua, and so at least for a time the only
people left alive will be righteous God-Worshippers.
Here is some food for thought: the length of the time of suffering (tribulation) that
Jesus says that the Father is going to cut short, is left unspecified. It might be
that the Daniel timeline where he speaks rather cryptically about weeks of years,
and a time, and times, and half a time might come into play here concerning this
period of suffering and affliction. Our own Baruch Korman of Seed of Abraham's
Lovelsrael.org ministry makes a good case that it does (so I recommend that you
listen to his teaching on the subject). Yet this is another item that some Believers
are so certain can be counted down nearly to the second when it begins and
ends; I am skeptical about it. In defense of my position on this, in just a few more
verses Yeshua says that He doesn't know when God will return Him. And since
His return is directly timed to the end of this indeterminate period of tribulation
(suffering and affliction) it seems to me that if Daniel's timeline was meant to
directly correlate to this, then Christ wouldn't express such a lack of knowledge
on the timing of the sequence. But, you be the judge of it.
Verse 29 continues with what some Bible scholars say is a paraphrase of the
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Prophet Joel, but I see it more as a conflation of several biblical prophecies
(including Joel) that Yeshua has borrowed from that no doubt remind those He's
speaking to of some of those ancient prophecies. Here's a small sampling:
CJB Isaiah 13:10 For the stars, the constellations in the sky, will no longer
give their light; the sun will be dark when it rises; and the moon will no
longer shine.
CJB Joel 2:10 At their advance the earth quakes, and the sky shakes, the
sun and moon turn black, and the stars stop shining.
CJB Amos 8:9 "When that time comes," says Adonai ELOHIM, "I will make
the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
Later John will echo the same prophecies.
CJB Revelation 6:12 Then I watched as he broke the sixth seal, and there
was a great earthquake, the sun turned black as sackcloth worn in
mourning, and the full moon became blood-red.
There are additional prophetic passages as well that express the same idea. Just
as earlier we're told that Yeshua's return will be seen by all in a way that people
will understand either their doom or their deliverance has just arrived (even if it's
little more than an emotion or an instinct among the doomed), so will the
workings of the entire cosmos herald Yeshua's reappearance and the end of the
age. Whether the happenings in the sky occur immediately upon Yeshua's
coming, shortly after, or as a sign of it we probably can't know; but regardless of
a precise or serial sequence we can say that these several events happen in
concert. Paul takes this teaching of Christ a step further and no doubt he also
incorporates thoughts that the Jewish intellectuals and teachers had taught him
long before he knew Jesus. We read about it in the Book of Romans.
CJB Romans 8:19-23 19 The creation waits eagerly for the sons of God to be
revealed; 20 for the creation was made subject to frustration- not willingly,
but because of the one who subjected it. But it was given a reliable
hope 21 that it too would be set free from its bondage to decay and would
enjoy the freedom accompanying the glory that God's children will
have. 22 We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as
with the pains of childbirth; 23 and not only it, but we ourselves, who have
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to
be made sons- that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free.
Truly the longer God allows me to live I cannot help but notice that all Creation is
bound up together as one great, integrated unit (which is really the meaning
behind our calling the vastness of space and all that exists a Universe). All of
God's Creation... spiritual and physical... energy and matter... was by design
made interdependent to work co-operatively in perfect harmony. Therefore, all its
parts and elements also suffer together, as a unit. This is not to say that humans
aren't different from rocks and trees and even stars and energy in a hierarchy of
purpose and importance to God. But over time science has coined terms like
ecosystem to explain their recognition of a clear interdependence of entire
systems of life, any part of which if interrupted affects the whole. Paul, kind of a
1
st century combination of C.S. Lewis and Sir Isaac Newton, recognized this
reality, and that God through the ancient Prophets had spoken about the
Universe in terms of mysterious interactions, and so decay and thus finite
longevity of the Universe is directly tied to the fall of human kind into sin and
death. What happens with man affects the Universe, and what happens with the
Universe affects man. Thus, it is to be expected that as wickedness reaches its
zenith on earth, and as Christ returns to purge the earth of it, it means that as a
new chapter of Redemption History approaches of course the cosmos will
participate in it as well.
Verse 30 continues with Yeshua using thoughts from the ancient Prophets by
saying that when the Son of Man appears (when Christ returns in awesome and
terrifying fashion), all the tribes of the Land will mourn. Most English versions say
that "all the tribes of the earth will mourn". There are two distinct and different
meanings that we have to decide between. The term "the Land" is a common one
in the Bible that is shorthand for the Land of Israel. So, is this saying that the
tribes of Israel are going to mourn or that all the tribes of all people all over the
earth are going to mourn? While not a precise quote, Christ's statement is no
doubt taken from Zechariah 12.
CJB Zechariah 12:10 and I will pour out on the house of David and on those
living in Yerushalayim a spirit of grace and prayer; and they will look to me,
whom they pierced." They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only
son; they will be in bitterness on his behalf like the bitterness for a
firstborn son.
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
We also find that John in the Book of Revelation uses this same thought.
CJB Revelation 1:7 Look! He is coming with the clouds! Every eye will see
him, including those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the Land will
mourn him. Yes! Amen!
Although the Greek word that is alternately translated as land or earth is ge,
which can rightly be interpreted either way, why would tribes of people all over
the earth that have no interest in the Jew Yeshua (and that will represent the
majority of people on the planet), mourn over Him? So, these tribes that mourn
must be referring to the tribes of the Land of Israel; not people all over the world.
While this mourning among the 12 tribes will be universal, the reason for the
mourning will not be. Those Israelites that have been trusting in Yeshua will
mourn over the circumstances of His death when their very own people were
complicit in it. The remaining Israelites that to this moment have refused to
accept their Messiah will mourn because their own fates of judgment and the
Lake of Fire have been sealed. Thus, it can be said that all the Tribes of Israel
will, without exception, mourn over Him.
Verse 30 continues with Yeshua remembering Daniel's vision about the coming
of the Son of the Man.
CJB Daniel 7:13 7 kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming with
the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the
Ancient One and was led into his presence.
As part of this incomparable event, "He" will send out angels with a great shofar;
and with that blast the angels will go to gather His chosen from the four winds...
meaning from the entire planet. If the "He" is Jesus (and it hard to take it any
other way), then it seems that He has charge over at least some of the hosts of
Heaven. Later He will reaffirm His command over angels as He hangs on the
execution stake. It will be at the sound of the shofar that the angels are
assembled and set into motion. The Greek word that the CJB translates as
shofar but almost all of English translations say is trumpet, is salpigx. Indeed, it
literally translates to trumpet. However, David Sterns is right that the better
translation is probably shofar (Greek has no word for shofar so translates it to
trumpet).
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
When Israel was ready to go into battle, a ram's horn... a shofar... was used as a
signal. A trumpet was used in the Temple ritual, played by Levites as a musical
instrument. So, a shofar was the equivalent of a bugle that was used in the days
when there were horse soldiers. Different sounding blasts meant for the troops to
do different things. The use of a shofar here also helps to make clear the
meaning at the beginning of the verse about the SIGN of the Son of Man. What is
the sign? Some commentators say that the appearance of the Son of Man is
itself the sign. Some of the fairly early Church Fathers said the sign was a
Christian Cross that would appear in the sky when Christ returned. The reality is
that because this scene is the beginning of the battle of Yeshua to purge the
world of all the wicked powers and governments, then this must have a biblical
war motif in mind.
A shofar was used in conjunction with a battle flag. Sometimes a battle flag in the
Bible is called an ensign, at other times a banner, and sometimes it is translated
to "sign" like it is here. A battle flag worked similarly to a shofar in that it was used
as a signaling system to the troops; such as which troops needed to assemble
where. In far more ancient times, each of Israel's tribes had their own banner or
ensign, and no doubt it was used sometimes to tell where those particular tribal
members were to assemble for battle (in a tribal culture, a tribe usually fought as
single battle unit). Thus this scene is of the angels going to battle at Jesus's call,
being signaled to assemble by the use of an ensign (a sign) and a shofar. But
who are the chosen people that are going to be assembled by the angels?
Despite what I've just told you, by Jesus's day tribalism among Israel had all but
ended. Israel was no longer being assembled tribe by tribe, for battle. The 12
Tribes were dispersed, tribalism had morphed into nationalism, and the tribes
battling foes alongside one another was a thing of the distant pass. So it may be
that while the ensign and the shofar are what Matthew intended to bring to mind
for his Jewish audience, it could as easily be (and I think this is the case) that for
Jews in casual conversation the terms trumpet and shofar had ceased to have
much difference except as regarded Temple ritual. So it might be that we don't
want to get too picky over whether we ought to demand that the term in our
passage is shofar as opposed to trumpet.
As for the chosen people. Here I think the CJB has taken too great of liberties.
The term used is eklektos just as Christ was talking about a little earlier. No
doubt in the P'shat sense this can only be talking about the tribes of Israel (and
this is how His disciples would have understood it); however, in the Remez this
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
expands to (in time) include gentile Believers. Notice I said include and not
gentile Believers replacing Israelites. My reading of prophecy is that the gathering
of the 12 tribes of Israel from around the world is a long process that occurs prior
to the return of Messiah; so, this is something that ought to have already
happened by the time of Yeshua's return. Yet this gathering of the chosen also
seems to include all those that will fight alongside and along with Yeshua. We'll
get into all that in a later lesson.
I want to shift for just few minutes to the use of the trumpet or shofar at the return
of Messiah Yeshua. We have learned that this is going to have direct relationship
to the prophetic, messianic significance of the 7 biblical feasts of the Torah. We
have found that, not coincidentally, all the major works of redemption by Yeshua
have happened upon one of those feast days, and in a specific order. In fact, by
the final chapter of Matthew, of the 7 biblical feasts 4 of them will have been
prophetically fulfilled: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and the Feast of
Weeks (that in English is better known as Pentecost). Literally and precisely,
Christ died on Passover, went into the grave on Unleavened Bread, and arose on
Firstfruits. Next, 50 days later, the Holy Spirit came to indwell Believers on the
Feast of Weeks (Pentecost).
This means that there are 3 feasts remaining to have their redemptive messianic
prophetic meanings fulfilled: The Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Yom Kippur
(the Day of Atonement), and the final feast Sukkot or the Feast of Booths. What
did we just read about? Trumpets (perhaps shofars) being blown to signal
Yeshua's long awaited return, accompanied with hosts of angels. Might this be
the fulfillment of the meaning of the Feast of Trumpets? As with all prophetic
fulfillments that are yet to happen, it is wisest to hold lightly what we think they
are going to look like. However, what we learn from the first 4 prophetic feast
fulfillments is that in imitation of how closely together they are scheduled in the
Hebrew calendar, so were they fulfilled. It took just 4 days for the Passover,
Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits feasts to be totally fulfilled and then only a wait
of 50 days before the 4
th
, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), to be fulfilled. There
has been a 2000-year dormancy as we wait for the 5
th of those feasts to be
fulfilled.
Biblically, the final 3 feasts begin within a short span of 15 days of one
another. Therefore, I think these final redemptive events involving Yeshua will
also begin within 15 days of one another and happen precisely on those feast
days. So, when the clock hits 12 and these things begin to unfold, it's going to
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Lesson 83 - Matthew 24 cont 4
happen at lightening speed. Unless one is well prepared before it starts, no one
will have the time to figure it out. Soon Jesus will use some Parables to make this
exact point.
We'll continue in Matthew 24 next time.
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 84, Chapter 24 Continued 5
Matthew 24:30 says: Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky,
all the tribes of the Land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man
coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power and glory. Last
week we carefully dissected this passage to understand what some of the terms
meant. For instance, what are "the tribes of the Land", which is more often
translated "the tribes of the earth"? We learned that there is much academic
disagreement over the proper interpretation because "tribes of the Land"
indicates the 12 tribes of Israel while "tribes of the earth" is a rather unusual way
of saying everyone on our planet. This was not meant as an either/or situation,
but rather as both, because this is more the way biblical prophecy actually plays
out in reality. Prophecies more often than not carry a double meaning because
they portend a double fulfillment; one fulfillment that is usually relatively soon,
and another that is well into the future. Another feature of the double fulfillment
nature of biblical prophecy is that often the affected group is expanded in scope
as well as the geographical area becoming more extensive. Thus, in the example
I cited two things that will happen as regards our passage, verse 30: the 12 tribes
of Israel will be gathered back to the Holy Land of Israel from their worldwide
exiles (on a physical level) as the final culmination of a long process of
ingathering; and yet on another level so will those who have been grafted-in to
Israel (Believers in Yeshua of all ethnicities) will be gathered spiritually into the
Kingdom of Heaven.
It is also necessary that we back away from this passage far enough to see it as
a historic panorama: Yeshua has just described the event that all Christendom
and all the cosmos yearns for: His own return in power and glory. This also
marks the end of the age (or at least the first moments of the climax of history as
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
we've known it). I put it that way because I have little doubt that these final acts of
the Redemption process will all occur over a very short span of a literal 15-22
days, which is the calendar span of the final 3 biblical feasts. Just as the
Redemptive acts of Yeshua's death, burial, and resurrection, and then the
coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell Believers all happened within a span of about
50 days (depending on how one chooses to count it) so will the final acts of
Redemption happen very rapidly and coincide precisely with the Fall feasts. This
is why our preparation for this event is so critical. Just as when we learn that a
hurricane is on the way there are a precious few hours or days to prepare for its
effects, once it arrives it's too late. It will be that same way the moment that the
sign of the Son of Man appears in the sky; the time to prepare ourselves
spiritually, to have already sincerely repented and accepted Christ into our minds
and hearts for who He is, will have ended. This is why in our passage that the
people of the earth are described as mourning, because those who don't know
Yeshua will instinctively know that their doom for all eternity has come upon
them. Added to those who mourn will likely be Believers because we will know
and love so many that have resisted accepting Messiah... from our own spouses,
to our children and grandchildren, perhaps parents and our dearest friends... who
are as of that moment lost forever.
Now; did Jesus's disciples understand His words as a prophecy of His return as
the Son of Man, coming back to Jerusalem from His heavenly home? Nothing I
read tells me that they did. And it is from this perspective of His disciples not
understanding their Master's meaning... or perhaps not entirely comprehending it
in the fully literal sense that He meant it... that we must understand what remains
for us in the final chapters of Matthew, and as it also appears in Mark and Luke.
Let's re-read a portion of Matthew 24.
RE-READ MATTHEW 24:32 - 42
The remainder of the 24th chapter of Matthew is a series of illustrations Yeshua
uses to get across a few points concerning the several things that will lead-up to
His return as the Son of Man including the event itself. He has yet to discuss
what happens immediately following His return. All of these illustrations stress
awareness and preparedness. This is a type of preparedness that must begin
with trust in Yeshua as the Redeeming Son of Man, but also must include
believing Him when He speaks about things that surely sounded
incomprehensible to His disciples, and remains frightfully so within many of our
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
Churches and Synagogues today. If what He was saying was easily understood,
palatable and acceptable as a true vision of the future, He certainly wouldn't have
been so repetitive and passionate in urging His disciples to listen and obey.
Thus, Yeshua wants us to be acutely aware and on-guard so that we aren't
caught by surprise or fooled by people or events.
The first illustration Jesus presents is that of the fig tree. It involves what is but
common sense if not common knowledge for 1
st century Holy Land Jews. One
doesn't have to be a farmer to know that before a tree produces its fruit, first the
branches sprout and new leaves form, and then only afterwards does those little
nodules of fruit begin to appear. Is there intended symbolism in the use of a fig
tree as opposed to a different kind of fruit tree? Many good Bible scholars and
teachers think there is. Most often if they do detect symbolism in this story, it is
that the fig tree represents Israel; and this comes from the record of chapter 21
when Jesus cursed a fig tree that didn't have fruit on it, and it instantly withered
and died. The usual understanding is that if the fig tree symbolically represented
Israel in chapter 21, so here in chapter 24 it must represent the same. Two
thoughts on this: first, as I showed you when we studied chapter 21, the fig tree
did NOT symbolize Israel as a whole but rather only Jerusalem as the capital of
its religious leadership, hierarchy and ritual. Biblically the Olive tree represents
Israel as a whole. Second, I'm not sure that the fig tree is much more than a
commonly known fruit tree that made for easy illustration at the moment.
Although Yeshua and His disciples were on the hill called the Mount of Olives,
there were nearly as many fig trees there as there were olives. And, since Jesus
was in Jerusalem for Passover (a springtime festival) the figs were in their natural
process of pushing out new leaves and the earliest sign of fruit buds would have
been appearing. In other words, the fig tree was a handy object. I'm skeptical that
the fig tree as used in this illustration is symbolic of anything at all.
Christ quickly gets to the bottom line: when you see the branches of a fig tree
begin to grow tender, and then next the leaves start to sprout, and then finally the
small buds of fruit start to appear (in that order), then clearly because of the well␂known seasonal cycle of figs (as they grow in the Holy Land) all know that
summer is soon to arrive. And, if I'm not taking this illustration too far, we also
must notice and be assured that this process can't be interrupted by any kind of
power, spiritual or human, once started. The annual seasons happen in a specific
order, and the agricultural cycles along with them, regardless of what humans
want or do. Certainly, there are periods of earth history when there are
disruptions to the earth cycles; super hot summers, or too cold of springs, or too
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
little winter rains, which in turn hampers plants in doing what they normally do.
We've had ice ages, and we've had very warm periods over the eons.
Regardless: spring ALWAYS follows winter, and summer ALWAYS follows spring
even in the cold polar regions of earth. And while I doubt the disciples were
thinking in that kind of depth about what Yeshua was saying, sometimes we of
the 21st century who can become preoccupied about the End Times need to put
these concerns on pause long enough to grasp that just as the seasonal cycles
are fixed due to divine order and not accident, so are the Redemptive and End
Times milestones fixed according to divine order. Nothing will interrupt them, and
they will happen in the same fixed order as prophesied, just as do the seasons
and the agricultural cycle of the fig tree. So, these several Redemptive History
milestones Jesus has so far revealed to His disciples that are the legitimate
indicators of the lead-up to the End Times, including the notice that lots of things
like wars near and far-off, and earthquakes, famines and other calamities around
the globe are NOT to be taken as those indicators (and so His followers shouldn't
mistakenly think they are), are illustrated by His use of the fig tree.
Let's not miss an important lesson from verse 33 for us in our time. The words
"WHEN you see these things happen..." means that we will not know where we
are in Redemption History UNTIL we see these things occur. Speculation is
useless; only after the fact will we recognize these things for the signs that they
are. This is a lesson that I try to regularly hammer home (hoping to reduce some
anxieties): the only way we can truly know when prophecy is being fulfilled is to
see it in hindsight. And that is because of our human nature that can not see
even 1 second ahead of us. All we have to go on is the immediate present and
everything that is the past. There are so many intricate puzzle pieces to
Redemption History that a sufficient number have to be properly assembled, in
order, before we can be certain of what we're seeing. Therefore, we are not to
jump to conclusions or to set End Times prophetic Church doctrines in stone. We
simply do not have sufficient information to draw anything like a clear picture.
One thing we do know with certainty is that for the End Times prophetic
fulfillments to truly be entered into, Israel must exist as a physical nation of
Hebrews. Just as for the Anti-Christ to desecrate the Temple, the Temple must
exist in a Jewish controlled Jerusalem. Of these two must-happen events, Israel
DID come back into existence in 1948. But, thanks to centuries of incorrect
doctrines being taught, it mostly went without notice (except by several million
furious Arabs and Muslims). Even now, the significance of it (while starting to be
recognized by an increasing part of the Church) is still often played down or
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misinterpreted. This is exactly the sort of thing that is going to happen as the
signal events of the entrance into the End Times begin. Some who are aware,
and have the proper information, and are patient for enough of it to play out so
that it can be unmistakably recognized for what it is, will be rewarded with
deliverance. Others... including those who regularly attend Church and
Synagogue (and of course those of the world population that worship other gods
or no god at all)... will be oblivious. They will be looking for the wrong things, or
not looking at all, and left out. Let's not be surprised should we be among those
Believers who do recognize what is happening, but will likely be severely
criticized if not outright persecuted for our efforts.
Verse 34 entices us with yet another challenging passage. Yeshua says
that "this people will not certainly not pass away before all these things
happen". Nearly all other than this CJB translation say "this generation will not
certainly not pass away..." Interpreting the Greek genea as "people" instead of
"generation" is a legitimate option, although that is not how the term is usually
used. However, I think both ways are correct because it is typical of prophecy
whereby the fulfillment first happens soon in a limited way to a limited number of
people in a limited geographical setting, and then later in the future happens
again in a much more expansive way, to a larger segment of people in a more
global geographical setting. Now; if you or I were sitting there on the Mount of
Olives intently listening to Yeshua's words, what might we make of what He's
telling us? We'd expect that sometime pretty soon (weeks, maybe months) all
kinds of terrible things were going to happen (even worse than Rome's
occupation of the Holy Land), and include terrifying cosmic events like the sun
and moon growing dark and the lights in the heavens falling. We would think that,
and they did. But, as it turns out Yeshua was talking about events happening on
two horizons: one near, and one far.
Then in verse 35 Yeshua resurrects some language that He used in the Sermon
on the Mount. He says that indeed Heaven and Earth will pass away, but his
words (that is, His teachings) will not. For those who might be new to Seed of
Abraham Torah Class, I'll take a moment to recite to you something that those
who've been with us for awhile have heard numerous times.
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Of the several unmistakable, definitive statements that Christ made at His
Sermon on the Mount, the part that says "I tell you that until heaven and earth
pass away not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah...", the
words of our focus are "heaven and earth pass away". Some Bible teachers say
this is just a Jewish expression meaning something very much like the more
modern English expression "until * freezes over". That is not true; there is no
known Jewish expression of "heaven and earth passing away". Yeshua is talking
about an actual event that is prophesied in the Old Testament and recalled in
Revelation chapter 21.
CJB Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old
heaven and the old earth had passed away, and the sea was no longer
there.
Again: heaven (meaning "the heavens", the Universe) and earth passing away is
an event that actually happens, and that is exactly how Christ meant it in
Matthew chapter 5. He uses it the same way here in chapter 24. His teachings
will remain in effect, alongside those of the Torah, until the foretold event of
Revelation 21 occurs. Let me be clear: Jesus's words did NOT replace the Torah
or the Law of Moses. His words from Matthew 5 and from Matthew 24 in no way
oppose one another; they are the two sides of the same coin.
Then in verse 36 we get some additional information that makes me uncertain
about just how to use Daniel's End Times timeline. Yeshua says that when that
day and hour come (for these several things to happen and then His return) no
one knows. Notice that this lack of knowledge extends not only to the angels in
Heaven, but to Himself. The Father alone holds such knowledge. The theological
and practical implications about this passage are considerable and hotly debated.
Let's address these one at a time.
First, this issue of the words "when that day and hour come". This is meant to
work alongside of the timing Yeshua put forward using the fig tree illustration.
Jesus utilizes the fig tree to make the most basic point that doesn't involve any
precision of time or date; only an order in which these things will happen. That is,
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
in the springtime the fig tree branches grow tender, next new leaves pop out, and
then after that the fruit buds show themselves. Therefore, obviously the summer
is near (because summer always follows spring, and it is always in the spring
when the fig tree does these things). But in verse 36 Yeshua's teaching now
goes from saying that while we can know in the broadest terms the
approximation of what it will look like when the End Times is approaching, we'll
not ever know in advance any details of the events or about the day or hour; a
date and time. That is, no one can say something like: On September 22nd
, in
2025, around evening, Christ will return.
That said, it seems like from what Yeshua has said that as things get very close
to His return, and as more of the prophetic puzzle pieces fall into place (such as
the construction of a new Temple and then later the Anti-Christ desecrating it),
perhaps we'll better figure out just how to insert and utilize Daniel's prophecy that
deals with the timing of it all. Listen to this excerpt from Daniel chapter 12 that is
more a caution than it is information.
CJB Daniel 12:8-13 8
/ heard this, but I couldn't understand what it meant; so
I asked, "Lord, what will be the outcome of all this?" 9 But he said, "Go your
way, Dani'el; for these words are to remain secret and sealed until the time
of the end. 10 Many will purify, cleanse and refine themselves; but the
wicked will keep on acting wickedly, and none of the wicked will
understand. But those with discernment will understand. 11 From the time
the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that causes
desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 How blessed will be anyone
who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. 13 But you, go your way until the
end comes. Then you will rest and rise for your reward, at the end of
days."
Daniel says " I heard this, but I couldn't understand what it meant..." God
responds that knowledge of these things is going to be kept sealed away until the
End. Even today we're still not in much better position to understand the finer
points of the prophetic timing because what is being revealed remains future to
us. So yes on the one hand we will be able to recognize the season we have
entered, but on the other, not much more detail beyond that (although that's not
going to stop some of you from trying). To be blunt, using very much mental effort
and time to figure out exactly where we are in the Redemptive timeline, or to
believe any of us can work out a pretty good handle on when Yeshua returns, is
only going to distract from the important work that God has for His followers right
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
now. It can, as it has for many Christians, destroy our peace and make a few
downright anxious and fearful. Better to take God's words to Daniel and act upon
them: "But you, go your way until the end comes. Then you will rest and rise for
your reward at the end of days". Worry about the things you can control, and the
things you can know, and leave the rest in God's capable hands.
Now for the highly controversial part of verse 36. It is quite interesting that until
the Church Doctrine of the Trinity as is it is defined among many Church
branches was created, this verse really didn't present much of a problem. We
only first hear of the concept of a Trinity Doctrine about the same time the idea of
creating a New Testament was being discussed among gentile Christian
leaders... around 200 A.D. It remained quite contentious until nearly the end of
the 4
th century when it was written into Roman Church law at the Council of
Nicea. Up to then, the mystery of the exact relationship with Father, Son and
Holy Spirit was recognized, but it was not until Nicea that the Church decided on
a specific doctrine of that relationship that all were to adhere to.
When I say the Trinity as defined by many Church branches it is because it
surprises many Christians to learn that there isn't just one, universally recognized
Trinity Doctrine as the early Roman Church hoped to chisel into stone. The devil,
as they say, is in the details. And some of the details date back to a time when
there was a raging debate within Roman Christianity, over and against other
Christianities, regarding the substance of God. So rather than our spending
literally numerous lessons dealing with the several Trinity Doctrines and the
various debates over the substance of God, I'll only address the one that seems
to be the most familiar (and probably most prevalent) in the Western Church
world: the one that says Father, Son and Holy Spirit are co-equal. That is, there
is no hierarchy of authority, and that the unity is so complete among the 3
persons of the Trinity that capabilities, knowledge and wisdom among them are
fully equal. It is the fundamentals of this particular version of the Trinity Doctrine
that has allowed the notion to flourish in some Church branches that the Father
was the Old Testament God who more or less retreated into retirement in order
to allow the New Testament God, Jesus the Son, to take over and replace Him.
Please notice that I'm talking in broad generalities because the variations among
and even within denominations are many and sometimes highly nuanced.
I'll condense the matter down by saying this: the particular Doctrine of the Trinity
that makes God 3 persons, without hierarchy, and of equal status and
knowledge, defies the plain reading of Scripture... including the New Testament.
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
I've asked some folks who believe in that particular version of the Trinity Doctrine
how to square that doctrine with the words of Jesus that He doesn't know when
He's coming back, only the Father knows. The answer is usually that Jesus
chooses not to know. He could know if He wanted to know; but for whatever
reason makes it so that only His Father knows. I must say that such an
explanation leaves me flat. It is, in my opinion, a rather tortured way to uphold a
non-biblical belief that the 3 persons are precisely co-equal even though Christ
regularly prays to the Father (is He therefore also praying to Himself?), asks for
the Father's will to be done (is He therefore asking for His own will to be done?),
and in the Lord's Prayer tells people to pray to "Our Father in Heaven". NEVER
does Christ tell us to pray to Him. When in Heaven, the Son of Man appears
before the Ancient of Days (a well known and undisputed title for the Father), and
the Father tells the Son of Man that He'll get up now, vacate His throne, retire
and turn everything over to Jesus, right? No! He tells the Son of Man to take a
seat at His right hand... which is where kings always put their chief advisor or
second in command.
Therefore, these biblical facts prevent me from accepting the version of the
Trinity Doctrine that claims equality of the 3 persons, or that they all have equal
claim to the same knowledge and wisdom. Where those lines of demarcation
between them precisely fall I do not know (although we get a few general
examples of it in Scripture). At the least, in all instances, the Father is supreme. It
is He who sends His Son and His Holy Spirit to do whatever His will is; never the
other way around. I don't want to belabor this further except to say that the
problem is one that is rooted in trying to satisfy our human desire to want to
comprehend the mystery of God as echad, one, when we are at the same time
presented with the conundrum of declaring that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
are all divine parts of the same God. No earthly representation or example of this
relationship exists nor will it ever, so it will remain a mystery to our human minds
until we no longer exist in this physical world and instead ascend into the purely
spiritual.
Perhaps it is but my simplistic way of going about matters; but I think it may be
best to defer trying to explain, or rationalize, or understand God's substance or
exactly how the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit operate as a unity until we arrive
in Heaven. Rather, in faith, we are to accept it as much as we're biblically
informed about it. We can accept that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
perfectly united and all are divine without accepting that all have identical
capabilities, knowledge and wisdom. There is an obvious and biblically stated
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
hierarchy among them that is not ambiguous. Some may be more comfortable
accepting mystery as mystery than others I suppose. I think the better path is to
pursue that which is knowable versus that which is not. Therefore, we are not
obligated to uphold or defend manmade doctrines from ages ago that didn't make
sense then and still are lacking. In our passages Christ makes it crystal clear that
He is not privileged to know the exact timing of the End Times or when He's
returning; the One who will send Him back does know, but is not sharing this
knowledge.
In verse 37 Yeshua illustrates not the time or order, but rather the circumstances
of His return. He draws an analogy to Noach and the Great Flood. Yeshua
explains it in terms of people going about their normal lives... nothing wicked is
mentioned. People were eating and drinking (not drinking in the sense of getting
drunk, but just normal enjoyment), men were taking wives and women were
becoming wives, and this went on right up until the day that Noah and his family
entered the Ark. Then, because the people didn't see the sign of the times, the
flood waters came and swept them to their deaths. Yeshua says that the prelude
to, and then the culmination of His arrival, will be like that.
Let's not make more out of this than this simple illustration of probably the best␂known Bible story that every Jew knew; perhaps the very first story they were
ever taught as a small child. The mental picture is this: Noah took a very long
time to build a huge ship... years no doubt. It's not imaginable that people didn't
notice and ask him what this strange monstrosity was and why he was building it.
All but Noah's family ignored what God said was going to happen. However,
there is no indication that Noah had any idea of the day and the hour that the
flood would come; he only knew that it would. So, with global doom impending,
and the world oblivious to it, everyone went right on living their usual lives. Every
detail of the Flood story doesn't apply to when Yeshua comes. For instance, we
aren't aware of any specific signs given to the people of the world when Noah
was building his Ark, other than he was building it. We're not told that the people
were warned to prepare; only that they were wicked. All we have is speculation
about what people thought about this Ark project. Nonetheless the point is that
Noah and his family believed God and prepared for the flood. No one else did.
When the defining moment came, it came suddenly; with that first splash of rain
on the ground, the fate of all creatures on earth was sealed. It will be this type of
circumstance and disinterest among people having no sense that something
catastrophic, deadly, and final is about to happen. The difference is that it seems
that in Noah's day the earth's people weren't warned about the coming event, or
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
given signs. But in the future when the Son of Man returns, centuries of notice
has been given, signs and milestones have been erected, and what to do to
prepare has been well outlined. And yet, relatively few will pay any attention and
so will be caught unaware. There will be no second chances.
Verses 40 - 42 describe the suddenness of it all; the lack of awareness of the
earth's population as the Son of Man's returns. The moral of the story is that one
must be prepared for this to happen at any moment, in the blink of an eye, when
we least expect it.
While these 3 illustrations are speaking of mostly the same thing, the emphasis in
the 3
rd one is slightly different. These verses along with some words of Paul form
the foundation of the doctrine of what Christians call The Rapture.
CJB 1Thessalonians 4:16-17 16 For the Lord himself will come down from
heaven with a rousing cry, with a call from one of the ruling angels, and
with God's shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first
to rise; 17 then we who are left still alive will be caught up with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the
Lord.
When combined with what Paul just said, the idea that two men will being
laboring in the field and one is taken and the other left behind, and that two
women will be grinding flour at home and one is taken and the other left behind, it
probably needs to be understood in light of Noah and the Flood. That is Noah
and his family were taken, and the doomed left behind. Interestingly there are
those Bible scholars who see it in reverse; they see the "taken" as the doomed
and the "left behind" as the fortunate ones. Thus, the "taken" ones were swept
away by judgment and the "left behind" ones were the righteous. I can't see the
logic in this. No matter how one stacks this up, those left behind are going to
suffer from all the calamities that occur when God pours out His wrath, and those
taken won't.
It is a foundational biblical principle that God does not pour out His wrath upon
the righteous and the wicked together. God divides, elects, and separates exactly
for the purpose of meting out wrath on the one, and favoring mercy upon the
other. Noah may be the prime and earliest example of this. Therefore, as the End
approaches and God begins pouring out His wrath globally, early in the process
He will protect the millions of righteous on earth in what is really the best and
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Lesson 84 - Matthew 24 cont 5
most logical way: He will remove us from the scene. While the timing of this
removal is a worthy discussion, that's for another day. Right now, I'd like to
address what this removal... this Rapture... is.
Today I think I can say without opposition that the mental image most Christians
have is of Christians either suddenly vanishing en masse, or flying up into the air
just as suddenly. The flying up into the air is quite a new take on the meaning,
and I think is most unwarranted. Vanishing may be closer to it, but that vanishing
isn't really stated. And frankly, if what this meant was for all Believers to suddenly
disappear, that wouldn't be very hard to say in the language of any era.
Assuming some kind of instantaneous vanishing is what happens, is this
speaking of body or soul or both? Could this be a sudden worldwide death of all
Believers, without warning, without fear and without pain, which releases our
souls to Heaven? While there is really nothing more I can add to what this
sudden event will look like, because there really is no more in the Bible to add to
it, the thing we can know is that this event will be unexpected and will occur
without immediate warning. Like the people of Noah's day, the concept of the two
in the field and the two at home amounts to folks (righteous and wicked) going
about their daily affairs as though it was any other day. For the disciples, the
scene Yeshua draws is a familiar one that they view every day; so, there is
nothing very future about it. It's we of the far future from the 1
st century that need
to try to extrapolate what this means for us.
Yeshua issues the bottom line in verse 42: "So stay alert, because you don't
know on what day the Lord will come". And, as He confessed earlier, neither
does He know. Thus, the connecting fiber behind these 3 examples is:
awareness, alertness, and preparedness.
We'll continue next week with Matthew 24.
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 85, Chapter 24 and 25
Verse 42 of Matthew chapter 24 sums up perhaps Yeshua's most indispensable
teaching about the End Times:
CJB Matthew 24:42 So stay alert, because you don't know on what day your
Lord will come.
Awareness, alertness, and preparedness form the recurring theme of what the
mindset and behavior of Christ followers is to be in all ages leading up to His
return as the mighty Son of Man. Sometimes this admonition can get lost in our
endless concerns and debates over such things as the nature of the Rapture,
Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulation theologies, who the Anti-Christ might be, who the 2
witnesses are that appear and then are killed but come alive again, etc. Yet, most
of chapters 24 and 25 deal with the crucial need for individuals remaining
prepared and alert because not only do we not know when the Lord will return,
but neither does He. All this suggests a delay of uncertain length, so Christ's
illustrations and parables in these chapters attempt to instill a healthy fear of
being caught off-guard.
Verses 40 and 41 tell us that while fear is never to be a driving force in our lives,
there is a fear that should never venture far from us; the fear of being left behind
when the Day of the Lord dawns (which it surely will) and Yeshua's Believers are
gathered to Him. But what is it that will cause so many to be left behind? It
certainly can't be only our startled surprise at the moment of Jesus's return, so
something else is at play. Indeed, this is what He is going to flesh out to finish
chapter 24 and then continue into chapter 25. Underpinning it all is this truth that
is front and center in Scripture: it is that our behavior reveals our belief.
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
Let's re-read the remainder of chapter 24.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 24:42 - end
Although the matter of the unexpected thief is not a parable, it is an illustration of
the need to remain alert. As with so many of Yeshua's illustrations we mustn't
pay too much attention to the details but rather we are to notice the point or
points being made. For instance, obviously we are not to compare Yeshua's
return from Heaven to a thief breaking into a home and committing a criminal act.
Rather the point is that if the owner of a house knew in advance when a thief was
coming, obviously he'd be alert, prepared and ready to avert harm to himself and
his family. So also the matter of the owner staying awake at nighttime says that
this suddenness can occur anytime of the day or night. After this quite simple
illustration Christ makes the direct connection of it to Himself when He says
"Therefore you too must always be ready, for the Son of Man will come when
you are not expecting Him". How might we be ready? What does readiness look
like in a Believer? He doesn't specifically say; instead, He rolls right into yet
another illustration.
In verse 45 Jesus begins to piece together the nature of a Believer's readiness
by asking a rhetorical question. When He asks "who is" the faithful and sensible
servant, the meaning is what are the character traits and behaviors that are
displayed by a servant that Yeshua deems faithful and sensible? This particular
servant is put in charge of other servants, so this illustration is speaking of
leaders and leadership. This servant's job is to give those he's in charge of their
food at the proper time. In the Gospel of John Christ uses a similar illustration
when addressing Peter.
CJB John 21:15-17 15 After breakfast, Yeshua said to Shim'on Kefa, "Shim'on
Bar-Yochanan, do you love me more than these?" He replied, "Yes, Lord,
you know I'm your friend." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." 16 A second
time he said to him, "Shim'on Bar-Yochanan, do you love me?" He replied,
"Yes, Lord, you know I'm your friend." He said to him, "Shepherd my
sheep." 17 The third time he said to him, "Shim'on Bar-Yochanan, are you
my friend?" Shim'on was hurt that he questioned him a third time: "Are you
my friend?" So he replied, "Lord, you know everything! You know I'm your
friend!" Yeshua said to him, "Feed my sheep!
Peter had become the leader of the 12 disciples; this is why Jesus specifically
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addressed him with the instruction to feed His sheep. Obviously in the illustration
of the faithful servant the job of feeding the subordinate servants at the proper
time was about food, but feeding was meant more on the spiritual level as a
metaphor for dispensing wisdom and instruction from God's Word. Thus verse
47 says that provided this servant leader does his job (dispensing wisdom and
teaching the truth of God's Word to those he's in charge over), then all will go
well with him when the master of the house comes home. The reward for doing
his job is that the faithful servant leader will be given an even greater scope of
authority; he will be put in charge of all matters of the entire household. Then the
other side of the coin is presented. Should that servant leader not be faithful by
neglecting to feed those he's supervising (this is a metaphor for not teaching
God's Word to them in truth), and he does this because he thinks his master
isn't coming home anytime soon, and he proceeds to abuse his position of
authority by immoral behavior, joining in with drunkards, and generally
mistreating those he is supposed to be caring for, the consequences for him will
be painful and terminal. Yeshua says the person will be cut in two (meaning a
tortuous death), and then in death be placed with the hypocrites (because such a
leader is by definition a hypocrite). This place he will be put is where people wail
and grind their teeth. What this is illustrating is judgment and the consequence of
being sent to the Place of Torments... what Jews is that era often called Gei
Hinnom . what Christians call *.
In the Christian and Messianic community, it is our propensity to think of such
potentially faithless leaders as being our hired Pastors or Rabbis. And while
indeed these positions are included, by no means is that the extent of it. Are you
an Elder? Then you are a leader. Are you the head of a women's Bible study?
Then you are a leader. Are you a Sunday School teacher in charge of children?
Then you, too, are a leader. Accepting the position of a leader in whatever
capacity means that the standard God has set for you is higher and more
consequential than for those who aren't leaders. The rewards for being a faithful
servant leader are great, but the consequences for being an unfaithful servant
leader are severe. And remember who it is that is going to judge all leaders and
decide their fate; none other than the One making this illustration: Jesus the
Christ.
A couple of lessons ago I made a statement that went something like this: we
can't believe in any old Jesus of our imaginings. We must believe in the
historical, biblical, actual Jesus if we are to be saved from eternal death by
trusting in Him. I also said that the real Jesus is the sum of all of His attributes;
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
not only the ones that we sort through and find pleasant. Just like His Father,
Yeshua can offer mercy beyond our ability to comprehend such personal
sacrifice and loving kindness. He can also condemn us to an eternal judgment
beyond our ability to comprehend such horror. Both of those possibilities
represent just some of His attributes that make up His total person. In this brief
illustration of the faithful versus the unfaithful servant leader we see both of these
attributes expressed not as hypotheticals, but as actual actions Christ will take.
It is both fascinating and troubling that some Bible versions have watered down
the final words of this chapter. The statement of the master "cutting in two" the
unfaithful servant (sometimes rendered "cutting into pieces") is translating the
Greek word dichotomeo, which literally means to cut into two. A known method
of especially grisly execution used at times by the Romans, being cut in half is
also the source of our English word dichotomy that means to divide or contrast 2
things. However, the RSV (for instance) translates it to "punish", and the
Young's Literal Translation says "cut off" (meaning to be separated from your
people or from God). Commentators such as Davies and Allison note that clearly
this watered down and incorrect translation is because those particular Bible
translators (likely on account of their sponsors) could not accept a portrayal of
Christ that is so harsh that it offends our traditional Christian sensibilities. This a
good example of creating a Jesus of our own imaginings and ignoring who He
really was and is, when it is right there before us.
Let's move on to chapter 25.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 25 all
Let's begin by remembering that these chapter endings and beginnings are
artificial and were added 1000 years after the Bible was completed and closed
up. So, as we begin chapter 25, we need to realize that the scene and the
conversation that ends chapter 24 is merely continuing. Yeshua is still on the
Mount of Olives, and still talking only to His innermost circle of 4 disciples.
Here (for the first time in a while) we encounter a true Jewish Parable (as
compared to an illustration that can employ a number of metaphors). We easily
recognize it because it begins with the typical parable formula of "The Kingdom
of Heaven is like" or "The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to". As we
discuss this Parable remember also that we must avoid getting caught up in any
of the details. This is a purely fictional story, with fictional characters, and it aims
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
to communicate a single point... the moral of the story (so to speak). Thus, the
several elements of the story are only there to flesh it out and to make it
enjoyable, coherent, and memorable. Like so many Parables, the elements used
in the story represent simple and common things that every Jew was familiar
with; in this case, a wedding.
This Parable is often given the title of the Ten Virgins. Numbers usually meant
something in the stories that Jewish leaders taught because they usually meant
something in Holy Scripture. The use of the number 10 indicates fullness,
wholeness, or even perfection. So perhaps 10 was considered the ideal number
of bridesmaids desired for a wedding. The reality is that we could just as easily
(and more in tune with the cultural reality of that day) title the parable the Ten
Maidens. Whether maiden or virgin what this is indicating is unmarried girls that
still live under their father's roofs. As Westerners we tend to get a little hung-up
on the word "virgin", and put too much weight into the sexual purity aspect of
these 10 girls. That plays no role in this story. It was a given in that era that
young unmarried girls (maidens) had not known a man. In fact, it was so taken
for granted that in the rare occasion that an unmarried girl had illicit sexual
intimacy with a man that her father had the right to kill her. More often the girl
was only tossed out on her ear, shamed for life, and now had to try and fend for
herself (no easy feat in those days).
These 10 bridesmaids (that is, being bridesmaids was their role at the wedding)
took their oil lamps to go out and meet the groom (so obviously the setting is
nighttime). Five of these fictional bridesmaids were foolish and the other five
were sensible. Being sensible means being wise. So, what made a foolish
bridesmaid foolish? It was that they took their oil lamps to light the way to find the
groom and accompany him back, but didn't take any extra oil "just in case" they
needed more; that was an unwise decision. This contrasts with the sensible (the
wise) bridesmaids who came prepared with extra oil for their lamps to plan ahead
for most any eventuality. This anticipates that they wouldn't know exactly when
the groom was going to arrive, which is validated by the beginning words of verse
5: "Now the bridegroom was late". So, in addition to the idea of not knowing
when precisely he would arrive, there is also once again introduced the idea of
an unexpected delay. That is, there was a range of time (although inexact) of
when one could reasonably expect the groom to show up; however, his actual
arrival went well beyond even that extended range of time.
Because of the lateness of the hour, and all the time spent waiting in the dark, all
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
of the bridesmaids did what was natural and drifted off to sleep. Thus, those
identified as the foolish did nothing wrong by falling asleep because the sensible
girls did likewise. So, here's another point in the story that we must not try to
make anything of by attaching some kind of spiritual meaning to it; it's said just
to make the story more complete and colorful.
Suddenly in the middle of the night someone (not any of the 10 maidens) cries
out that the groom has arrived. Who cried out? Why was that other person out
there? Doesn't matter; the point is that after a delay, and at nighttime when most
people are asleep, the groom finally shows up. It's not at all clear but maybe the
girls' job was to provide illumination for the bridegroom to light the way back to
wherever they had come from. As the 10 maidens are awoken by the anonymous
crying out, they hurry to light their lamps but because of the extended delay, the
lamps belonging to the 5 foolish ones had run out of oil and the girls hadn't
brought any spare oil with them. Seeing that the 5 sensible ones did have some
extra oil they asked if they would share it. No, they said, because there simply
wouldn't be enough for them all if they did that. If they shared, soon all their
lamps would grow dim and die out prematurely. One has to wonder... how about
the command to love your neighbor as yourself; or even the Golden Rule? This
isn't about the girls being selfish, this is about their wisdom to be prepared. The
5 sensible girls tell the others that they need to get their own oil from the oil
dealers and not borrow it from them. Of course, it goes without saying that it was
late at night so no oil dealers would have been open for business. Bottom line: 5
maidens were prepared and 5 weren't, and when the groom arrived the time for
preparation expired. The ones that didn't prepare couldn't fall back on the
preparedness of others and (and this is important) they also couldn't fall back
upon the possibility that they were partially prepared or at one time in the past
had been prepared.
In the end, the 5 bridesmaids that were sensible were able to attend the wedding
feast, but the other 5 couldn't. In fact, the place where they went for the feast
shut the doors after the groom and the 5 wise maidens and no doubt the other
properly prepared guests arrived. The 5 foolish maidens finally made their way
through the dark to the place of the wedding banquet and found the door shut
and locked. They banged on the door and asked to be let in. But the groom
answered back "I don't know you".
The final words of the Parable sum up its point. The one moral of the story is:
"So stay alert, because you know neither the day nor the hour". I want to take a
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
moment to point something out that is often poorly translated and when it is, it
disconnects us from a connection that Yeshua surely intended His disciples to
make. In verse 11, in the CJB, we find the 5 foolish girls saying "Sir, sir... let us
in". In other versions we find the translation as: "Lord, lord... let us in". The Greek
word being translated is kurios, and lord or master is a better translation
because there's little doubt that in Jewish thought the word
was adonai (meaning lord or master). Notice the progression: the girls shout
through the door to the groom "lord, lord!" and the groom responds "I don't
know you" or more grammatically likely, "I haven't known you". Where have we
heard something like that before?
CJB Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, only those who do what my Father in heaven
wants. 22 On that Day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we prophesy
in your name? Didn't we expel demons in your name? Didn't we perform
many miracles in your name?' 23 Then I will tell them to their faces, 'I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!'
So, there is a direct connection that is not to be overlooked between the ominous
warning of Matthew 7 about being excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven, and
the ending of this Parable of the 10 Maidens when the 5 foolish girls found
themselves excluded. In fact, they are the same warning. One of the things in
common between those two passages is that those who were excluded believed
they were part of the included group; on what basis they believed they were
included we don't know. However, what we do know is that those who aren't
prepared in advance will get shut out because the instant the bridegroom arrives,
the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven is closed to all but those who were already
properly prepared. Those left on the outside can plead their case, but to no avail.
In a larger sense we could say that we are given a pattern to follow that demands
living wisely at all times because should we think we have time to live foolishly,
but then later on at the time of our choosing turn and go in a better direction,
we're spinning the eternal Roulette wheel. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't.
It didn't work out with the 5 foolish maidens. They could easily have bought extra
oil earlier, but they didn't. They wasted their time and their opportunity.
Personally, I find trying to understand exactly what those 10 maidens were
supposed to do with those lamps (in which 5 of them failed), a little vague. Yes,
they were to light their lamps when the bridegroom appears, but to what end?
What, exactly, was this meant to accomplish? What about lighting these lamps
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
was so necessary and important that not doing so resulted in a severe eternal
punishment? It may be this: in the previous illustration about the faithful servant
leader (that ends chapter 24), he was assigned one task by the master: see to
the feeding of those he was put in charge over. The faithful servant leader did
just that; the wicked servant leader did the opposite and was sent to eternal
death for his disobedience and outrageous behavior. Behavior reveals our belief.
Here in the story of the 10 Maidens, they were also assigned just one task:
provide lamps for if and when the bridegroom comes at night. The sensible
maidens did just that; the foolish maidens did the opposite and were left outside
of the door where there was eternal death. Behavior reveals our belief. The first
illustration was about leaders; the second illustration was about followers. So, the
exact nature of the task isn't so much the issue as it is that the servant leaders
and the maidens were assigned a task by their master and some did it, and
others didn't. In the first case the unfaithful servant didn't do the assigned task
because he thought his master's delay allowed him time to do as he pleased and
behave wickedly; but was caught surprised when the master unexpectedly
showed up. In the 2
nd case, the 10 maidens were at the wedding venue, so they
knew the groom must necessarily be on the way. The sensible girls made sure
they were prepared for his arrival that could occur at any time of the day or night,
while the foolish girls went unprepared. If I'm correct in my assessment, then the
bottom line is more towards Believers... whether leaders or followers... doing the
task faithfully that God gives us to do (whatever that task might be), until either
our grave or Messiah Yeshua arrives. To do otherwise is seen by God as gross
disobedience that will result in exclusion from the Kingdom.
But also notice something about the Kingdom of Heaven so far in our Parables:
when you're legitimately in, you're in, and when you're out, you're out. There's
no changing of status at a later time. And no one on the inside can lend outsiders
some of their imputed righteousness so that they can get in, too. These principles
of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven have already been explained in earlier
Parables or by direct instruction from Yeshua.
Clearly this is a teaching and story that looks ahead to the End Times and
Judgment Day, and this alone ought to pique our interest. Let's not confuse the
reality that a minimal but growing form of the Kingdom of Heaven is currently
present, with the fact that upon Our Savior's return the Kingdom of Heaven will
immediately be brought into its fullest reality and form. Right now, this is a
spiritual kingdom that lives within Believers. In the future it will be physical and
tangible to go along with the spiritual element. So, there's big changes coming
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
upon Christ's return and preparation for those changes must be underway now,
within each us, before He comes and not after.
One other thing that might be a hard to grasp and it's a bit touchy, but it's worth
mentioning because there's a very good lesson about studying the Bible to be
learned here. Because the literary rule of Jewish Parable interpretation and
meaning is that a Parable is not to be taken apart and the various elements of the
story used as a series of allegories, and that all Parables by definition make one
point, and one point only, then in this case we have to be rather careful of saying
that this Parable has Yeshua casting Himself into the role as the bridegroom at a
wedding. The reason it seems so natural or automatic for a Christian to read this
image into the Parable as an assumption is because Christianity has for
centuries characterized the End Times Jesus as the divine bridegroom. The
problem is that trying to apply such a meaning within this Parable defies how
Parables work. The usual interpretation in Christianity is that this Parable is
mostly about the Messiah Yeshua being likened to the delayed bridegroom. Yet
the Parable plainly says that the comparison being made is about the Kingdom of
Heaven, and not about a Messiah. Remember: the Parable begins "The
Kingdom of Heaven at that time will be like...". It doesn't say "the Messiah at
that time will be like". Because the 4 disciples hearing this Parable knew as a
given how Parables work, they would not have been looking to associate Jesus
to the delayed bridegroom. Rather, the bridegroom represented bridegrooms in
general, and not anyone in specific. Other bridegroom related verses that appear
in other places in the New Testament may offer some better evidence for
claiming that Yeshua is the End Times Bridegroom that the Church claims He is;
but to my way of thinking, this Parable of the 10 Maidens certainly is not one of
them.
Another Parable immediately follows in verse 14. It is another true Parable
because it begins with the standard formula opening of: "For it will be like..." That
is, a comparison is about to be made. Who or what is the "For it"? What is the
"it"? In the previous Parable "it" was the Kingdom of Heaven so the comparison
in this new Parable is between how the Kingdom of Heaven operates and
whatever Yeshua offers as the similar thing or action. We must always take a
biblical Parable in light of how the Jewish Jesus meant it, because it was
formulated for Jewish listeners living within a Jewish culture. One of the
underlying principles of Jewish thought is something that was taught to their
children from their earliest age: God is the Creator of the world. Therefore, the
world and everything in it belongs to Him. We, as created humans who love God,
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
are therefore caretakers of what our master owns. This caretaker persona
applies right down to the individual level. Every individual is a caretaker in his or
her own right, and each is given a caretaking task by the Creator. It is within this
mindset and belief that Yeshua constructed the Parable of the Talents, and it is
how His disciples heard it. It is, therefore, how we must understand it as well.
So here we learn of an expectation that the Kingdom of Heaven places upon
those that would hope to be its members. The expectation is that even though
God may not be tangibly present, our behavior should be as though He was
there. Our behavior reveals our belief. The Parable of the Talents is quite long,
but despite its length still there is but one point Yeshua is working towards. The
point revolves around stewardship, and what it is that each of us will do with what
God has entrusted us... however much or little. And I must once again emphasize;
from the biblical view... from Christ's view... and from the common Jewish
person's view... none of us owns anything. We are God's created creatures
living in God's created world, so everything belongs to Him. Steward is a typical
English word to describe a caretaker, not an owner. So, stewardship is all about
what we are going to do with our Master's possessions.
Verse 14 sets the stage. An anonymous man is about to leave home for an
unspecified period of time, and he entrusts everything he possesses to his
servants. To the first fictional servant he entrusted 5 talents. To another servant
he entrusted 2 talents, and to a third servant he entrusted but 1 talent. Before we
go further, I want to read for you a similar Parable from the Book of Luke. Many
Bible commentators say that this Parable in Luke is the parallel of the one we are
looking at here in Matthew. I don't think that's the case. Rather it is similar, but it
is said at another time, another place, to a different audience, and even the
characters are different.
CJB Luke 19:11-28 11 While they were listening to this, Yeshua went on to tell
a parable, because he was near Yerushalayim, and the people supposed
that the Kingdom of God was about to appear at any moment. 12 Therefore
he said, "A nobleman went to a country far away to have himself crowned
king and then return. 13 Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten manim
[a maneh is about three months1 wages] and said to them, 'Do business
with this while I'm away.' 14 But his countrymen hated him, and they sent a
delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to rule over
us.' 15 "However, he returned, having been made king, and sent for the
servants to whom he had given the money, to find out what each one had
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
earned in his business dealings. 16 The first one came in and said, 'Sir, your
maneh has earned ten more manim.' 17 'Excellent!' he said to him. 'You are a
good servant. Because you have been trustworthy in a small matter, I am
putting you in charge of ten towns.' 18 The second one came and said, 'Sir,
your maneh has earned five more manim; 19 and to this one he said, 'You be
in charge of five towns.' 20 "Then another one came and said, 'Sir, here is
your maneh. I kept it hidden in a piece of cloth, 21 because I was afraid of
you- you take out what you didn't put in, and you harvest what you didn't
plant.' 22 To him the master said, 'You wicked servant! I will judge you by
your own words! So you knew, did you, that I was a severe man, taking out
what I didn't put in and harvesting what I didn't plant? 23 Then why didn't
you put my money in the bank? Then, when I returned, I would have gotten
it back with interest!' 24 To those standing by, he said, 'Take the maneh from
him and give it to the one with ten manim.' 25 They said to him, 'Sir, he
already has ten manim!' 26 But the master answered, 'I tell you, everyone
who has something will be given more; but from anyone who has nothing,
even what he does have will be taken away. 27 However, as for these
enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and
execute them in my presence!"' 28 After saying this, Yeshua went on and
began the ascent to Yerushalayim.
Despite the difference between Luke's Parable and the one in Matthew, still the
issue is stewardship, especially in light of how the stewards behave, and the
decisions they make regarding their master's possessions. One of the major
differences between the 2 Parables is that in Luke's the master (the King) gives
explicit instructions that the money he assigns to each servant is to be invested.
In Matthew's version, there are no instructions and instead what each servant is
to do with the money is left up to them.
Let's begin by understanding what a talent is. A talent is a measure of weight,
and biblically it is usually associated with the weight of gold or silver. It is believed
that a talent in the 1
st century was somewhere between 50 and 75 pounds and
this represents a huge sum of money. To give you another way to see it: 1
denarius was the standard wage for 1 day's labor. 1 talent was about the
equivalent of 6,000 denarii. 2 talents about 12,000 denarii and 5 talents about
30,000 denarii. Thus, all of the servants were given sizeable sums of money to
be responsible for, even the servant that was assigned but 1 talent. Interestingly,
the money was not doled out at random, but rather the man made his decision
based on what he perceived as each servant's innate or learned ability. Thus, he
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
didn't expect identical results from each, nor did he decide that "fairness" or
"equity" was called for that ignored all other factors. In fact, such a kind of
"fairness" is actually quite unfair. It isn't fair to expect someone with little ability
to perform at the same level as someone with a much greater ability. And yet, the
one with less ability is, in God's economy, in no way inferior to the one with the
greater ability.
So, after assigning the money to the 3 servants, he leaves and no one knows
when he's going to return. A key factor in this Parable is that while the 3 servants
don't know when he's coming back, it is 100% certain that he will return and
come with expectations about that money he left with them. The one given the
most (5 talents) immediately goes to invest the money and he doubled it. The
servant given the next most (2 talents) in some unspecified way also doubled the
man's money. But the third servant took the talent of money, dug a hole, and
buried it for safe keeping. The question that I'm sure came to the disciples'
minds and ought to for our minds as well is: did any of the servants act with bad
intentions? Did any of them do something that they thought would displease their
master? No; they all acted with a clean conscience and out of good intent. Yet
clearly from what comes next, only some of the 3 properly understood their
master's character and therefore what he expected of them despite not giving
them explicit instructions.
Verse 19 explains that a long (and unspecified) period of time passed. One day,
unexpectedly, the man returns and has the 3 servants brought to him to see how
they have handled his affairs, and especially what they did with his money. The
servant who he entrusted with 5 talents presented his master with 10. The master
was overjoyed, complemented the servant, and told him that because he had
been such a faithful steward with what he calls "a small amount", he would put
him in charge of a large amount. I find it interesting that Yeshua's Parable has
the man saying that 5 talents was a small amount! However, the point to be taken
is that this has to be a fabulously wealthy man that Yeshua is speaking about, in
which a fortune as great as 5 talents was seen as but little in his eyes.
Next the servant that had received 2 talents to watch over was brought before his
master. He presented his master with 4 talents and so he was given the same
reward as the servant given 5, which consisted of much more to oversee. Then
the man given but 1 talent came forward and said some words to his master that
no doubt he didn't mean as an insult, but rather he thought was reflective of the
man's character and mode of operation. He says that he knows that the man
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
harvests where he didn't plant and gathers where he didn't sow seeds.
Therefore, rather than risk anything, he dug a hole in the ground and hid the
money until the master returned. The master's response was: "You wicked, lazy
servant!" Certainly, this servant would have noticed what the other servants had
done with the money entrusted to them; so why would he do something so
different? The first words of verse 25 are the answer: "I was afraid..." he said.
It was fear that engulfed the servant. It was fear that made the decision for the
servant to take no risk whatsoever with his master's money. The other 2
servants took what we ought to see as reasonable, calculated risks in investing
the money. Had the 3
rd servant taken the time to understand his master's true
nature and character he would have understood that investing what he had been
given was what was expected of him.
Much of Matthew chapters 24 and 25 highlight the coming events and
circumstances of the End Times at a future, but unspecified, date. Yet I've
mentioned on a few occasions that if we could put ourselves into the sandals of
those who heard Yeshua speak, then we would see that He instructs not only
with the Apocalypse in mind, but with the everyday practical realities of life as
well. In fact, it was no doubt those present realities of living that the Holy Land
Jewish disciples and hearers of Yeshua would have identified with and
understood from His instruction, far more than some deeper spiritual truths and
mysterious end-of-the-world matters of the future. I have no doubt that even their
understanding of the future things Jesus spoke of were imagined in terms of
months or a few years away at most; not centuries or millennia. On the other
hand, in these passages modern Christians tend to minimize the practical
matters of daily living, the current humanitarian obligations that Believers have,
and instead overemphasize Judgment Day and the End Times catastrophes of
the future (whether the near or far future). So in the Parable of the Talents while
the overriding theme and background has been awareness, alertness and
preparedness of those who eagerly await the return of Messiah so that we will be
ready and not stand before Him ashamed, nonetheless such things as using our
God-given gifts, talents, and abundance for the good of our communities, being
helpful and comforting of the ill and hurting, and using the opportunities
presented to us to act out our faith in generosity and without fear is what we are
to do at the present time.
We'll finish up with the Parable of the Talents when we meet again.
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Lesson 85 - Matthew 24 & 25
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 86, Chapter 25 Continued
In our previous lesson we ended with delving into the fascinating and illuminating
Parable of the Talents. The most common method within Christianity (and often
within Messianic Judaism) to study or preach this parable is by using allegories to
separate out various elements of the story, turning them into applications for our
modern lives (an indeed often these are useful tools) or to say a parable
represents an absent and then returning Jesus. According to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, the literary term allegory means: a symbolic fictional narrative that
conveys a meaning not explicitly set forth in the narrative. It then goes on to say
that this is the way that fables and parables operate. What can get confusing for
us is that this definition is only correct to a point. This is so very important for us,
His followers, to get right because Christ regularly taught using parables.
I've spoken on this subject before, but it is crucial for Bible students to grasp and
hold closely in your studies, so it is worth repeating. Even though the Britannica
correctly says that allegory and symbolism are the basic substances of parables,
that definition needs to be accompanied with an asterisk. Typical parables and
fables among all the common literary works of authors throughout history indeed
are well described by Britannica's definition of allegory, but biblical parables are
not comprised of this same substance. Please be aware that what I'm going to
tell you is not an attempt to spiritualize Christ's parables. Rather this is an issue
of a better understanding of the literary rules that Jewish writers used regarding
religious matters such as Holy Scripture, which can be different from the literary
rules and meanings that non-Jewish writers used. Since the Bible is composed
using those Jewish (or better, Hebrew) literary rules, which changed and evolved
over the centuries, then we need to understand what those rules were in Christ's
era.
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
While New Testament biblical illustrations may indeed be a form of Jewish
allegory and symbolism, Yeshua's parables follow the typical Jewish parable
formula that had come into use for some unknown time (not long, I think) before
His day, and that also became heavily reflected in the writings of Rabbis from
Yeshua's time onward. Perhaps one of the most helpful tools for Gospel
interpretation is to recognize that there is a distinct difference between Jewish
illustrations and Jewish parables, and therefore between biblical illustrations and
biblical parables; these are not two terms meaning the same thing. I realize that
this could seem like a trivial nuance only necessary for a Bible academic to know;
but in fact, it has everything to do with how best to understand and interpret
Jesus's parables versus His illustrations. Therefore, the first thing we have to do
is to distinguish which is which. Jewish parables always begin with an easily
recognizable word formula that immediately says that a comparison is about to
be made. Thus, when Yeshua wants to teach us about the Kingdom of Heaven
using the literary technique of parable, He'll always begin with something like:
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like" or "The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared
to". So, when we see Christ saying that thus and so can be compared to this and
that, this is a Jewish parable literary form. We then instantly know that what
follows has but one point that it is going to made. The entire narrative story of a
Jewish parable is concocted in order to lead us to this single point; this one
"moral of the story". All of a parable's flowery elements that get us to the point
are only there for the listeners to be able to draw a memorable mental picture.
On the other hand, a Jewish illustration (as used in the Bible and therefore as
used by Jesus), is presented as a series of metaphors and symbolisms and that
is how we should understand them. Therefore, we could say that illustration is the
Jewish (the biblical) equivalent of allegory. The bottom line is this: we must not
approach Christ's parables as though they were allegories (as being fables that
make great use of symbolism), because that is not how He (or any Jewish
religious teacher or later Rabbi) would have constructed them or meant them. He
was merely using this standard literary technique of parable as was used in His
day among the Jewish religious teachers. Yet, it is evident that there are hints of
deeper meanings, even mysteries, in His parables that we must not ignore
because He was more than a run-of-the-mill Jewish religious teacher. And
because the passing of time has revealed to us that some of those prophetic
meanings hidden deep within His parables are beginning to take form.
Passionate and fiery debate over the meaning of Holy Scripture was, and
remains, a favorite pastime of Jewish religious instructors and Torah scholars. It
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
became clear to them, early on even in ancient times, that there were levels of
meaning in Holy Scripture that were undeniably present. In time those levels
were given names and descriptions like P'shat, Remez, drash and sod.
Essentially those 4 levels describe a reasonable and useful method for us to
study and think about the meaning of Scripture from its simplest, most literal
sense, and then drilling all the way down to its most mysterious sense; that is, a
revelation of things that can only be speculated about because it is either
something about a prophetic far future event or it involves the mystifying
characteristics of the divine that are beyond our human ability to fully grasp or
even find words to accurately describe. Yeshua regularly used parables to make
the mysterious nature of the divine and the spiritual more accessible and
understandable to humans. There isn't much more mysterious in this Universe
than God's substance, His characteristics, and the nature of His Kingdom of
Heaven... something that Jesus is calling us to become part of.
With that understanding, then whenever we encounter a parable of Jesus that is
about introducing to us a facet of the Kingdom of Heaven, we know that
underlying all that is said... the deeper sense of His words... it is revealing some
characteristic or another of God and His divine Kingdom. This deeper sense of
the Parable of the Talents is a case in point. At the same time, we must never
minimize the simpler literal sense of it that applies to our everyday life and
behavior.
Let's begin by re-reading the Parable of the Talents.
RE-MATTHEW CHAPTER 25:14 - 30
Notice how the parable begins: "For it will be like". Essentially this parable is a
continuation of the previous one about the 10 Virgins and their lamps. The "it"
this next parable speaks of remains as the Kingdom of Heaven.
Without repeating all that we discussed last time, this parable talks about a
wealthy man leaving and entrusting an enormous sum of money (5 talents) to a
servant to care for, a lesser but still large sum of money (2 talents) to another
servant, and finally 1 talent to the last servant. When the master returned home
sometime later... and he arrived unexpectedly... the first servant had wisely
invested his master's money and doubled it, as did the second servant. The third
servant simply dug a hole and buried the 1 talent, thereby not using it or investing
it and instead only preserving what he was given. The first 2 servants were highly
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
praised by their master for how they handled what he entrusted them with, and
as a reward they were given even more of their master's estate to care for. But
the 3
rd servant was severely criticized for being "wicked and lazy". The master
asks why this 3
rd servant did what he did and the servant responded that he did it
out of fear. What was he afraid of? That is explained in the dialogue of verses 24
and 25 when the servant says: 'I knew you were a hard man. You harvest
where you didn't plant and gather where you didn't sow seed. I was afraid,
so I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here! Take what belongs to
you!'
On the simplest level... the P'shat, literal level... this servant's charge against his
master comes because he completely misunderstood the character and nature of
his master, and therefore of his master's expectations of his servants, while the
first 2 servants understood his character properly and so acted accordingly. On
the deeper Remez level (the hint), then we can understand that this same thing
applies to our understanding of God's character and nature, and therefore what
He expects of us. If we don't truly understand who God is, then we won't know
how to approach Him or how to obey Him or how to relate to Him... even though
just as with this 3
rd servant we are certain that we do. So, what exactly makes
this servant wicked and lazy in the master's eyes (and therefore in God's eyes)
rather than merely disobedient or merely ignorant? We can look to the Proverbs
to answer this question.
CJB Proverbs 18:9 Whoever is lazy in doing his work is brother to the
destroyer.
CJB Proverbs 20:4 A lazy person won't plow in winter; so at harvest-time,
when he looks, there is nothing.
CJB Proverbs 26:13 The lazy person says, "There's a lion in the streets! A
lion is roaming loose out there!"
In these biblical Proverbs we find out why it is inherent in this parable (at least for
a 1
st century Jewish listener) that the master (God) would describe this
3
rd servant as both lazy and wicked. The lazy person is said to be a brother to the
destroyer (he is doing Satan's evil bidding). The lazy person won't plow in the
winter and then is surprised when later there's nothing to harvest (he's short
sighted as he tries to avoid work). The lazy person says that there's a lion in the
streets (he operates on fear, harboring an assumption of disaster, and so avoids
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
risk). God's character, and therefore how He expects us to behave in response
to Him, is as a bold doer and as a tireless worker. His character always looks
ahead towards the bigger picture and does whatever it takes to bring His
Creation to full redemption and perfection. We, as His created creatures, are to
follow this example and look to the longer term and wider implications of our
decisions and actions... both in our personal decisions about our earthly lives, and
in how we prepare for an eternal future hopefully as a servant and partner in that
redemption process. And finally, God doesn't fear; He goes forth resolutely and
not timidly. Perhaps the command of God that is repeated the most in the
Scriptures is for those who trust in Him to "fear not". Fear is a prison of our own
making, with Satan as our jailer. Fear is a construction of our minds and often
doesn't reflect reality. Fear causes us to retreat in life and in duty, and not
venture forward with confidence. Fear enables us to become passive and to
hoard whatever we have instead of using our God given gifts and talents to
generously benefit the lives of others, and to better our own lives according to His
will for us.
Now I want to show you an important connection and afterwards I'll explain why
this is helpful to notice. Back in Matthew chapter 13 we read this:
CJB Matthew 13:1-13 That same day, Yeshua went out of the house and sat
down by the lake; 2 but such a large crowd gathered around him that he got
into a boat and sat there while the crowd stood on the shore. 3 He told them
many things in parables: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he
sowed, some seed fell alongside the path; and the birds came and ate it
up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky patches where there was not much soil. It
sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow; 6 but when the sun had
risen, the young plants were scorched; and since their roots were not deep,
they dried up. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked
the plants. 8 But others fell into rich soil and produced grain, a hundred or
sixty or thirty times as much as had been sown. 9 Those who have ears, let
them hear!" 10 Then the talmidim came and asked Yeshua, "Why are you
speaking to them in parables?" 11 He answered, "Because it has been given
to you to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it has not been
given to them. 12 For anyone who has something will be given more, so that
he will have plenty; but from anyone who has nothing, even what he does
have will be taken away. 13 Here is why I speak to them in parables: they
look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding.
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
Here we see the parable of the farmer sowing seeds in 4 kinds of soil and
afterwards Yeshua responds to the disciples' questions about why He is
speaking in parables. He tells them:*2 For anyone who has something will be
given more, so that he will have plenty; but from anyone who has nothing,
even what he does have will be taken away: This is virtually identical to
Matthew 24:29. Both the Parable of the 4 soils and the Parable of the Talents
make the same the point... the same moral of the story. In other words, these
disciples have heard this conclusion and instruction before. Clearly in Matthew 13
this statement had a deeper or spiritual meaning because it doesn't seem to
have a direct earthly connection to some kind of behavior of the farmer or of the
seeds. But in Matthew 25, the moral of the story is directly related to the inaction
and lazy, fearful behavior of the 3rd servant who buried the 1 talent that his
master had entrusted to him. Yet, on the Remez level, the Parable of the Talents
has spiritual undertones as well.
Let's first deal with the practical side of the Parable of the Talents. This clearly
has to do with money and investing even though the money didn't belong to the
servants. The Lord tells us we should invest our money. It goes without saying
that we are always to do so wisely (this parable doesn't get into the exact kind of
investment that was made by the first 2 servants, or the level of risk involved).
The servants knew that while it was their responsibility to care for and grow their
master's money, it certainly was not THEIR money. Thus, we must always
remember that because God is the Creator, and we are His creatures, that the
world and everything in it is His. Even what we call "ours" is ultimately "His".
The wisdom being dispensed here is that when the Lord determines to provide us
with money, however much or little, we are to be good stewards over it with the
attitude that this money belongs to the master. In addition, we have obligations to
Him both to try to make it grow and to do it responsibly because then there is
money and resources to help others and to make our own lives, and our family's
and community's lives, better. This parable where the first 2 servants doubled
the master's money takes into no account the amount of time involved (although
the implication is that it was considerable) nor the aggressiveness of their
investment; so, we shouldn't look here for investment advice other than we
should invest wisely and not just timidly sit on our money.
Anyone who has done well in life (and this goes for ancient or modern times) has
invested; and investment by its very nature involves levels of risk. Of course,
some people were smart enough to born into wealthy families and they inherited
well; so, they have an abundance due to someone else's hard work and wise
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
investing. But even though a person gains wealth through inheritance, they are
not to behave as that 3
rd servant and just hoard their fortune for fear they might
lose it, or out of laxness not do the work of investing. Rather, in imitation of
God's characters, they are to attempt to increase their wealth through honest,
responsible investing. Just as this is not going to become a lesson in all the ways
and means of financial investing, or exactly what to invest in and how, also don't
think that this is somehow an instruction that validates the popular Prosperity
Doctrine. This is not about how to become rich, so that we can luxuriate in our
abundance. Or is about our wealth as visible proof of the level of our faith in God
(which it is not). Rather this is as much about God's character and nature as it is
about us not being afraid to take reasonable risks or refraining from making
decisions based on fear in all matters of life that involves our possessions and
gifts.
On the Remez level, this is about the tasks that God gives us to do for the
Kingdom and our ability to do them. It is great to be saved in Christ; but sharing
that salvation with others instantly becomes an obligation, not an option, because
just as with everything else our salvation also belongs to the Lord...our salvation is
from Him and so it is His. That sharing and investing can come in so many ways:
from the generous giving of our increase and wealth, to being a refreshing
example in our lives of righteousness living, to working in ministry to the Lord
understanding that we could probably make more money elsewhere, to speaking
about God's love to others, to simple acts of kindness to those who need it... it's
nearly endless. Just be aware: there are no exemptions to God's expectations. If
you are saved, you have been entrusted with gifts and talents given to you by the
Holy Spirit. And since you do have them, then you are expected to boldly and
wisely invest them so they can grow and thrive. If you do not, then there will be a
reckoning. As with our parable of the talents, verse 30 says:
As for this worthless servant, throw him out in the dark, where people will
wail and grind their teeth!1
This is certainly nothing any of us want to hear from the Lord on Judgment Day.
Let's move on and read the remainder of Matthew 25.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 25:31 - end
This section of chapter 25 is essentially the end of Christ's final block of
teaching. It's not that Yeshua won't tell His disciples other things, but these
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
things will be said and taught within the actions of the final 48 hours of His earthly
life. In fact, the first words of Matthew 26 are that when He finished teaching His
disciples on the Mount of Olives, it was 2 days before Passover; a day that would
change the world, forever.
The entire nature of the teaching material changes with verse 31, which begins
His teaching about Judgment Day. This is not a continuation of the previous
parable, nor is it a new parable, nor is it an illustration. This is a prophecy of the
Apocalypse and the End Times. No other Gospel records this event or these
words; the Jewish Matthew stands alone in it. While what is said is certainly
related in one sense to Daniel 7:13 -14, in another way it's different.
CJB Daniel 7:13-14 13 "I kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming
with the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the
Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership,
glory and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should
serve him. His rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and
his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Here in Daniel, we see the Son of Man (Yeshua) arriving in Heaven, standing
before His Father, and being given power and authority and the rulership over
God's Kingdom on earth (the Kingdom of Heaven). Yet in Matthew 25:31 when it
speaks about the Son of Man coming accompanied by angels, it is said that he
comes in His glory, meaning He already possesses this glory (as opposed to
Daniel 7:14 when only after He arrived in Heaven was He bestowed with such
glory). Therefore the "coming" that this verse mentions is about what Christians
call the "return" of Jesus.
Next, we're told the Son of Man will sit on His throne. There is disagreement
among Bible academics whether this is indicating His Heavenly or His earthly
throne. Personally, I don't see how it can mean anything other than His throne
on earth, as the King over the Kingdom of Heaven, which upon His return is now
being actualized to its fullest extent. This means that Yeshua won't be doing His
judging of humanity from far away in Heaven, but rather locally from His throne
room on earth. He will be fully present here, in person, although it will be quite a
different persona that He will project than the one the Church typically prefers to
speak about. The returning Jesus will be a Jesus of condemnation and wrath; not
of mercy and salvation. The period for humanity to be blessed with the gift of
salvation has ended and the fates of all humanity are set in stone. Now it is
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
prophesied time for executing the divine justice that has been promised by God
for millennia. I suppose as Believers we can say hallelujah to this finally
happening. But honestly, for a while this is going to be a time of personal pain
beyond which I'm not sure we are prepared or that we've ever considered or
experienced. Most of us will have some of the dearest and closest of family
members that we love and treasure condemned to the Lake of the Fire. Some of
them that receive that eternal death verdict will be a shock to us; we had
assumed (maybe only hoped) they were part of the chosen.
Spouses, offspring, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers...it is
going to be a time when our joy of our King's coming is going to be greatly
tempered by the overwhelming sadness that accompanies it. I don't want to rain
on your parade, but consider this the next time you raise your hands to Heaven
and sing with glee at the thought of Christ's return. In the longer term it is
wonderful. In the immediate, it will be... well... I have no words for it.
The prophecy of a Day of Judgment that is coming not just for Israel but for all
who inhabit this planet is sprinkled throughout the ancient Prophets. I'll choose
just this one passage among many because it offers so much food for thought.
CJBIsaiah 66:13-20 13 Like someone comforted by his mother, I will comfort
you; in Yerushalayim you will be comforted." 14Your heart will rejoice at the
sight, your bodies will flourish like newly sprouted grass. It will be known
that the hand of ADONAI is with his servants; but with his enemies, his
fury. 15 For- look!- ADONAI will come in fire, and his chariots will be like the
whirlwind, to render his anger furiously, his rebuke with blazing fire. 16 For
ADONAI will judge all humanity with fire and with the sword, and those
slain by ADONAI will be many. 17 "Those who consecrate and purify
themselves in order to enter the gardens, then follow the one who was
already there, eating pig meat, reptiles and mice, will all be destroyed
together," says ADONAI. 18 "For I [know] their deeds and their thoughts.
"[The time] is coming when I will gather together all nations and languages.
They will come and see my glory, 19 and I will give them a sign. I will send
some of their survivors to the nations of Tarshish, Pul, Lud (these are
archers), Tuval, Greece and more distant coasts, where they have neither
heard of my fame nor seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory in these
nations; 20 and they will bring all your kinsmen out of all the nations as an
offering to ADONAI- on horses, in chariots, in wagons, on mules, on
camels- to my holy mountain Yerushalayim," says ADONAI, "just as the
people of Isra'el themselves bring their offerings in clean vessels to the
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
house ofADONAI.
I used this particular passage in order to point out a few things about the
Judgment Day scene. Judgment Day will not be quiet, like a well-ordered trial in a
sound proofed court room. The Lord is coming in fury, wrath and fire, and He will
slay the countless unrighteous. But also notice a second thing: at the same time
His wrath is being poured out, He is comforting the residents of Jerusalem.
Another point: in verse 17, through Isaiah, God speaks of people who
"consecrate and purify themselves in order to enter the gardens". But then these
same people who have consecrated and purified themselves to the Lord turn
right around and follow someone else, doing as they do, which includes eating
the meat of pigs, reptiles and mice. In doing this they seem to be renouncing their
consecration or perhaps revealing their insincerity. Is this actually talking about
kosher eating? About not consuming things God has prohibited in the Law of
Moses? Of course, it is. As with all disobedience, such behavior can be remedied
and is forgivable. However, the implication is that you can't claim consecration
and devotion to because of your outward appearances, and then go off and
intentionally join those who live a life of the un-consecrated, un-set apart on the
other, and then expect mercy on Judgment Day. Notice also that the place where
the peoples of the nations will be gathered and separated is happening on earth,
and specifically in the city of Jerusalem. So, there need be no doubt as to the
what, who, and where of this Judgment Day event of Matthew 25:31. Verse 32 tells of the well-known End Times event of the separation of the sheep
from the goats. The scene is of all people on earth being summoned and
gathered by the Lord in order to be judged. The idea is of a separation of people
into two groups: the righteous and the wicked (Believers would say the saved
from the unsaved). Notice that there is no 3
rd option or middle ground. The first
words speak of the nations being gathered. Since the time of Abraham, the term
"nations" became a word for gentile nations and gentile people groups.
However, I think at this point of Redemption History (in the End Times) there
begins a definite swing back towards the term nations being inclusive of all
humans, including Israel (although the context of its use still matters). The Greek
word that is most often translated in this verse as nations is ethnos. While that
translation is accurate, the word ethnos leans more towards the sense of groups
of human beings than it does of human governments and national entities as we
think of nations today. So, the idea is probably not about countries that have
clear boundary lines on world maps, but rather as assemblies of peoples of all
kinds from everywhere. That is, no one is excluded. I think this interpretation is
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
validated because next we read of "them" being separated from one another.
So, is it entire nations of people as groups that will be judged either to Heaven or
*, or will it be individuals judged one at a time? While the wording is a bit
ambiguous, the way it is phrased and the many principles of the Torah that
Yeshua has taught cannot mean that entire nations of people will be lumped
together and have their eternity decided upon according to where they live or
what their nationality might be. So, while we know that the sheep and goats are
metaphors for 2 different groups of people, some Bible scholars see them as
metaphors for national entities, and others see it as for individuals. I think it is the
latter. One other matter that must be addressed: the sheep and goats are in no
way representative of different ethnicities or races. The issue is about the saved
versus the unsaved. Every race and ethnicity will contain some of each.
We're told that the sheep are separated and placed at the Son of Man's right
hand, and the goats at His left. Understand that biblically goats are as clean and
desired for Temple sacrifice as are sheep, and are not in ritual Torah law seen as
inferior to sheep. Sheep are not good, and goats bad. So, no comparison of
either animal as concerns Temple ritual or purity or value is intended here.
Further a shepherd didn't separate sheep from goats on the base of value or
worth, but rather they are two different species and each have their own needs
and kind; and although they are similar in many ways, they are easily
recognizable by their appearance and their traits. Why were the sheep given
preferred status in this metaphor? Perhaps since Yeshua is sometimes called the
Lamb of God then He selected the metaphor of the sheep to go to His right hand,
the hand of goodness and power, where the sheep represent the righteous batch
of people. But, that's my speculation.
One of the questions I'm often asked is when exactly the resurrection of the
dead occurs in the timeline of End Times events. While I cannot tell you exactly
that happens (because we're not told, exactly), it is assumed in this passage that
it has already occurred by, or at, the time of this Judgment scene of the Son of
Man. I get a similar question as regards when God's Wrath gets poured out,
indiscriminately, over the entire earth. In fact, this question is really the crux of
the reason for the various doctrines often labeled pre-, post-, and mid-tribulation.
While I don't know exactly in the timeline when this happens, I do know that as a
divine principle, God doesn't pour out His wrath upon the good and the wicked.
So, whenever it occurs, you might be relieved to know that the good will not be
present. But do not confuse the times of great tribulation and the outpouring of
God's wrath; these are two different things. I fully expect Believers to experience
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Lesson 86 - Matthew 25 cont
great tribulation as the End draws near.
Verse 34 is pretty straightforward in that those at Christ's right hand are told to
come and be part of the inheritance that God has blessed us with (the Kingdom
of Heaven), and that He has prepared for us since the foundation of the world;
meaning since Creation. God's purpose has never changed throughout the
history of the Universe. We have discussed a few times God's plan of
redemption, or as I call it Redemption History, and how it began at Creation.
More precisely, the need for redemption arose upon Adam's sin in the Garden of
Eden. The implication in this verse is that while the need for redemption came
about at that time, the foreknowledge of it and a plan for it occurred earlier yet at
about the same time God spoke the Universe into existence. There is also
another interesting mention here that is a good topic of discussion. It says that
"The King" will say to those at his right hand... meaning that this King is the same
person as the Son of Man and as the great Judge who does the separating of the
goats and the sheep. The reason for so many titles is that Yeshua will hold many
roles. He is divine, He is the Judge, and He is the ruler over the Kingdom. Yet
let's be clear: this is not a matter of the Son replacing the Father. Even as the
King He remains subordinate to the Father and is behaving as the Father's
agent. In Heaven Yeshua will still sit at the Father's right hand (so to speak). On
earth, Christ will sit upon His own throne. Notice how Yeshua says "come those
whom My Father has blessed". It is the Father's Kingdom that Jesus rules over.
The Father remains as the ultimate authority and power, with the Son of Man,
Yeshua, now relocated to earth. But their unity is in no way compromised due to
physical separation or distance between them.
Beginning at verse 35 are a list of characteristics that ought to be present and
demonstrated in the lives of the righteous. This is where we'll continue our study
of Matthew 25, next time.
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 87, Chapter 25 and 26
Last week the ending portion of our study was essentially a word picture of the
final judgment that also goes by the name Judgment Day. This is one of those
things that isn't particularly pleasant for a Pastor or Bible teacher to talk about
because it concerns billions of people being permanently separated from God
and sent off to an eternal state of torment, destruction, or both. What is also
challenging is to wrestle with Yeshua's words that many who thought they were
safe, will not be deemed so by God. An individual's eternal safety (or lack of it)
will be judged not solely on what he or she claims to believe (that Jesus Christ is
Savior), but it will also include the requirement of obedience to do the will of the
Father. Yeshua has used a couple of parables to make this point that much too
often is played down within our Churches. That is, doing, producing, working as
one of the duties of a redeemed person is in some denominations said to be a
bad thing; it means we're trying to "work our way to Heaven". So, the concept is
that we say the sinner's prayer, show up for Church and go on living as we had
before, until we die. Perhaps the most memorable of Yeshua's illustrations and
parables concerning this matter uses the metaphor of a fruit tree. A good tree
cannot produce bad fruit; a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. And in the case of
the fig tree example, He cursed it was because it produced no fruit at all. Bottom
line, a person's claim of being a good fruit tree (a saved follower of Christ) must
be outwardly validated by exposing their inward state through producing fruit...
good fruit. No fruit or bad fruit exposes that person's inward state as not what
they claim it to be. But more importantly, God doesn't accept their claim of
salvation because He doesn't see it as sincere.
Verses 31 - 34 of Matthew chapter 25 employ new metaphors of sheep and
goats to illustrate the Judgment Day process. Essentially the Great Judge, who is
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
the Son of Man, assembles all the people of the world to stand before Him as He
issues His verdict upon each individual. He divides people up into two groups.
Those He judges as righteous are called the sheep, and those He judges as the
wicked are called the goats. The sheep are told to stand at His right hand
whereby He formally tells them that the moment has come when they receive
their inheritance, which is to be permanent members of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In verse 41 the goats are told to stand at His left hand whereby He formally tells
them that the moment has come when they lose their inheritance, and instead
are cursed to go into the same fire prepared for Satan and his demons.
Especially in the West, when we go on trial we are used to a judicial process that
has many nuances, exceptions to the rule, and suspended sentences... that is,
our civil justice system operates within many shades of gray. Yeshua has told us
unequivocally that when Judgment Day comes, there will be no shades of gray;
only black or white. Eternal life or eternal damnation. What I've just told you to
this point ought to be sobering. What comes next from Jesus also must be taken
seriously and as more than merely nice thoughts or warm wishes for others.
Starting in verse 35, Yeshua speaks about the visible, tangible characteristics
(the good fruit) that define a sheep... a righteous person... in His eyes. What He
describes is not exhaustive, and is more poetic than a detailed list of tasks. Let's
re-read this section to refresh our memories.
RE-READ MATTHEW 25:31 - end
For the sake of keeping continuity, we'll do a lot of Bible reading in this slightly
longer than usual lesson; so please do your best to stay focused. Interestingly,
the first of the characteristics of the sheep, those deemed as righteous, are
something that every Middle Easterner... Jew or Arab... would recognize. They are
the characteristics of the highest virtue there is in Middle Eastern cultures:
hospitality. Hospitality trumps nearly everything else for these folks. Hospitality is
not an issue of legality; it's an issue of social obligation and status... a status of
shame or honor. Social status matters so much that hosts will put their lives on
the line for guests... even strangers... that show up at their homes. They will give
respite, food, and drink at times even to enemies who ask for hospitality. For a
person to turn down offered hospitality brings shame on both guest and host. To
not offer hospitality to the person needing it brings shame to the entire
household. This can be hard for Westerners to understand because these values
aren't super high on our to-do list; but the Jews hearing Yeshua and later the
ones reading Matthew's Gospel would have immediately grasped that verse 35
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
is all about the traits of proper hospitality that He expects of His disciples as a
demonstration of their allegiance to Him. The requirement to provide safe and
secure shelter, food and water even to strangers isn't being used as a metaphor;
it is meant literally. Now, how such elements of hospitality as it was done in that
era versus how we might accomplish this in the 21st century... and it will be
dependent upon which of the many of the world's cultures one lives in... is
something we must think through and deal with. But it can't simply be swept
under the carpet by allegorizing Jesus's message away.
Verse 36 heads in a little different direction and deals with mercy. Both hospitality
and mercy were traits that expressed not only good, but also wise, behavior of
the righteous. Clothing the naked isn't fully literal; it meant to give clothing to
someone that didn't have sufficient clothing. Maybe a person had no sandals, or
no cloak to protect from the cold or to use as a blanket. Visiting the sick or those
in prison is a little odd in that this doesn't really fit the customary list of Jewish
virtuous conduct. Might Yeshua have been remembering His martyred cousin,
John the Baptist, as he languished in Herod's prison awaiting his fate?
Nonetheless, it helps us to better understand Christ's view of what loving your
neighbor as yourself can entail... it entails showing mercy to strangers that need
our help. In the 1
st century, jailed people were visited by their family members not
merely for the sake of conversation but mainly to bring food. Typically, the jailers
provided no food; so, if someone didn't bring a prisoner his meals, either he
suffered horribly from malnutrition or he eventually died of starvation as he
awaited trial. It's a bit different story today. Those who do visit the ill in their
homes or in hospitals or institutions, and also those involved in prison ministries
(a special calling indeed), bring mainly compassion and caring; and hopefully
Believers also bring a message of God's love and the availability of divine
forgiveness and peace.
It is truly breathtaking how Yeshua uses the term "I" each time He calls out one
of the virtues and mercies; placing Himself in the role of the needy person... a
stranger. Perhaps it might help us when we deal especially with the unlovely, the
unkept, the anti-social, the illiterate and the outcasts if we use this mental image
Jesus just created as it being He we are comforting and caring for when we tend
to them.
Yeshua goes on to create a sort of straw man that responds to His instruction to
provide hospitality to everyone as though it were He, with the straw man asking
when did he ever provide hospitality to Christ? And Christ responds with:
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
CJB Matthew 25:40 40 The King will say to them, 'Yes! I tell you that
whenever you did these things for one of the least important of these
brothers of mine, you did them for me!'
It's a little startling the way that Jesus suddenly inserts the word King into the
mix. Without doubt He is referring to Himself, and the disciples would have taken
it that way. But what would that have meant to them? Those of us who study His
words so many centuries later and have the benefit of time and the written record
of many of His words at our fingertips, also have the luxury of seeing in it all in a
deeper meaning; but I very much doubt that His disciples did as they were
hearing it directly from His mouth. When Christ said "king", they knew He was
applying it to Himself... but no doubt as the hoped-for Jewish king that would sit
on a throne, in a Holy Land that was rid of the Romans. However just as if
someone in our day says President or Prime Minister or some such thing in a
conversation, we all sub-consciously know the characteristics of those office
holders. It was the same with the mention of the word "king" in 1st century
Jewish conversation. A that time a king was usually thought of as somewhat of a
tyrant. Even a good king had nearly unlimited power over his subjects. A king
was above all others in the kingdom; he only associated with his top officials and
aristocrats, and lived a life of luxury. Yeshua redefines the office of king as it
pertains to Himself. As a king He identifies Himself with the downtrodden and the
under privileged, not with the elite. He doesn't see people as His loyal subjects
only there to serve Him; but rather as brothers. In fact, He identifies with common
folks so strongly that He can say that whatever hospitality and care given to even
the poorest and most afflicted of them is the same as giving it to Him, the king.
So how are we take the term "brothers" in this context? Who are Christ's
brothers?
In Christendom, calling fellow Believers brothers or sisters is common. We see all
Believers in Yeshua has having a common spiritual family bond with us. So is
Yeshua speaking only about brothers meaning Believers... His followers... and
only in a spiritual sense? Or does it include others as well? Is He meaning the
Jewish people in general, or does this include gentiles? There continues to be
some healthy debates about this, but here is my conclusion. We must remember
that this part of the narrative wherein Yeshua is defining the notable
characteristics of the sheep... the righteous who are standing at His right hand on
Judgment Day... is using those valued characteristics of Middle Eastern hospitality
plus adding the instruction to visit the sick and those in prison. I think there are at
least 2 levels of interpretation to His words present here; maybe 3 or even 4. At
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
the most literal level, the P'shat, "brothers" means His fellow Jewish
countrymen. And more specifically, the common and the afflicted Jews that make
up the bulk of the Holy Land Jewish population of that era. There's not a doubt in
my mind that this is how the listening disciples would have taken it. Therefore,
Yeshua is not only validating and encouraging the continuation of the social
custom of hospitality, but also, He is adding in an instruction to visit the ill and
those in prison. By doing so He is changing the motive for doing those things
from societal obligation to avoid shame, to compassion to please God. It is such
a similar message that He offered on the Sermon on the Mount. There He told
people that it was their motive and intent for obeying the Law of Moses that
mattered more than merely doing any particular law in some rigid or mechanical
way. And yet He reminded them that by this He didn't mean that any person's
spirit-driven internal motive and intent was a replacement of the Torah and the
Prophets (the Law of Moses and the Prophets).
On the hint level, the Remez, the term "brothers" narrows the group from all
Jewish people to only those Jews who put their eternal trust in Christ. On the
other hand, it expands the group by including people of all nations... gentiles... who
have made themselves part of ideal Israel on a spiritual level by putting their trust
in Israel's Messiah; the Jewish Son of Man. Therefore,
in the Remez interpretation the sheep mean all those who trust in Yeshua. And,
yet, there has also always been this mysterious thread in the Scriptures of those
who haven't heard of The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; nonetheless they
do what the Father wants. I believe we can view this from the Sod level... the
mysterious level. That is, the ancients before Noah and even for a long time after,
lived a righteous life based on what some call the Natural Law or the Noachide
Law. Natural Law doesn't mean natural as in the term "nature" as we think of it
today... as Mother Nature or environmentalism. It means natural in the sense that
from the Garden of Eden onward, in various ways God made His fundamental
commandments known to humanity although it would be a very long time before
those commands were codified and written down in more concrete ways at Mt.
Sinai. In a sense we can legitimately say that God's most fundamental laws are
built-in to our human essence... our invisible human nature. They are also written
into the cosmos, as well as into the many eco-systems of the earth that operate
in harmony and usually to the benefit of mankind. Everything... all... near, far,
known, unknown, energy and matter, physical and spiritual... are made by the
same Creator, cut from the same cloth. There was a natural Torah from the
beginning long before there was a written Torah; however, the fundamental
principles are the same, have always remained the same, and will be the same
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
until there is a new heavens and earth.
It is for this reason that the Lord created Abraham's Bosom; to house those
souls of the righteous dead before the Son of Man was born and then crucified to
atone for their sins and to make them pure enough to enter Heaven. That
population consisted of those who lived long before there was a written Torah,
yet obeyed God's Natural Law (His fundamental principles), and later it included
those who obeyed the written Torah (once it was given) in spirit and truth; all of
these over the ages deemed righteous by God. Every one of these ancient
residents of the now empty Abraham's Bosom are part of the sheep who will be
directed to stand at Jesus's right hand at Judgment Day so that they will receive
their inheritance.
So; verses 35 - 40 pertain to the sheep... the righteous. Now verses 41 - 46
pertain to the goats... the wicked. Using the same code of hospitality, Jesus
reverses the situation. The righteous obeyed the hospitality code; the wicked did
not. The wicked didn't offer respite, food and water to the needy or to strangers.
They didn't offer shelter and clothing. And so, using the same logic that these
needy and strangers are representative of Him (not in a literal sense but rather as
Christ identifying with this group), since the goats didn't offer care for these
people it amounts to them not offering care for Him. Not caring for that group,
and therefore not caring for Him, is willful disobedience in that their actions are
without compassion and mercy; and therefore, it reveals a hidden wicked
nature. It disobeys the most fundamental principle of loving your neighbor. As it
pertains to Jesus, it amounts to a form of rejection. Rejecting the King and Son of
Man brings with it an eternal death sentence. We can use the same structure of
interpreting these verses on 3 or 4 levels as we did in understanding the verses
about the righteous, the sheep, so we don't need to go through all the levels
again... just reverse what we discussed a couple of minutes ago. Here's the
terrifying point; you can't get away with claiming you're a Believer, and that
you're saved and therefore safe, but then turn your back on the needy, or bear
bad fruit or no fruit. At various points in our lives, we all have to pause and take a
long, pragmatic look in the mirror, with some deep and honest introspection. Do
we really know what we believe and why we believe it? Do we live out what we
claim to others, and to ourselves, that we believe? If we don't, then according to
Jesus's reckoning, we are deceiving ourselves into thinking we are saved. We
are not saved in His eyes; only in our own. Salvation has always and will always
be directly linked with good works (good works as defined by God, not by our
own sensibilities). It is not doing good works to attain salvation; but rather good
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
works ought to flow naturally from our salvation. Let's move on to chapter 26.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:1 - 25
This begins what is widely called the Passion Narrative; that is, everything now
focuses on Yeshua's march to the cross and his final 48 hours before He is
executed. As I am fond of reminding you, just sort of mentally scratch out those
chapter numbers in your Bibles because they give us the sense of one thing
ending and another thing starting. The first words of chapter 26 are still Jesus
talking with His disciples on the Mount of Olives; that is, this is a continuing
conversation from chapter 25.
Christ delivers a bomb shell: he's going to be crucified almost immediately. One
can only imagine what raced through His disciples' minds. Was He serious?
Was He being literal? How could He predict such a thing that depended on the
actions and decisions of several others, all happening in a sequence, unless He
fully intended to try to cause it to happen? As intriguing as these questions are,
there's another issue hiding in plain sight that we must deal with as it is another
one of those matters that is deeply controversial (and rightly so). The controversy
is when we read that Jesus said: "As you know, Pesach (Passover) is 2 days
away..." Other Bible versions phrase it slightly differently but all with the identical
meaning. We need to explore a couple of other things to begin to set the stage
not only for the controversy itself, but to understand the nuances that cause it to
exist.
This same thought is spoken in Mark, Luke, and John. Let's look at them all.
CJB Mark 14:1 It was now two days before Pesach (that is, the festival of
Matzah), and the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers were trying to find
some way to arrest Yeshua surreptitiously and have him put to death;
CJB Luke 22:1 But the festival of Matzah, known as Pesach, was
approaching;
CJB John 13:1 It was just before the festival of Pesach, and Yeshua knew
that the time had come for him to pass from this world to the Father.
Having loved his own people in the world, he loved them to the end.
So; according to Matthew and Mark this scene on the Mount of Olives was taking
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
place 2 days before Passover. But there is no mention of a specified time␂frame from either Luke or John other than that Jesus was speaking shortly before
Passover or Matzah was to begin. We have the additional twist in that Mark says
Passover is the Festival of Matzah, and so does Luke. Matthew and John only
refer to it as Passover, with no mention of the Festival of Matzah (the Feast of
Unleavened Bread). Any student of the Torah knows that Passover and the
Festival of Matzah are not synonyms; they are two different God appointed
times... two different Festivals... each to be celebrated differently. These details
ought to eventually lead us to exactly what day it was that Yeshua was executed
on the cross: but was it Nisan 14th (Passover day), or Nisan 15th (on the Feast of
Matzah) ? These are not trivial points as they have much to do with whether or
not Jesus fulfilled the sign of Jonah of being in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights.
So, we have a great deal to unpack here, and I'll tell you at the outset that the
answer will not be straightforward. In fact, we're going to address it several times
in upcoming lessons. Here we go.
In the modern era of the Western world, we speak of occasions like Christmas,
the Christmas season, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas vacation, and
then New Year's Day and eve. Sometimes we just roll all these things together
and call them the Holiday Season. No Westerner has much trouble
understanding what someone is speaking about when they use any of these
terms because the context of the conversation will establish it. For sure, these
days all happen in the last half of December plus maybe the first 2 or 3 of days of
January. And, depending on what Western nation (or even some Eastern
nations) you're in, how this period of time is spoken of is about the same
although how this is all observed varies substantially. We all understand this and
don't stress over it. There are specifics and there are generalities, and we're
quite capable of sorting them out. It worked exactly that way about the time of
year, and the celebration of the festivals, which is being narrated to begin
Matthew chapter 26. The principle is this: when speaking of holidays and festivals
in the Bible (especially in the New Testament), sometimes they are spoken of in
their most technical sense, and at other times within common conversation (as
we reading in Matthew) they are spoken of in their more casual, general sense;
sort of a street language as opposed to a scholar's language.
There were three biblical feast celebrations that Yeshua and thousands of other
Jews had come to Jerusalem to celebrate. These holidays not only happened in
rapid succession but in some ways they overlapped. They always occurred in the
springtime, and the series of festivals always began on Nisan 14th
. The first was
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
Passover (Pesach in Hebrew). The second was the Feast of Unleavened Bread
(Matza in Hebrew). The final was Firstfruits (Bikkurim in Hebrew). About 50 days
later is another Festival, known in Christendom as Pentecost (which is actually a
Greek loan word meaning 50). In Hebrew it is Shavuot (which means weeks). I
think the best way to get a handle on how this works is to go to the source:
Leviticus chapter 23. I want you all you open your Bibles to that chapter along
with me.
READ LEVITICUS CHAPTER 23:1 - 21
For now, the salient points are these: Passover starts on the 14th of Nisan, and is
a 1-day event. The Feast of Unleavened Bread begins the instant Passover
ends, which means it starts on Nisan 15th and goes for 7 days. The next festival
is Firstfruits and exactly when it is to be celebrated is a little more complicated.
The biblical instruction in Leviticus 23 is that Firstfruits is to be observed on the
first day AFTER the next Sabbath day that happens after the Feast of Matzah.
So, just like in the Julian Calendar we all use, the particular name of a day
(Monday, Tuesday, etc.) doesn't stay the same as the date. That is, August the
25th for example, can be a Monday one year, a Tuesday another year, etc. So,
while Passover and the first day of the Festival of Matzah starts on different
named days of the week, they always start on the same monthly calendar dates:
Nisan 14th and 15th
. Firstfruits is observed differently. It is instructed to be
observed on the day after the Sabbath (the Sabbath in modern terms is a
Saturday), which means Firstfruits always falls on a Sunday, but the monthly
calendar date will differ year to year.
The Book of Deuteronomy has a bit different take on this. Go to Deuteronomy
chapter 16.
READ DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 16:1 - 12
Instructions get a little more specific about Passover in that the Passover meal is
to be eaten after the sunset. Biblical days are always counted as beginning and
ending at sunset, totally unlike the world today that uses a clock to determine the
beginning and ending of days. We count 12 midnight as the ending of one day
and beginning of the next. Thus, according to Deuteronomy, the Passover meal
is to be prepared and cooked on Passover, but it is not to be eaten until the sun
goes down... meaning that the day changes. It changes to Nisan 15th
, the first
day of the Feast of Matza. So, the Passover meal (or seder) occurs just after
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
dark, in the first hour or so of Nisan 15th
... it is NOT eaten on the festival day of
Passover. On the festival day of Passover what happens is that the Passover
lamb is slaughtered, prepared and roasted in an oven. But, I say again; it is not
eaten until after sunset, which is the start of a new day.
Also notice that no mention is made in Deuteronomy of the feast of Firstfruits.
Why, I don't know. Oh, but it gets even better. In Leviticus 23:11, it was not clear
to the ancient Torah scholars whether the verse that speaks of a Sabbath is
referring to the weekly Sabbath or to the special Sabbath that is ordained for the
first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Nisan 15th (there are two special or
great Sabbaths during the Feast of Unleavened Bread; one to begin it and one
on the final day of it). In Yeshua's time, the meaning of this verse was hotly
debated between the Pharisees and the sect of the Sadducees. The Sadducees
interpreted Leviticus 23 concerning the "day after the Sabbath" as being Sunday
(the 1
st day of the week), therefore never having a fixed "date" on the Hebrew
calendar. However, the Pharisees interpreted this verse to mean the Sabbath
refers to the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15th
, a Great
Sabbath), therefore Firstfruits being the day after it would always fall on the 16th
of Nisan, not on a fixed day of the week. It seems likely that in Joshua 5:10-12
that the Israelites celebrated Firstfruits on the 16th of Nisan. Let's take a moment
to read that.
CJB Joshua 5:10-12 10 The people of Isra'el camped at Gilgal, and they
observed Pesach on the fourteenth day of the month, there on the plains of
Yericho. 11 The day after Pesach they ate what the land produced, matzah
and roasted ears of grain that day. 12 The following day, after they had eaten
food produced in the land, the man ended. From then on the people of
Isra'el no longer had man; instead, that year, they ate the produce of the
land of Kena'an.
Flavius Josephus, who was at one time member of the priesthood, wrote
that "On the second day of Unleavened Bread, which is the sixteenth day of
the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth." Another 1
st century
Jewish eyewitness reported, "There is also a festival during Unleavened
Bread, which succeeds the first day, and this is named the sheaf." The
sheaf is another name for the day the sheaf is waved... which is Firstfruits. Both
witnesses agree that Firstfruits was observed in accordance with the reckoning of
the Pharisees in the 1
st century. That is, the Pharisees seem to have prevailed in
this disagreement with the Sadducees and as a result most of modern Judaism
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
celebrates Firstfruits on Nisan 16. So, in modern Jewish Tradition (and it seems it
was this way in Yeshua's era), Passover was always Nisan 14th
, the first day of
Unleavened Bread was always the 15th
, and Firstfruits was always the 16th
. However; it seems that even though that is how the Jewish residents of Judea
observed it, it wasn't the same for the Galileans. Getting pretty complicated,
isn't it? Well, indeed it was complicated and like every other large religion,
Judaism had much earlier broken into different factions, each deciding on their
own doctrines, which even went so far as to involve different observances of
different holy day. About the only day that never seemed to be in dispute was the
weekly 7
th day Shabbat that is our equivalent of sundown Friday to sundown on
Saturday. Although it is complex and confusing for us, it is nearly exactly that way
in Christianity with our religion fractured into literary thousands of factions, each
having their own doctrines and ways of celebrating holy days. So, such a
circumstance ought not be very hard for us to mentally picture, even though the
details of it can be challenging.
So, in the 1
st century, just as it is today, various Jewish traditions from various
Jewish groups, ruled not only about how to do Passover, Unleavened Bread and
Firstfruits, but exactly when. Then we get into the matter of the Galileans (Jesus
and all of His disciples, and a large portion of the people who came to Jerusalem
for the festivals) who didn't find it necessary to do much of anything that the
Judean Pharisees or the Sadducees decided upon. The reality was that the
Galileans and the Judeans didn't much like one another, and so they celebrated
festivals and holy days a little differently at times.
While we'll revisit this again because it is not just complicated it is important,
let's fast forward and leap to the day after the Last Supper and then the
Crucifixion. Things get really dicey here. In the Book of John, we read the
following
CJB John 19:31 31 It was Preparation Day, and the Judeans did not want the
bodies to remain on the stake on Shabbat, since it was an especially
important Shabbat. So, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the
bodies removed.
John calls the day that Christ died "Preparation Day", and that the next day (that
would begin at sunset) was an especially important Sabbath. OK; time for a little
more understanding of the feast days. 3 of the biblical feasts are called chag, or
pilgrimage, feasts. These are feasts that the Law of Moses says all Israelites are
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Lesson 87 - Matthew 25 & 26
to make a journey to the Temple to have a holy assembly and to make sacrifices.
Since in the New Testament we read that everyone seems to show up for
Passover then it is regularly assumed that Passover is 1 of those 3 pilgrimage
feasts of the year; not so. The first pilgrimage feast is actually the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. However, customarily, Jews who didn't live in Judea (such
as Jews living in the Galilee) would travel to Jerusalem and they would arrive in
time to celebrate Passover there, since they needed to be there for the Feast of
Unleavened Bread that began the following day. Just as many Christians think
that it's somehow better and more effective to go to a church to pray than to pray
at home, so it was that Jews felt it was better to kill and cook their lambs in the
Holy City of Jerusalem, slaughtered by Levite Priests at the Temple, than to do at
home. So, they would travel and arrive a day or two early (before the pilgrimage
Feast of Matza) to be able to do that. However; since the first day of Unleavened
Bread was a special Sabbath (not the weekly Sabbath, but a different one), then
whatever preparations (including meal preparations) had to be completed the day
before. And the day before was Passover. So, Passover was quite literally also
known as Preparation Day for the 1st day of Unleavened Bread. And that is what
John was talking about.
One more thing and we'll end for today. Since the lambs were killed on Passover
day, and by most accounts Jesus was killed on Passover; and since the cooked
lamb was the centerpiece of the Passover meal, then what was the Lord's
Supper that took place the night before the lambs were killed? Christ seems to
have died about the same time the lambs were being slaughtered. If this wasn't
the case, then He died on the first day of Unleavened Bread (and not on
Passover); and the 1
st day of Unleavened Bread was a Great Sabbath. The
problem is we read that the Jews were in a hurry to get his body down and buried
BEFORE the Great Sabbath began. So, He had to have died on Preparation
Day, also technically called Passover. And because that is the case, His famous
Last Supper could not possibly have been the Passover meal (or seder) as
Christianity traditionally says it is, because the lambs hadn't even been killed
and cooked, yet.
We'll re-open this can of worms when we meet again, after you've had a chance
to digest this information, and I'll offer some solutions.
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 88, Chapter 26
Last week we began what is popularly known as the Passion Narrative, which
essentially dominates the remaining chapters of Matthew's Gospel. The
circumstances of leading up to Christ's execution, burial, resurrection, and the
immediate aftermath represents probably the most focused upon portion for all
the Synoptic Gospel writers. Yet, it is not without its controversies, and these
controversies are anything but trivial.
Immediately upon opening Matthew chapter 26, in verse 2 we read this statement
that seems to be so straightforward, yet is anything but:
CJB Matthew 26:2 "As you know, Pesach is two days away, and the Son of
Man will be handed over to be nailed to the execution-stake." The controversial issue that this verse opens with is not that Yeshua is predicting
His crucifixion; it is the mention of Passover {Pesach) being 2 days away as a
prelude to what we'll soon be reading about. While the two days-away comment
is repeated in Mark's Gospel chapter 14, Mark strangely injects that Passover is
also called The Feast of Matza. The Gospels of Luke and John make no mention
of the exact time frame only saying that Passover was near. Luke makes it clear,
however, that for him, he took it that the terms Passover and Unleavened Bread
were interchangeable. This is no small matter because the Torah establishes the
Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread as separately ordained Feasts, each
with their own significance, different requirements, and different lengths of time of
observance. Then, even though the next Feast in the series of the 3 springtime
Torah ordained festivals called Firstfruits isn't mentioned, the timing of Firstfruits
is established in relation to the observance of Passover and Unleavened Bread.
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
This reality is weighty because the Messiah is some years later said by the
Apostle Paul to be the firstfruits of the resurrection. It is obvious to me that Paul
concluded that Christ arising from the grave on the Feast of Firstfruits
(Bikkurim in Hebrew) was no coincidence. Rather it was symbolic of the general
resurrection that would eventually come, as prophesied by Israel's Prophets of
old.
The nearly universal Christian doctrine on the matter is that Christ died on
Passover day, went into the grave just at the beginning of that evening, and
arose on Sunday. Using a Hebrew calendar and the Torah as our guide, then it
means that He died on Passover day, went into the grave moments before the
beginning of the Feast of Matza (because when Passover ends, the Feast of
Unleavened Bread begins immediately), and then He arose from the grave
around sunrise on the 1
st day of the week, about 72 hours later, on what we call
Sunday. However, the reality is that the Christian timeline defies the Hebrew
Traditions of that era as well as the age-old calendar of God-ordained biblical
feast days that the Jews were commanded to observe... and did. The Christian
timeline also typically takes no account of the crucial reality that biblically a day
doesn't begin at midnight (as it does in modern times) or at daybreak. Biblically
(and the way Jews observed it) a new day begins at sunset. So last week we
began the complicated exploration of this matter (that we'll continue today),
which also involves the Last Supper (something we haven't encountered yet)
that is said to occur the night before Christ died. The Last Supper is said by
traditional Christianity to have been the Passover meal (or seder). Yet, that
cannot be the case because it is on Passover day that the Passover lambs are
slaughtered and cooked, and then eaten just after sunset. So, if He died on
Passover at about the same time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered,
how could the Last Supper have been the Passover meal if the lambs had yet to
be killed and cooked? Thus, as I have characterized it on numerous occasions,
this entire matter can appropriately be called a can of worms because it is so
complex, and because there are some differences among the Gospel accounts
about the timing that seem to conflict. Or, as I prefer to think, it is not that the
accounts conflict but rather it has to do with the use of different terminology that
has been misinterpreted by gentile Bible translators because of a lack of
understanding of the Jewish world in that era in general, and of the biblical Torah
in specific.
I will not review the information I gave you last time on this subject; but I will to
add to it. The way the Hebrew calendar worked beginning in Moses' era, and it
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continued through Christ's era, and continues to this very day, is that Passover
is a date on that calendar. In the civil Hebrew calendar, Passover occurs in the
7
th month of the year called Nisan (also called Aviv). In the Hebrew religious
observance calendar, Nisan is the 1
st month of the year. The one-day biblical
Feast of Passover (Pesach) occurs on the 14th day of Nisan. Therefore, it can
occur on any day of the week that the 14th of Nisan happens to fall in any given
year. The 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matzah) begins on the 15th of the
month of Nisan. So obviously it, too, call fall on any day of the week, coming
immediately after Passover. So, if in a particular year Nisan 14 falls on a Monday,
then Unleavened Bread begins on Tuesday. If in another year Nisan 14
(Passover) falls on a Wednesday, then the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the 15th)
begins on Thursday...etc. (not hard to grasp). But the other commandments
concerning these Feasts are where it begins to get more complicated.
Passover is, biblically, a Feast Day but in all other respects it is just a regular
day. That is, a person can do work on that day if they choose to, and further they
have no obligation to make a journey to the Temple for the Feast of Passover. All
that is to happen on Passover is that each family is to slaughter a lamb and cook
it, then wait until after sunset to eat it. In fact, when we look closely, in most
respects Passover was originally intended to be a feast that was celebrated in
one's own home as a family because that is how it happened in Egypt. That
is, Passover is a remembrance of the event in Egypt when God killed all the
Egyptian firstborn and it resulted in the release of Israel to go to their Promised
Land. In Egypt, each Israelite family was instructed to slaughter and cook a lamb.
Its blood was to be painted on the doorposts of one's homes, and after sunset
the lamb was to be eaten. A couple of hours later God's wrath of death flowed
through Egypt and killed all the firstborn males of every household, bypassing all
those homes where the blood of the lamb had been painted on the doorposts.
This event so devastated Pharaoh that he ordered Israel to leave Egypt. The next
morning the Israelites hurried to pack up and leave. Because bread was their
staple food, but the preparation of bread that included a few hours for it to rise
before baking it wouldn't work because they had to leave so quickly, then the
Israelites had to prepare bread that didn't include the agent that makes it rise:
yeast... leaven. Thus when a few weeks later at Mt. Sinai God gave Moses the
Torah, part of it included instructions to commemorate this event annually for all
time by the creation of the biblical feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, unlike Passover, did require a trip to the
Temple in Jerusalem where certain sacrifices were to occur. But the key to
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understanding the biblical timeline of these feast days is this: in addition to the
requirement of Israelites being present at the Temple in Jerusalem for the entire
7 days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the first and last days of this feast were
set apart as special Sabbaths. This is not the weekly 7
th day Sabbath we're
talking about, but rather 2 special feast sabbaths. Nonetheless, like the 7th day
Sabbath, on these special added sabbaths no work was to be done. Thus, if
travel to Jerusalem was required (that is, one wasn't a local resident of
Jerusalem), the journey had to conclude BEFORE the 1
st day of the Feast of
Unleavened Bread since travel wasn't allowed on a sabbath. Therefore, it was
typical that since Passover was the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
people that traveled (which represented most Jews) made sure they were in
Jerusalem in time to also celebrate Passover. It was simply a matter of
practicality; there was no way to be at home, kill and cook the lamb on Passover,
pack up and transport your family and the lamb and all the makings for the meal
to Jerusalem and get there before nightfall... all in the same day. So nearly
without fail, those who came by the decree of the Torah to be at the Temple for
the Feast of Unleavened Bread, came a few days earlier (just as Jesus and His
disciples did) so that they could find lodging and obtain whatever provisions they
needed to celebrate these 2 feasts before they started. These 2 special sabbath
days that are part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are in Greek
called sabaton, and are variously translated into English by saying "sabbath" or
"great sabbath", or sometimes "high sabbath". Translating sabaton to "sabbath",
however, can confuse the special feast day sabbaths with the regular 7
th day
Sabbath, so translating it to something like "Great Sabbath" helps us to
understand that this is a special, but different, kind of sabbath that has mostly the
same rules of the 7
th day Sabbath; however, these Great Sabbaths are
associated with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So; it goes like this. Passover on Nisan the 14th is mostly a regular day with the
exception that one is to kill and cook a lamb. At sunset Passover ends (because
the day of the 14th ends), and the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins (because at
that same sunset the day of the 15th begins). In the next couple of hours after
sunset, the Hebrews (the Jews) would have their Passover meal with the
centerpiece being that cooked lamb. I'll say it another way: on Passover the
lamb is killed and cooked; at the beginning of Unleavened Bread, it is eaten. But
the real key is to understand that this new day that began at sunset (Nisan 15th
,
the Feast of Unleavened Bread) is also a Great Sabbath. All work must cease. All
travel must cease. Therefore, the day before that Great Sabbath, the day of the
Feast of Passover, garnered a nickname: Preparation Day. Why? Because all
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preparations for the Passover meal took place then and had to be completed
before sunset on Nisan 14th
, at which time the next day began and the next day
was a special sabbath day to begin the Feast of Matzah. Once more (because it
can confuse us): even though it is casually called the Passover meal or Passover
seder (with the lamb as the main dish), it is not actually eaten on Passover, it is
only prepared on Passover. It is eaten during the first hours of the first day of the
Feast of Unleavened Bread.
I mentioned this in the previous lesson but it bears repeating: just as in the
Western world we have all sorts of nicknames and terms for the days
surrounding Christmas and New Year... terms such as the Christmas season, the
Holiday Season, the Holidays, Christmas Eve, and a few more, we are familiar
enough with their meaning and intent to understand all of these terms as used in
a conversation. We're not confused because these terms are not meant in their
most technical sense (that is, technically Christmas is a one-day event on
December 25th and New Year is a one-day event on January 1
st). It was the
same concerning the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread in Christ's
era. Because of the logistics involved, the 2 feasts would usually be conflated
into one term in casual conversation among Jews: Passover regularly meant both
of the feasts, and equally Unleavened Bread also meant both the feasts. Yet, the
Jews fully understood one another when the conversation might switch from
those casual terms to their technical meanings. This is all so challenging for us
because most Believers aren't familiar with how the biblical feast days work, but
it is also especially challenging because we use a modern version of the Roman
calendar. While the Bible defines days as beginning and ending at sunset, we go
by a mechanical clock whereby days are defined as beginning and ending at 12
midnight. So, every biblical (every Hebrew) calendar day winds up spanning
parts of 2 Roman calendar days because when a calendar day begins and ends
is different for a Roman calendar day versus a Hebrew calendar day.
As we go forward in Yeshua's march to the cross as recorded in the Gospels,
and everything that surrounds it, we must keep these facts in mind (and these
are facts, not speculations). It affects exactly when and what the Last Supper
was. It affects whether Christ was killed on Passover day or on the 1
st day of
Unleavened Bread. It effects on what day He went into the grave, and it affects
whether the sabbath the Bible says the Jews were in a hurry to get Christ down
from the cross and buried before this sabbath began was a Great Sabbath (a
special feast sabbath) or it was the 7
th day Sabbath. And then since He definitely
arose on the 1
st day of the week (what we call Sunday), did He actually remain in
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
the tomb 3 days and 3 nights, as the sign of Jonah, which Yeshua prophesied He
would, or was He there a lesser amount of time? We'll use this information I
gave you last week and today as we go along in Matthew, and as we encounter
this series of various events (like the Last Supper) as the basis for understanding
what occurred, when it occurred, and why it occurred as it did as it encompasses
Messiah's death and resurrection. Let's move on now to Matthew verse 3. Open
your Bibles to Matthew chapter 26; we'll just read a portion of it.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:1 - 13
There are 2 events that are being described in what we just read: first, the
conspiracy of the Temple authorities to get rid of Yeshua, and second, the
"anointing" of Him by the woman in Bethany (do not misconstrue what I mean by
anointing, which is to pour out something). I want to create a little background to
help us understand what the true motive of the Jewish religious authorities was
for this determined drive to do away with this troublesome Galilean man. While it
was the Temple authorities (the Sadducees) that seem to be leading this effort to
kill Jesus, we also have mention of the scribes and the elders. The scribes and
the elders were the religious leaders associated not with Temple but rather with
the Synagogue. Likely, however, these Synagogue leaders also were associated
with the Judicial branch of Judaism in that era, the Sanhedrin, which was made
up of a group of men from both the Temple and Synagogue authorities. Matthew
makes it clear that the highest leaders of the Jewish religion wanted this Holy
Man from rural Galilee dead; but why? It was primarily for a political purpose,
even though these leaders would use their religion as the means to spin matters
to accomplish their evil intent.
The Sadducees were the highest Temple authorities and generally speaking
were hated by the common Jews because the Sadducee aristocrats were all too
happy to work with the Romans. The local Roman authorities had no interest in
the Jewish religion, nor did they have anything against it. All they wanted was
peace in the region, and for the Jews to pay their taxes, and to find some way to
convince the Jewish population to honor Caesar as was required of everyone in
their vast empire. It was mandatory that all people of the empire worshipped the
Caesar as a god; but the Jews refused and for a long while much bloodshed
ensued. Interestingly enough, in time Rome decided it was better to switch than
fight and made an exception for the Jews in this regard. Therefore, all they
demanded from the Jews was proper respect for Roman law and Caesar as their
sovereign; they did not have to worship Caesar as a god.
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Another thing that Rome demanded was for the Jews to obey Roman law... to a
point. Accommodations were made when Jewish Law and Roman law collided in
some cases, but not in others. For instance, even though the Sanhedrin could
order the death sentence for a Jew found guilty of breaking a religious law, they
couldn't carry out the sentence unless the local Roman governor officially agreed
to it. And apparently that didn't happen very often. Rather the Romans were
more interested in spending their time executing those Jews who broke Roman
laws, and in this matter the Temple leadership had little power other than to
appeal it.
In Yeshua's era, the major issue for the Romans was to identify potential Jewish
rebels and trouble makers, and deal with them; always in the most gruesome and
public way possible... crucifixion. Generally speaking, the Temple authorities had
little interest in stopping this atrocity against their own people because it didn't
threaten or enhance their power base or their wealth. And... this is critical... the
head of the Temple authority in that era (the High Priest) was always an
aristocrat, and never of the proper line of Levite Priests, as commanded in the
Law of Moses, to be the High Priest. Quite literally, the High Priest was not only
illegitimate in that respect but also he occupied an office that was bought and
sold, and usually with the support and blessings of the local Roman governor. It
was really a political office that masqueraded as a religious office, and its
purpose was personal profit and power. All of this background to explain that we
must not become distracted by the false accusations against Jesus of blasphemy
and insurrection as the supposed reasons that the High Priest wanted Him dead.
The concern was one that every politician worries about: a rival coming along
and taking the focus off of them. A person that wins the affection of the people,
thereby threatening the politician's hold on them. Further, the Temple authorities
were charged by Rome with keeping the peace. So, the blame for Jewish riots
and uprisings landed on the desk of the High Priest. If he couldn't control the
Jewish people, the Romans would facilitate his ouster and get another High
Priest who would do a better job of it for them. Therefore, the Temple authorities,
while perhaps making a public show of outrage, were (behind the scenes)
perfectly fine with Romans soldiers threatening, beating, injuring and even killing
those Jews they suspected as being fomenters of unrest because, in the end, it
served their purpose.
As good politicians, their decision to kill Christ was never in doubt; it was only
how and when. Here in Matthew, it is Caiaphas that is identified as the High
Priest, and it was in his palatial home that the conspirators met. They agreed that
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they needed to be quite careful about how they went about this, but killing Him
was the goal. This might be a good time to note that Caiaphas is not mentioned
in the Gospels of Mark or Luke, but he is mentioned by name a few times in
John's Gospel. I continue to maintain my belief that the writers of Mark and Luke
were gentiles, and so some of the nuances of Jewish society that would matter to
Jews (like who the High Priest was at the time) aren't so prevalent in their
Gospels because it didn't particularly matter to them. Matthew and John,
however, were written by Believing Jews, and so facts such as who occupied the
High Priesthood were important to them. There are also extra-biblical records of
Caiaphas identified as the High Priest at this time, and Josephus provides one of
those reliable records. I highly recommend you get some of the works of
Josephus as a wonderful biblical study aid for your library. As a good start,
specifically try to obtain Carta's Illustrated "The Jewish War". One place you
can find it is online at holylandmarketplace.com. It is a beautiful book, lots of
colorful maps, and it will give you some additional context for what was
happening in the 1
st century in the Holy Land from an eyewitness.
Verse 5 makes clear the political sensitivities that the conspirators were trying to
navigate. It was after all the festival period. Jerusalem and its suburbs were
swelled by 10-fold their normal size during these feast days with hundreds of
thousands of Jewish pilgrims descending from all over the continent and even
from North Africa. Religious zeal ran high creating a powder keg of emotions, and
something like the murder of this beloved Holy Man whose name was now well
known, could spark riots and unrest, which in turn would get these Jewish
religious leaders into hot water with the local Roman governor, Pilate. Let's be
clear who these rioters would be; likely not the immediate residents of Jerusalem
unless they were part of the Zealots party. It would be mostly Galileans who
traveled a 2 day's journey to get there, since Yeshua was one of their own. The
Judeans had little use for Jesus, although to be sure some would have sided with
Him. It is within this backdrop that we find Christ and some of His disciples
venturing to nearby Bethany (a Jerusalem village suburb) and the story of Him
being anointed with expensive perfume occurs.
We're told that they went to the home of a man named Shim'on, and he is
further identified as the man who had Tzara'at. Nearly every English Bible
instead assumes this disease is leprosy, because that's essentially how the
Greek is written (the Greek is lepros). But what the Jewish Matthew is describing
isn't the horribly disfiguring disease of leprosy. The Bible has no interest in such
things because fundamentally the Bible is all about spiritual matters, what we
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could loosely call theology. The reason that the disease is even mentioned by
name (or really, by kind) is because it is a disease brought on by an impure
spiritual condition. Tzara'at is not a specific disease but rather it's a class of
diseases that God is said to bring upon people as an outward revelation of their
inward spiritual condition. Generally speaking, these people were outcasts and
isolated outside of cities and villages because such impurity could be spread and
the people greatly feared it. Why in this case Shim'on seems to still be living in
his own home while being afflicted with such a disease I'm not sure and
therefore I think we have to reconsider what is being said. It seems to me that
what we are reading is not to be taken as "Simon who currently has Tzara'at,
but rather as "Simon as the man who had Tzara'at in the past". That is, he
became known in the area for having had it at one time, but no more. Shim'on
was such a common name in that era that some other means of knowing which
Shim'on was being referred to was needed. So, saying the Shim'on
who had Tzara'at was a way to do that, and thus to identify whose house Yeshua
and the disciples went to.
However whose house they went to is probably not the real issue, but rather what
we're meant to notice is the great contrast between the ruthless, wicked, wealthy
High Priest Caiaphas with his fabulous mansion, and the evil plotting of he and
other Jewish religious leaders to kill God's Son, over and against the humble
home of an afflicted but now cured common Jew, Yeshua's unconcern of being
near this former outcast, the hospitality this family offers to Jesus and His
disciples during the festival period, and then of course this lower-class woman
using what must have been her prized possession (maybe an inheritance) to
anoint God's Son, Yeshua. How might she have come by such an expensive
perfumed ointment we're not told because it's not relevant to the story... at least
it isn't to Matthew.
It seems Yeshua was dining with the family when, quite unexpectedly, this
unnamed woman produces this expensive ointment (muron in Greek), walks up
behind Him, and pours it on his head. This expensive stuff is not something a
woman would "pour" onto herself; she'd carefully dab it on, making it last as
long as possible. But for her, this Holy Man eating at her table is somehow worth
more than her most prized possession and so gives it all to Him by literally
dumping it on His head as He eats. Let me pause for just a moment to remind
you of something: she is in no way thinking to herself "this is God's Son", or
"this is the Messiah". These sorts of details have so far been limited to the
knowledge of Yeshua's 12 disciples. To my mind, I'm most curious as to why
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
she did this somewhat shocking act. It is a common thought in Christianity that
she was anointing Jesus for His death just as He was anointed for His ministry.
Another thought is that she is anointing Him as king. I think we can also guess
that perhaps she was simply overcome by this famous man who sat at her table.
So, what was her reason? Although Yeshua will supply a definite reason why this
was done (as a symbolic act of His traditional Jewish burial preparation), I think it
much more likely that she didn't have had a clue why she did it.
I want to share a personal anecdote that may lend some insight into her action.
Starting when we were children, we (at least I) might do something, get in trouble
for it, and of course my mother would ask: "Why would you do such a thing?"
Sometimes I could offer a ready excuse. Other times I was as puzzled by my own
behavior as she was. "I don't know" I'd say. Most of the time it was the truth; I
didn't know. I think even as adults, and then in later adult life, there are things we
do that defies what we have ever normally done, or what any typical person
might do. I don't mean this as necessarily bad or unwise things, but rather
things that are out of the ordinary for us. I want to give you a real-life example
that I still can't fully fathom.
Not long ago I received an unsolicited email from someone (I get quite a few of
these). It had Chinese language characters all over it so immediately I was
suspicious. Against my better judgment I opened it anyway (something I'm not in
the habit of doing) and I can't tell you why I didn't instantly delete it. Attached
was a CV... a resume... along with a note. The note said the sender lived in China,
and as I read the CV it was an impressive list of education, experiences and
achievements in the world of IT and digital communications. He said he had been
following Torah Class for some time in China (he could speak English) and that if
he could do anything for the ministry, he'd like to. I get these sorts of emails from
time to time, and usually don't pursue them because of their uncertain source.
But, uncharacteristically for me, I responded and after a couple of intriguing
emails back and forth he suggested we have a Zoom meeting. It was an
interesting meeting to say the least; but my natural skepticism remained, so I
contacted a person I know in Israel and sent him the resume and note to look
over. "Too good to be true" he replied. I thought, yeah that's what I thought, too.
Still, I said how about I schedule another Zoom meeting with this fellow and
include my friend in Israel to give him a chance to interrogate this man and see if
he could crack the code. The meeting lasted about an hour, and a few minutes
after the meeting my friend emailed me: "I think he's for real".
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
After pondering this for a few days, I contacted this man again, and after
speaking with him for a few minutes I said I sure wished there was a way we
could get together in person (I'm old school about these sorts of things). He said
we could. I was a little taken aback since he was in China. Well, it turned out,
after our first couple of communications, he was no longer in China; now he's in
a city not far from our facilities, having traveled here just a couple days earlier.
We meet, he tells me he'd like to do this amazing technology work for us to help
get Torah Class into China in a form that could aid the millions of Chinese
Christians there with understanding God's Word from a Hebrew heritage faith
perspective, and this help included translating the hundreds of Torah Class
transcripts to Mandarin. He says he and his non-English speaking wife (both
Believers) simply took a leap of faith, packed a couple of suitcases, put their lives
and his career in China on hold, and flew to the USA from Shanghai, not knowing
if this was simply his own religious zeal driving him to do this, or if it was the Lord
directing him, or if it was something I would even consider pursuing. So, I asked
him why he did this. He said: "Truthfully, I don't really know", and then followed
it up by explaining that he just had this strong inner feeling that wouldn't leave
him alone that the Lord wanted him to go to the USA without having any idea
what... if anything... might come from this.
In the end I was so taken by his candor that I managed to find a little bit of budget
to hire him (for a fraction of what he had been earning back home), and while I
really can't talk about it just yet, we are well down the road to launching
something pretty big concerning the distribution of Torah Class lessons on a true
worldwide basis, including into China. Something which will allow us to reach
areas of our planet in ways that were until now, impossible for us. This faithful
Chinese man couldn't explain where this thought came from or why he took such
a risk. I think, as with this humble and obedient man from China, this obedient
and humble woman in Bethany did something that only moments earlier she
couldn't have imagined herself doing. If asked afterward why she did this
amazing act of pouring such expensive perfume onto Yeshua's surprised head, I
imagine she would have said: "I don't know; it's just something I knew I was
supposed to do". And that my friends, is how it often goes when our God intends
to do His will through us, without us having a clue about what's going on. Yet, we
move forward... even taking risks... in faith.
Naturally since this perfumed ointment-pouring event was only between this
woman and Yeshua, none of the other people in the room felt that same divine
impulse nor could they fathom why anyone would do such a seemingly irrational
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
thing which, on the surface, appeared as rather senseless and luxuriously
wasteful. So, Christ's disciples' instant reaction was to be incredulous. Most of
them were poor fishermen who daily struggled to provide for their families, and
they just witnessed a woman suddenly dump a lot of money's worth of perfume
on their Master's head. Being men, I'm certain they thought... yeah, leave it to a
female to do something impulsive like that based on what was most likely only an
emotional outburst. It didn't impress them, it infuriated them. Why waste
something so valuable like this? And since they and Jesus had a natural concern
for their truly poverty-stricken brethren, all they could think was that if she was
bound and determined to do something good with this valuable ointment then she
should have given it them, then they could sell it and assist many poor people
with the funds. But now it's gone and the only good it did was to make Yeshua
smell nice and the woman feel good. But Christ knew exactly why she did it, even
though she nor anyone else did.
CJB Matthew 26:10-12 "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a
beautiful thing for me. 11 The poor you will always have with you, but you
will not always have me. 12 She poured this perfume on me to prepare my
body for burial.
This breathtaking symbolic act was done without her understanding why she did
it; but there is also no reason for us to criticize the disciples because if we were
standing there in that home we, too, likely would have been astonished... and not
in a good way. There's really no reason to think they should have understood.
This good work by this woman can only be truly deciphered in retrospect; no one
in that house could foresee what is about to happen over the next couple of days
as Yeshua gives up His life for sinful humanity. And, I can't imagine that Christ
telling His disciples not to get so upset about it because the poor are always
going to be around anyway (which of course is true) would have settled very well.
This statement of course wasn't to dismiss the poor, but probably was meant to
say that while there will always be innumerable and ongoing opportunities to
serve the poor, Jesus their Lord and Master will only be here to be served for a
precious few more hours.
In fact, Yeshua says that instead of her strange act becoming something that
goes unknown in later times as everything eventually does with the vapor of life,
wherever the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven is preached well into the future,
this is a story that will be heard and loved and remembered by all.
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Lesson 88 - Matthew 26
We'll close for today and continue when next we meet.
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 89, Chapter 26 Continued
When we closed our study on Matthew chapter 26 last time, we had been looking
at the rather strange act of the common Jewish woman in Bethany that had just
poured a great deal of costly perfumed ointment on Christ's head. She probably
didn't quite know why she did it... other than she was overcome with some inner
urge to do so... and Yeshua's disciples were none too happy about it because
they viewed it as a silly and extravagant waste of resources.
Bethany was a relatively small village that was an easy 2 mile walk from
Jerusalem. During the festival periods like Passover, it became a sort of
customary overflow area for Jewish pilgrims to find lodging as they arrived from
all over the Roman Empire including North Africa and even parts of Europe, to
obey the Torah commandment to come to the Temple for these God appointed
times so that they could sacrifice and celebrate. On the surface, that is why
Yeshua and His disciples were there; under the surface, it was to fulfill the
Prophets that the Messiah would die an atoning death to save humanity from our
just reward of eternal death.
So far in this chapter we have seen that within Jewish society there were two
starkly different reactions to this Holy Man's presence in Jerusalem. The first
was the opposition that is represented by the High Priest and the Elders of the
Synagogue, and the second was of welcome by many of the common Jews
(although those residents of Jerusalem proper were a mixed bag of suspicion
and adoration). As we begin to enter into the rather dark story of Yeshua's
march to the cross, as Matthew frames it, despite the divine act and nature of
Jesus we must always keep in mind that He was also fully human. He lived a real
life, suffered from thirst and hunger as we all do, had emotions that ranged from
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
sad, to apprehension, to anger and frustration, all the way to wonder, awe, and
joy. And very soon He was to suffer from terrible pain. First, however, Jesus
would suffer betrayal.
It must also be kept in mind that Yeshua was not a victim of circumstances; in
fact, it was He that was orchestrating the course of events. It was He who
charted the exact path of His journey to the cross, using the wickedness of men
as the vehicle to get there.
Open you Bibles to Matthew chapter 26. Since we've already read this chapter
all the way through, we'll re-read in short segments in order to get our footing.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:14 - 16
Judas the betrayer makes his appearance. The story of Judas has fascinated
scholar, pastor and layman alike for centuries. Why he did such treachery to his
Master that he knew so well is filled with mystery. Exactly how long after Yeshua
being doused with perfumed ointment this plot Judas hatched takes place we
don't know; no doubt, however, it was no more than a few hours. Judas was one
of the twelve disciples, which is what makes his act all the more perplexing and
treacherous. Might he have been present in Bethany to witness the woman pour
her expensive perfume over his Master's head? Could it have been this act
somehow was the catalyst that drove him to take such a despicable action
against Yeshua? The way Matthew places these 2 events in such immediate
proximity in his Gospel, it is my impression that this is exactly what we are meant
to understand; the one was the cause for the other.
The Apostle John in his own Gospel account of Yeshua's life reveals a little more
about just who this man Judas was in John chapter 6 verse 71.
CJB John 6:71 (He was speaking of Y'hudah Ben-Shim'on, from K'riot; for
this man- one of the Twelve!- was soon to betray him.)
This man's full name was Judas son of Simon. Christianity more traditionally
knows him as Judas Iscariot. The "Iscariot" part of his identification has always
been somewhat of an enigma in trying to decipher just what it was designating.
Some believe, as the CJB tenders, that it was the name of the town he was from.
And indeed, there may have been a town in ancient Judah called Kerioth. On the
other hand, the English term Kerioth is probably taken from the
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
Hebrew qeriy'yot that simply means cities. So, I cannot buy in to the concept
that Iscariot is a Greek/English term that is a but a town name that Judas hails
from. More likely is that Iscariot is a translation of the Latin sicarius. Most of our
modern English translations of the New Testament have come from the Latin,
which is what the Greek New Testament manuscripts were first translated to. And
even when they have not come as direct translations from the Latin versions,
certain loan words are taken from it and they appear in our Bibles.
Sicarius means assassin. There was a known group among the radical Zealot
sect of Jews (the group that advocated for violent rebellion against Rome), called
the Sicarii. This group was what we might today call the "terrorists". They were
fanatics, with no act of violence or criminality beneath them in attempts to
achieve their purpose. They were most feared not by the Roman occupiers of the
Holy Land, but rather by the Holy Land Jews because the sicarii would
assassinate Jews they thought might have collaborated with the Roman enemy,
or those who refused to support them if asked. It is believed that the 1000 men,
women, and children who fled to the desert fortress of Masada, and then
committed mass suicide rather than be captured by the Roman foreign legion,
were sicarii. This term being transliterated into Greek easily becomes Iscariot,
and considering his radical actions it fits Judas to a tee.
So, was Judas a Zealot infiltrator that somehow burrowed his way into the inner
group of Christ's 12 disciples? Perhaps. Or, just as likely, he truly thought that
Yeshua of Nazareth may have been the Messiah in the typical Jewish sense of it;
a charismatic military commander in the mold of King David that would lead the
Jews into an overthrow of Rome, a recapture of the Holy Land, and then he
would sit on the throne as the first Jewish king of Judah to reign since Zedekiah,
who ruled some 6 centuries earlier. However, Yeshua's open prediction that
within but a few hours He would die by crucifixion, and then His display of
humility and allowing this woman to pour perfume on His head as symbol of His
burial procedure, might have disillusioned Judas to the point of wanting Jesus
done away with. The way Christ could draw the multitudes to Himself, His
triumphal entry into Jerusalem in the mode of a king, and His actions in the
Temple grounds where He took on the cowardly and deceitful religious
authorities had Judas believing that Yeshua was the one he and most of Judaism
had yearned for, for so long. Yet, Christ's most recent actions knocked Him off
the pedestal Judas had built for Him. Now Judas determined that He had
mistakenly joined with the wrong man. So, he waited for the right opportunity to
approach the Jewish religious leadership to help them do what they so vigorously
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
wanted to do: kill this threat to their lofty and lucrative positions.
It is regularly offered in Christian circles that Judas betrayed Jesus simply for
money (although 30 pieces of silver wasn't all that much money). Others
comment that it was out of his Zealot idealism. Both the Gospels of Luke and
John characterize it as Judas operating in co-operation with Satan. However, the
Church sometimes takes this view too far by spiritualizing it to the point that
Judas loses his human nature and nearly becomes the embodiment of Satan
himself. The mention of the money cannot be dismissed; while the silver may not
have been the entire motive, it clearly played a significant role in his decision. His
greed for money reveals that despite Judas's place among the 12, He was no
longer a true follower of Yeshua.
Judas seeks out the chief priests and makes a bargain. This is NOT the High
Priest Caiaphas that is being spoken about. Rather these are the most senior
among the regular priests, because the term "chief priests" is presented in the
plural; he made the dirty deal with a small group of them. Judas was paid, and
then went off to plot how best to turn Yeshua over to them. I'll insert here that if
we pause to think about it, why did the chief priests need Judah at all to capture
Jesus? They knew who Yeshua was and that He wasn't a violent man. I suspect
the issue was that they didn't know WHERE He was, and because Jesus was a
rather non-descript man in appearance, He wasn't easily identifiable in a crowd.
I'll remind you yet again that this was Passover week, and so Jerusalem and its
surrounding villages were overrun with crowds of Jews from everywhere. Yeshua
was the classic needle in a haystack and who better to know His whereabouts
and His identity than one of His most trusted disciples. After Matthew makes this
insertion (probably for the sake of creating a kind of timeline), he moves on to
what came next. Open your Bibles again to Matthew chapter 26.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:17 - 30
This is what is popularly known as the Last Supper. I'll frame this section by
saying that the story begins in Bethany, moves to Jerusalem, and then once
again moves to outside the city walls, across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of
Olives. I'll also mention that the term "Last Supper" doesn't appear in the
narrative; it is but a name that later Christianity gave to it. Exactly what this
ceremony was, is actually controversial if not enigmatic. I'll delve into this as we
go.
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
So, this passage begins with words that seem rather straightforward:
CJBMatthew 26:17 On the first day for matzah, the talmidim came to Yeshua
and asked, "Where do you want us to prepare your Seder?"
Different Bible versions choose very slightly different words, but there is no
disagreement in substance among them. This is speaking about the 1
st day of the
biblical Feast of Unleavened Bread {matzah), which according to the Torah is a
7-day feast. However, when we know the Torah, and we know Jewish Tradition
of the 1
st century, this statement in verse 17 actually presents all sorts of
conundrums.
According to the Hebrew biblical calendar (something the entire Bible is based
upon), the 1
st day of the Feast of Matzah is Nisan 15. So, to read this passage
literally, as it stands, means that the Feast of Passover, which occurs on Nisan
14, must have already ended. This, however, presents a major problem because
it also speaks of preparing the Passover meal (the seder) several hours prior to
eating it. The problem is that the preparation for the Passover meal doesn't
occur on the 1
st day of Matzah, because the 1
st day of Matzah is a special
Sabbath day and no work can be done. This is why Passover day (the 14th) was
given the traditional nickname of Preparation Day.
We've already discussed in earlier lessons that just as in the modern Western
world we'll speak about our various holidays using different terms... usually not
terms that are technically precise... still everyone knows by context and custom
what we're talking about. I gave the example of the last half of December being
called things like the holiday season, the Christmas Holidays, or just the
Holidays, or speaking of Christmas as including not just Christmas Day but also
Christmas Eve, and even extending something we call Christmas week to include
New Year. None of this troubles or confuses us because we're familiar with how
all this terminology is meant. It worked like that for the feasts of Passover and
Unleavened Bread in Yeshua's era. Thus, there is no way that the scrupulously
Torah observant Christ would have instructed His disciples to do the work of
feast preparation on a Sabbath... something that is expressly forbidden in the
Torah and is a grave sin. OK, so we must have some calendar issues at work
here.
Let's begin unpacking this puzzle by destroying a misconception among many
Jews and most Christians who know little if anything about these biblical feasts.
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
It is regularly said that the Feast of Unleavened Bread is an 8-day event, and yet
the Torah clearly says it is a 7-day event. Why this difference? It is because of
what happens when we overlay a Hebrew calendar upon a Roman calendar.
Because the Hebrew and Roman calendars each assume different starting and
stopping points to define a day (a 24-hour period), and the names and lengths of
Roman months differ from Hebrew months, then to say something like "the Feast
of Unleavened Bread begins on the 15th of Nisan and ends on the 21st" gets
confusing. When we overlay those 2 calendars, we see that in relation to a
Roman calendar (our modern-day calendar) each Hebrew day stretches across
portions of 2 Roman calendar days. So, it can appear on a modern Roman
calendar that the Feast of Matzah lasts 8 days and not 7. Further the date of the
Hebrew month (such as the 15th of Nisan) only rarely coincides with the same
date (in our example, the 15
th) within a Roman month. Of course, this was not an
issue biblically nor is it confused in the Bible because the Jews never entertained
the use of the Roman calendar, and the Bible only uses the Hebrew calendar.
The underlying nature of the issue begins in that when taken together, the
consecutive feasts of Passover and then Unleavened Bread last for a total of 8
days. Due to the logistics and many practicalities of later Hebrew society, the 2
feasts eventually became conjoined in Jewish eyes, even though technically
everyone knew they were 2 separate feasts. The result was that it was common
among Jews to call the entire 8-day feast period Passover or just as common to
call the same period Unleavened Bread. That's not too tough to grasp;
unfortunately, it gets more complex. The reason for this added complexity is that
Galileans seem to have created some of their own traditions for this holiday
period that differed somewhat from how the Jews who lived in Judea celebrated
it. Partly this was because the Jews of Judea all lived in close proximity to the city
of Jerusalem, while all other Jews... including those of the Galilee... had to pack up
and travel 2 or 3 days, even a week or more, to get to the Temple in Jerusalem.
So, the realities of distance and travel time played a major role in how Jewish
festival Traditions evolved.
After all, when the Torah Laws concerning the required observance of these
feasts were first created and given to Moses, it was 1300 years earlier at the time
that the Wilderness Tabernacle was the place of worship for the Israelites. They
hadn't completed their journey to the Promised Land, yet; let alone had they
conquered it. During those 40 years in the wilderness, all Israelites lived
encamped, tribe by tribe, in rings around the Tabernacle so no one had to make
a journey to get to it. But a long time later, when Joshua captured Canaan, Israel
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
was divided into 12 tribal regions, greatly spread out over the entire land;
distance now became a barrier to overcome. Jerusalem was where the Temple
would eventually be built, and thus nearly all Israelites had to leave their homes
and make a substantial journey to get there to celebrate the feasts; except of
course for those Israelites that lived in Judah, the tribal territory where Jerusalem
was located.
After Rome conquered the Holy Land, and after Israelite tribalism and (along with
it) tribal boundaries had long been extinguished, the Roman governing districts of
Judea and Galilee were established in the former Holy Land (and a couple of
others as well), and in time the Jewish residents of those districts became less
than harmonious. Hatred of the residents of one district for another is probably
too strong, but each went out of their way to establish their own customs and
traditions that suited their circumstances. And, it seems, that nearly certainly this
is what was at play when trying to unravel this strange event that we call The
Last Supper. It is really with the growing influence of modern-day Jewish
Believers and their academics that these matters that involve the 7 biblical feasts
are being re-examined and in some cases it is leading to a few of the stories in
the New Testament having to be redefined.
Here's the deal: there is no way that the Last Supper was the biblical Passover
seder (Passover meal) because Passover would have to have ended for it to
occur and Jesus is known to have been crucified on Passover day. If He wasn't
crucified on Passover day, but rather during the next day, it would have been on
the 1
st day of Matzah, which is a Sabbath. This makes no sense because later
we'll read that there was a huge urgency to get His body down from the cross so
as to get him interred BEFORE a Sabbath began. Dr. Baruch Korman and Rabbi
Joseph Shulam are among those who have offered possible solutions to the
problem, and despite some technical differences, they agree that while the Last
Supper happened on Passover, it was in the first hours of Passover, which is at
night time (somewhere in the 7 pm to 10 pm timeframe). Remember: a Hebrew
day BEGINS at sunset. So, in the first hours of Passover, Nisan 14 (night time),
there was a gathering of Yeshua with His 12 for some kind of a ceremonial meal.
The following afternoon (which in the Hebrew calendar was still the same day),
He would be killed. Whatever Last Supper was, clearly it was customary for
Jesus and those who made up His 12 disciples to celebrate it. Also remember:
Jesus and His 12 disciples were all Galileans and so had their own traditions
apart from those typically celebrated in and around Jerusalem of Judea.
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
Rather than further try to characterize the meal that night, let's move on to what
happened during it. I want to begin by our reading Mark's version. Turn your
Bibles to Mark chapter 14.
READ MARK CHAPTER 14:12 - 26
Notice how Mark time-stamped the day of the Last Supper. He, like Matthew,
says it was the 1
st day of the Feast of Matzah. But then, unlike Matthew, he adds
that it was the day when the lambs were slaughtered. From a technical
standpoint, this doesn't work. The lambs are not slaughtered on the 1
st day of
Unleavened Bread; they are slaughtered the day before that, on Passover day.
This is why we mustn't try to apply the technical Torah sense to these words, but
rather to understand it from the casual conversational way of the era in which
these festival holidays were spoken about. For the common Jewish person,
Passover and Unleavened Bread had become synonyms, and so the 1
st day of
Unleavened Bread meant the 1
st day of the 8-day feast period that conjoins 1 day
of Passover with the 7 days of Unleavened Bread to form one big event. Let me
also add that eating unleavened bread was NOT a biblical requirement for
Passover day. Therefore, it would not have been a requirement for the Last
Supper... even though by a created Galilean tradition they may have started
eating only unleavened bread a couple of days earlier than was required by the
Torah (but this is my speculation and there's no real written evidence for it). This
would not have been a sin; we could choose to eat only unleavened bread every
day of the year, and this is perfectly in tune with Torah commandments.
Of a few differences between Mark's and Matthew's versions of the Last
Supper, perhaps the one we need to notice most is that in Matthew in verse 28 it
says that Jesus's blood (as symbolized by the wine) is for the forgiveness of
sins. Mark makes no mention of this. Matthew seems to have a better
understanding of the atoning power of Christ's sacrifice, and it is something he
emphasizes and has built up to, in his Gospel. Beyond these differences is a
point that I'll make up front so that you can watch for it: the words chosen by
Christ and the way things proceed during the Last Supper has a direct link to the
words spoken by Moses at Mt. Sinai as he makes covenant with God. I bring this
up because a few times during our extensive study of Matthew I've urged you
not to miss this underlying characterization of Yeshua as the 2
nd Redeemer... the
2
nd Moses (which He surely is, only greater even than Moses).
The scene begins with the disciples asking Jesus where He wants them to
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
prepare the seder. While we find those words in the CJB, in fact the question that
is asked is where to prepare the Passover. So, the underlying CJB assumption is
that this is referring to the Torah-commanded Passover meal, which I claim it is
not. I will say this again, and probably again still later, because it can be so hard
to wrap our minds around. Indeed, the Last Supper was a Passover meal but
only in the sense that it occurred on Nisan 14th (Passover). However... this is not
same as the biblical Passover meal as prescribed in the Torah... the one that
Jews call the Passover seder... and I know this for 2 reasons: 1
st, the Passover
lambs had yet to be slaughtered (you can't have a Passover seder without the
Passover lamb), and 2
nd
, because the actual biblical Passover seder doesn't
occur on Passover despite its name; it happens in the first few hours of the next
day (which begins just after dark), on the 1
st day of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. This is exactly the way it happened in the exodus from Egypt. The
Passover seder is indeed prepared on Passover, but it is not actually eaten until
the sun sets and the day changes to Nisan 15th
, the beginning of the Feast of
Matzah.
Therefore, because Christ is talking to His fellow Galileans, and they are all
thinking in terms of Galilean traditions, and because the conversation is merely
using standard terms of the times, then Yeshua's reference to the Passover
merely means the meal that Galileans eat shortly after dark, the first couple of
hours after the day turns to Nisan 14th
, Passover. This is the Last Supper. One of
the assumptions often made in sermons about this event is that we ought to
notice that Jesus did not eat the Passover with His biological family; rather He
chose to do this with His disciples. And that we are to understand from this that
this is due to the replacement of His physical Jewish family with His new spiritual
family. While this is an interesting thought... and one gentile Christians prefer to
hear... we can outright dismiss it because even though it was biblical tradition to
eat the Passover meal with family, I've already demonstrated that the Last
Supper was not the Passover meal.
Yeshua instructs the disciples to go from Bethany, into the city of Jerusalem, and
find a certain unnamed man, and tell him that the Rabbi says that His time is at
hand (His time to be arrested and killed), and that they are going to celebrate
Passover at his house. It can only be that this had to be something that was
prearranged and whoever this man was, the disciples knew of him. Mark puts it a
little differently saying:
CJB Mark 14:13-14 13 He sent two of his talmidim with these instructions:
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
"Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow
him; 14 and whichever house he enters, tell him that the Rabbi says, Where
is the guest room for me, where I am to eat the Pesach meal with my
talmidim?'
So; the disciples are to find this man carrying a jar of water who is waiting to
meet them. The disciples are to follow this man to the house he has reserved for
the purpose of this Last Supper meal. And, they are to say that their Rabbi (the
better translation for us is Master) wants to know where the guest room for Him
is, and also where is the room where they are to eat the Passover. That is, one
place is for Jesus to sleep, the other is for Jesus to have this meal with His 12.
What is happening here was common in Jerusalem during the busy feast days.
The thousands of pilgrims needed places to stay, and so the local residents
would open their homes and rent out rooms not so much as a money maker but
as a righteous deed of hospitality. The place was known to be on the 2
nd floor of
a building; 2 and 3 story buildings being common in the densely populated
Jerusalem.
I want to pause here to address the matter of the Upper Room that one can visit
on tour today in Jerusalem. I can confidently say that this is not where the Last
Supper took place. Located in the modern Greek section of Jerusalem on Mount
Zion, the tourist is taken to is very large room (you can easily put 100 people in it)
but it was actually built during the Crusader era. Sorry to pop any bubbles.
In any case the disciples left Bethany, went into the city, found the man and the
room prepared for them as Yeshua said they would. There, the disciples made
the meal preparations and when evening came (meaning the day changed), they
ate while reclining (a usual Jewish custom for a festival meal). Essentially, the
Last Supper became a farewell meal. I mentioned a few minutes ago about the
relationship of the Last Supper to the Mt. Sinai covenant ceremony with Moses,
so I'll take a moment to read to you a short section from Exodus.
CJB Exodus 24:3-7 3 Moshe came and told the people everything ADONAI
had said, including all the rulings. The people answered with one voice:
"We will obey every word ADONAI has spoken."
4 Moshe wrote down all the
words of ADONAI. He rose early in the morning, built an altar at the base of
the mountain and set upright twelve large stones to represent the twelve
tribes of Isra'el. 5 He sent the young men of the people of Isra'el to offer
burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings of oxen to ADONAI. 6 Moshe
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
took half of the blood and put it in basins; the other half of the blood he
splashed against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant and
read it aloud, so that the people could hear; and they responded,
"Everything that ADONAl has spoken, we will do and obey." There are a few more connections, but for the moment notice the number 12. At
the Last Supper Yeshua involves 12 disciples; at the Mt. Sinai covenant
ceremony the 12 tribes of Israel are represented by the 12 large stones set
upright. We'll soon get to the use of blood in the ceremony. I have no doubt that
Yeshua choosing 12 men to be His disciples is meant to represent the 12 tribes
of Israel, and we're told in other places in the New Testament that these 12 will
sit in judgment of the 12 tribes... a one-to-one relationship.
Next we read that during the eating of the meal Yeshua drops a bomb on the
proceedings: one of those seated at the table will betray Him. No details of it, or
when, are put forward. I think it is hard to overstate how agitated this would have
made them all. They believe Him, even to the point that each seeks to be
exonerated. The concern for them is less that Yeshua is going to be betrayed
and suffer the consequences, than it is that one of them will do the deed. Since
the beginning of the collecting of the 12, they have always been concerned about
themselves; who will be greatest, who will gain the most. We can sort of stand
back and shake our heads in disgust at them for thinking like that, but they were
being no more or less than human. In some ways we are to be comforted in this
knowledge that if those great men who were taught directly by the Messiah could
battle over self versus service, then we shouldn't beat ourselves up too badly
when we inevitably do the same. This isn't an excuse or are we to feel enabled
to be self-oriented. Rather it is that while our goal as followers of Messiah is to be
perfect in devotion to Yeshua and the Torah principles, yet the spirit is willing
while the flesh is weak. It is a process that takes effort, and despite our best
intentions we will fail at it from time to time. The 12 disciples are perhaps one of
the best biblical examples of this kind of failure inherent to our fallen nature, but
also a revelation of how all but one would soon right themselves and rise above
those failures.
During the turmoil when each disciple nervously asked if the Lord was referring to
them, He replied with the equally cryptic: "The one who dips his matzah in the
dish with me is the one who will betray me." Although the CJB takes some unneeded liberties with this verse when it says
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Lesson 89 - Matthew 26 cont
"the one who dips his matzah..", there is no reference to bread or to matzah in
the passage. Rather it says "the one who dips his hand in the
dish.." The matzah reference continues to incorrectly assume that this meal is
the official biblical Passover seder. This comment from Yeshua no doubt didn't
at all soothe the disciples' anxiety because there is no particular disciple that has
put his hand into the bowl... all have. One by one they seem to question Yeshua if
it is them. Clearly this is a matter of Yeshua knowing something that only a
person with divine foreknowledge could, and that's the context of what their
questioning asks. That is, their question is more "will it be me" rather than "it is
NOT me".
Yeshua scares them all a bit further by again invoking His favorite title for
Himself... the Son of Man... and says that "it is written" that He will be betrayed
and die. "It is written" meant two different things to a Jew. One, it meant a written
biblical prophecy. And two, it meant something like we would say today: "It is
written in stone". That is, it is predestined and cannot be changed. There is no
specific Scripture that says such a thing, so the point is that neither the coming
betrayal nor its consequences are a surprise. Evil can't overtake Yeshua without
Him knowing about it in advance, and by implication choosing to allow it to
happen. This is a classic case of God using what is intended as evil, for good.
Even though this is the case, says Christ, woe to the person who will betray the
Son of Man. The consequences will be so severe for him that he will wish he
hadn't been born to suffer them. No doubt this expresses the eternal punishment
that will result. Finally, Judas speaks up and feigning innocence asks if it could
be him (what else could he do... wouldn't it be terribly suspicious if he were the
only one who didn't inquire?). Yeshua nails him; He says "the words are yours".
This is a Jewish expression that in this case means you have just condemned
yourself.
Strangely enough, the topic just seems to get shelved for the time being with
Yeshua identifying Judas in front of the other eleven. Just as strangely, in Mark's
Gospel it is left out that Yeshua exposed Judas as the betrayer. Either way, the
reader already knows who it is. What comes next is what was eventually
transformed into the Church sacrament of Communion. There's much to discuss
about it, but our time is over for today so we'll pick-up with that next time.
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 90, Chapter 26 Continued 2
We open today with what is known as the very intriguing Last Supper. Clearly
from the way in which this event is covered in all the Gospel accounts, each
writer sees it as dramatically meaningful for those who love and trust in Jesus of
Nazareth, as well as one of the great mile markers along the road of Redemption
History. When we closed our study of Matthew 26 last week, we were at the
point that Jesus was revealing that He was about to be betrayed by one of His 12
disciples. Naturally 11 of those disciples were shocked and shaken at this news,
and probably just a little bit confused. The 12th disciple, Judas, had to be equally
startled as he wondered how in the world Yeshua could know about the secret
plot he had hatched just hours earlier with some members of the senior
priesthood to turn Christ over to the Sanhedrin in order to condemn and then kill
Him. So as each disciple, in turn, asks if it is going to be him, it finally arrives to
Judas who deceitfully asks the same question. To which Yeshua responds in
affirmation: "the words are yours".
Now unmasked as the betrayer, apparently Judas remained with the 12 a little
longer, reclined at the table, as Yeshua led a solemn ceremony that we're going
to dissect today with some tender care. One would think that Judas might have
fled at this point, or there would have been some kind of narrative by Matthew
about the other disciples' reaction towards their fellow disciple Judas, but weirdly
there is none. Rather things just seem to proceed as though nothing out of the
ordinary had happened. Bible scholars have, for centuries, pondered why
something as obvious and expected as Judas fleeing, or the other disciples
becoming enraged, or Jesus ousting him from His presence wasn't recorded by
any of the Gospel writers. I won't present the handful of speculations to try to
explain this other than to say that up to this point what we've witnessed is that
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
Christ's close circle of 12 have been self-promoting and self-concerned all
along. I can't escape the sense that because of this rather unseemly mindset the
innocent 11 were more relieved that they weren't seen by Jesus as the betrayers
than saddened at the fact that their Master's life was soon to be snuffed out on
account of the wickedness of Judas. So, they just sort of compartmentalized the
thought of it (something men have always been good at doing, for the better or
worse), and moved on with their meal and the accompanying traditional holiday
ceremony. Yeshua, too, seems to have set this tragic reality aside for the
moment to do something that would become a centerpiece of institutional Church
liturgy; something that much later came to be called Communion.
Let's read a section of Matthew 26.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:23 - 30
Verse 23 says that the disciple that dips his matzah in the bowl along with Christ
will be the one that betrays Him. Verse 24 says that Yeshua reveals that this
betrayal will result in His death; however, what lays in store for this betrayer is so
terrible to contemplate that having never been given life by his mother to begin
with would have been far better for him. And verse 25 exposes to the group that
the betrayer is Judas.
I want to pause for just a moment to highlight something that sometimes comes
up among Christians about this scene. It is this: since it was written (it was
prophesied, as in determined-by-God) that the Messiah was to be unjustly killed
upon a cross, and therefore was something that had to happen as the pivotal
moment in Redemption History, then the fact that it was largely due to the actions
of Judas needs to be taken into account with some mercy in mind. That is, it
seems to be that Judas was predestined from ages past to be the facilitator of
this immense tragedy that at the same time is the crown jewel of atonement for
humanity. Therefore, Judas perhaps should be seen as pitiable, and even
exonerated by God for his treason against Yeshua since it always would
necessarily have to fall upon someone close to Him to do the dirty deed. And,
since God doesn't make mistakes, then for Judas to ever have been admitted to
the group of 12 as one of Jesus's closest and first disciples, Judas actually was
a Believer who made a lamentable mistake for which he repented and was
forgiven... and what he did wasn't all that different from another disciple that
gathered the unfortunate nickname of Doubting Thomas.
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By the way, I've heard this same logic applied to Hitler, the author of the
Holocaust. That is, it was Hitler that God predetermined to use to drive the Jews
back to their homeland, and it was the guilt of the world for not intervening and
helping the Jews that provided the momentum to officially give back the Holy
Land to the Jews to re-form their ancient nation. Hitler had always identified
himself as a Christian, right up to his suicide. Therefore, in the end, Hitler was
God's tool as the facilitator of something terrible in order to bring about
something good. One could wonder about this troubling and distasteful
conclusion, except for one thing: Yeshua said this about the one who would
betray Him... "It would be better for him that he had never been born". This
can only be speaking about the eternal torment that Judas would suffer, and no
doubt for Hitler as well. Bottom line: never, ever, is evil acceptable to God even if
in the end some good evolved from it. Never, ever, is betraying Him, or walking
away from our allegiance to Him, acceptable. While there is no way for me to
forensically discover exactly what Judas's mind was towards Christ, there is not
one recorded word said about him that implies that when He first became a
disciple of Yeshua that it was not out of sincerity. All we really know about Judas
is that at some point he became disenchanted, or full of doubt, or simply greedy,
and turned away from God's Son as His Lord and Messiah.
With verse 26, the Last Supper (or Lord's Supper) ceremony begins. I've spent
much of your time over the last few weeks slicing and dicing the biblical Feasts of
Passover and Unleavened Bread in order to bring you to the important
conclusion that it is impossible that the supper we are reading about was the
biblically ordained Passover meal (or seder as it is known within Judaism). Briefly
that is because the Passover meal is always eaten not on Passover but rather on
the first day of the 7-day feast that begins the following day... the Feast
of Matzah. And, the Apostle John tells us that Christ was crucified on Passover
(also known as Preparation Day in that era). It was during the daytime on
Passover afternoon that the Passover lambs were slaughtered and then cooked.
Since you can't have the Passover meal without the cooked lamb, then there is
no way that the Last Supper was also the biblical Passover meal. Let's hear
what the Apostle John says about all this.
CJB John 19:13-18 13 When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought
Yeshua outside and sat down on the judge's seat in the place called The
Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabta); 14 it was about noon on Preparation Day for
Pesach. He said to the Judeans, "Here's your king!" 15 They shouted, "Take
him away! Take him away! Put him to death on the stake!" Pilate said to
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
them, "You want me to execute your king on a stake?" The head cohanim
answered, "We have no king but the Emperor." 16 Then Pilate handed
Yeshua over to them to have him put to death on the stake. So they took
charge of Yeshua. 17 Carrying the stake himself he went out to the place
called Skull (in Aramaic, Gulgolta). 18 There they nailed him to the stake
along with two others, one on either side, with Yeshua in the middle.
And then at the end of John chapter 19 he reinforces this by saying:
CJB John 19:42 42 So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and
because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.
John uses the clearest language of all the Gospel accounts to pinpoint the day of
Christ's crucifixion. As we've already learned, Preparation Day was a nickname
used for Passover Day, because Passover Day was when all preparations for the
Passover meal were, by custom, made. That is, because immediately after dark
the now-prepared Passover meal was to be eaten; and since a new day begins
upon sunset, then Passover ends and the 1
st day of Matzah begins. And the
1
st day of Matzah is a biblically ordained Great Sabbath (not the regular 7
th day
Sabbath) in which no work was to be done (including no food preparation). So,
while the Last Supper indeed occurred on Passover, it was at the first hour or two
of the day (which occurs just after sunset); it happened several hours before the
slaughter of the lambs that would occur later on Passover Day.
Notice something else that is sort of buried in this verse from John 19: John says
"it was Preparation Day for the Judeans". Our eyes sort of skip over this, but
when we pause to reflect upon it, it is kind of an odd thing to say. Who else would
Preparation Day be for? The issue is this: in Greek the word that the CJB
correctly translates as Judeans is loudaios. While this is regularly translated into
English as Jew or Jewish, that misses the mark. The literal meaning (depending
on the context) generally speaking is Judean or a person considered to be part of
the tribe of Judah. And, these two identifications are not precisely the same.
A Judean was a resident of the Roman governing district called Judea. It's like
saying Floridian, or Californian, or New Yorker. The difference is that this term
only applied to a resident of the district of Judea that was also a Hebrew (a
gentile living in Judea probably wouldn't have called himself a Judean). On the
other hand, a person from the tribe of Judah is technically a Judahite. While
Judahite is a tribal identification, Judean is a national identification. In Yeshua's
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
era, because the tribe of Benjamin had centuries earlier sort of folded with and
into the tribe of Judah, then even a person of the tribe of Benjamin would, by
Christ's era, usually call themselves a Judahite. Tribal affiliations had become
something of the distant past for the Hebrews, and not a usual part of their
identity or conversation, but it did come up time to time the same way that on
some occasions we all might talk about our distant ancestry. So, when John said
it was Preparation Day for the Judeans we must understand that this meant that
it was Preparation Day for the residents of Judea. In the traditions developed by
the Hebrew residents of Judea, Passover Day at some point became deemed
Preparation Day. But, neither Christ nor His disciples were Judeans; they were
Galileans. Galileans had developed their own set of traditions about celebrating
the feast days that were separate from the Judeans. So, the implication by the
Apostle John is that the Galileans hadn't nicknamed Passover Day as
Preparation Day; rather that was an innovation of the Judeans. Remember that
all but the Judeans had to pack up and travel anywhere from a few to several
days to come to Jerusalem for the holidays of Passover and Unleavened Bread
so it is easy to see why out of practicality some traditions had to be created to
allow for this.
So; the Lord's Supper was some kind of a traditional Galilean pre-Passover
event that the Judeans did not practice. Among Christian Bible scholars it is
common for them to observe that when we read of the bowl that Christ says He
and the betrayer would put their bread into, and when we read of partaking the
wine, that we are to equate this to the Passover seder protocol. While we don't
know for certain, the earliest documentation about the customs and protocols of
the biblical festivals is the Mishna. That problem is that the Mishna was created
in the 3rd century, well after the time of Christ. That said, most of what eventually
became written down were but the long-time practices that until then were
handed down as oral traditions. In other words, it wasn't that upon the writing
down of the Mishna that all new traditions were suddenly created; rather most of
what we find in it had already been practiced for a long time. Only now it was
finally formally documented. This means that the way Passover and Unleavened
is celebrated today is likely very similar to how it was in Christ's era. Therefore, it
is often claimed that the bowl the matzah was dipped into may have contained
the salty water used in the ceremony, or perhaps it was the harosheth (a sweet
mixture of apple and honey), or maybe even the bitter herbs. I don't think it was
any of these because this wasn't the Galilean version of the Passover seder;
rather it was some kind of pre-Passover meal.
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Further, the CJB saying that it was matzah that was being dipped into the bowl is
David Stern's assumption. Most other English translations simply say "bread".
However, the Greek word is cheir, which means neither matzah nor bread; it
means something like "hand". So literally the idea is that someone dipped their
hand into a bowl meaning they used their hand to dip some unnamed food item
into the bowl. It is only assumed that the thing that was dipped was regular or
unleavened bread, but it is not stated in the passage. Because biblically it
is not required to eat unleavened bread on Passover Day, then different
Christian denominations have interpreted how to do Communion differently.
Some use regular leavened bread, some use only unleavened. The only reason I
would favor unleavened bread is because Jesus identifies this bread with His
body, which is a sinless body, and leaven is the standard biblical metaphor for
sin.
Verse 26 explains that Christ, as the officiator of the ceremony, took the bread
(probably it was matzah) and broke it and then gave it to His disciples. This was
customary Jewish mealtime protocol. When He broke the bread, and before
distributing it, He would have made the blessing over it (what the CJB says is
the b'rakhah) with the customary words: 'Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu melech
ha'olam hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz". In English, "Blessed are you O Lord
our God, king of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth". But then He
said something that was anything but customary. He says that they are to take
and eat this matzah as representative of His body. I'm not at all sure how His
disciples might have thought about this; in fact, this (along with the next blessing
and what Yeshua says it is to represent) must have caused the deepest
consternation among all of His would-be followers. Which is, I think, why the
Apostle Paul thought it so necessary to carefully explain it (we'll get into that
shortly).
Next, in verse 27, Yeshua takes the cup of wine and tells all to drink of it. But
before He or they partake of it, in verse 28 we're told that He makes a blessing
over it, and then tells the disciples that this wine represents His blood, but also it
is in the sense of validating a new covenant. And that the blood (represented by
the red wine) is to be seen as His shed blood on the behalf of many that atones
for their sins. There is so much here to unpack.
First, the blessing He would have said over the wine is: "Barukh ata Adonai
Eloheinu melekh ha'olam borei p'ri hagafen". In English: "Blessed are you O
Lord our God, king of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine". That Jesus
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
used those words is confirmed by verse 29 when after the blessing over the wine
He tells His disciples that He won't be drinking this "fruit of the vine" until He
does so with them in the Kingdom.
We should understand that this blessing over the bread and the wine was rather
standard over meals and not confined to the religious holidays. What is different
is how Yeshua uses them as symbols and metaphors for His body and His blood.
How were we meant to understand all this? Let's begin by saying that body and
blood together essentially mean all of what Jesus is as a human being. It is
symbolic of Him as a created being, brought into this world by his human mother
Miriam. So, the idea is that His followers are to fully identify with Him in His
humanity and in His death (and later His resurrection). Yet it is also here that we
get a fuller statement of the mysterious redemptive nature of Christ's body and
blood. It is here that we learn that the sacrifice of His body and blood (His entire
being) will enact a forgiveness of sins for "many". That speaks not of His
humanness but rather of the divine aspect of His nature; and I'm sure it was
something that must have perplexed His disciples. Further, the recorded words
do NOT say that His sacrifice forgives "all" but rather forgives "many". The
translation of "many" and not "all" is correct and of course in no way mean the
same thing. Who are the "many" according to Yeshua who are forgiven? That is
yet to be defined. There is more to sort through, however.
We've discussed on a few occasions that Yeshua has been characterized as the
second Moses throughout Matthew's Gospel. Moses was Israel's first mediator
and also the redeemer of Israel; Jesus is the second. Therefore, we see Christ
use terms and symbols that Moses and the Prophets utilized (in order to cement
that connection), and one of the chief ones used is the spiritually necessary
element of blood in covenant making. In Exodus chapter 24 we read:
CJB Exodus 24:4-8 4 Moshe wrote down all the words of ADONAI. He rose
early in the morning, built an altar at the base of the mountain and set
upright twelve large stones to represent the twelve tribes of Isra'el. 5 He
sent the young men of the people of Isra'el to offer burnt offerings and
sacrifice peace offerings of oxen to ADONAI. 6 Moshe took half of the blood
and put it in basins; the other half of the blood he splashed against the
altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud, so that the
people could hear; and they responded, "Everything that ADONAI has
spoken, we will do and obey." 8 Moshe took the blood, sprinkled it on the
people and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which ADONAI has
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
made with you in accordance with ali these words." So, in the Last Supper, by use of the blessings and the symbolism of the wine as
blood... Christ's blood... it is the necessary element to ratify the new covenant.
What is the new covenant? First we need to hear something that may be a little
uncomfortable; not all of the ancient Greek New Testament transcripts include
the word "new"... only some. What we find often as not in the oldest Greek
Manuscripts of the Gospels is that Christ is quoted as saying "This is the blood of
the covenant, which is shed for many for forgiveness of sins". The lack of the
word "new" is not some anomaly with the Book of Matthew; we find the same
thing in Mark's Gospel. Most ancient Greek New Testament manuscripts of Mark
do NOT have the word "new" in front of the word "covenant". Mark 14:24 reads
almost identically with Matthew 26:28. It is the conclusion of a number of
excellent Bible scholars and researchers that the reason the word "new" even
appears in some of the ancient Greek New Testament manuscripts of Matthew
and Mark is because it was added centuries later by early Christian Church
institutional authorities to make it conform with Luke 22:20. All the ancient Greek
manuscripts of Luke seem to include the word "new" in front of the word
"covenant"; so Luke writes that it is the New Covenant that Christ is ratifying with
His blood. So why is it that all the manuscripts of Luke's Gospel call it the "new
covenant", but the manuscripts of Mark and Matthew often simply call it the
"covenant"? A clue is that the Gospel of Luke was written AFTER both
Matthew's and Mark's. There's a very good reason that Luke would have
added the word "new" to form "new covenant" and we'll soon talk about what
that reason may have been.
So, what does this mean theologically if Yeshua only said "this is My blood of the
covenant" and not "this is My blood of the New Covenant". I'll muddy this up a
bit further by saying that the CJB adds the word "ratifies" to form "My blood that
ratifies the New Covenant". "Ratifies" (or anything like it) does not appear in any
ancient Greek manuscript of Matthew. Inserting the word "ratifies" serves an
interpretational purpose for the author of the CJB by assuming there is
a new covenant in need of being ratified by Yeshua's blood, as opposed to the
text speaking about what can only be the existing Covenant of Moses. One could
easily construe this verse to mean that adding Yeshua's blood upon the
Covenant of Moses does something that up to now it couldn't do: making one
sacrifice on behalf of many.
I've heard it said by countless Pastors that the real innovation that has been
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
created is that Yeshua's blood forgives sins while the Covenant of Moses, with
its animal blood sacrifices, only "covers" them (whatever good that does, or
whatever that is supposed to mean). That is biblically not correct. Long before
Yeshua was born, a person who sinned and made the sacrifice that the Law of
Moses called for indeed had their sin forgiven and it is said so unequivocally
countless times in the Torah. Sincere repentance was also needed, but that
along with the proper altar sacrifice indeed forgave sin in God's eyes. So, we
can't look there for what the difference might be between the efficacy of the
blood of bulls and goats spilled on the altar versus the blood of Christ spilled
upon the cross as concerns atoning power.
Yet, if we assume that the covenant Yeshua spoke of was indeed
a new covenant, then what exactly is He referring to? Because whatever it is, we
certainly don't find in the Gospel accounts the record or even implication of Him
creating some new named covenant from whole cloth; something that had never
before existed. The usual interpretation is that He is speaking about Jeremiah 31;
and I agree that indeed if He ever actually spoke of a "new" covenant, then
Jeremiah 31 is the logical place to look for it. I'm going to first read the part that
most Christians have heard quoted by our Church authorities. Then afterward
I'm going to read the verses that follow this short passage that puts what was
said into its proper context.
CJB Jeremiah 31:30-32 30 "Here, the days are coming," says ADONAI, "when
I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra'el and with the house of
Y'hudah. 31 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the
day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt;
because they, for their part, violated my covenant, even though I, for my
part, was a husband to them," says ADONAI. 32 "For this is the covenant I
will make with the house of Isra'el after those days," says ADONAI: "I will
put my Torah within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
Here is another version of this last verse that I want to share with you in the way
that it is more customarily translated in English Bibles.
NAS Jeremiah 31:33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the
house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law
within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and
they shall be My people.
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
Where the CJB says the Lord will put the Torah within people's hearts, all other
English versions say the Lord will put His Law into their hearts. So; is this
implying the creation of a brand new, never before existing "Law" that God will
put into the hearts of those He has elected? The institutional Church historically
sort of ignores this part of the verse and says that really what is put into our
hearts is the Holy Spirit. So, with this innovation, the Holy Spirit replaces the Law.
That is anything but what the passage says. So what law is this talking about? It
is either the Law that already existed (the Law of Moses), or it is some
mysterious, unspoken, brand new law that is nowhere found in the Bible. Rather,
the only new feature about this new covenant that Jeremiah records is that
instead of it existing only on slabs of stone or on sheep skins... that is, the Law as
something that is external to humans... rather God will miraculously write His Law
on the minds (the hearts) of His people. The external becomes internal.
Even more, who exactly, does God make Jeremiah's new covenant with? Verse
31 explicitly says He will make it with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
That is, all the tribes of Israel. No inclusion of gentiles here; and certainly, no
mention of the gentile Church. And yet, that is exactly how the institutional
Church spins this passage to mean. I promised we'd read a little more of
Jeremiah 31.
CJB Jeremiah 31:34-36 34 This is what ADONAI says, who gives the sun as
light for the day, who ordained the laws for the moon and stars to provide
light for the night, who stirs up the sea until its waves roar- ADONAI-Tzva'ot
is his name: 35 "If these laws leave my presence," says ADONAI, "then the
offspring of Isra'el will stop being a nation in my presence forever." 36 This
is what ADONAI says: "If the sky above can be measured and the
foundations of the earth be fathomed, then I will reject all the offspring of
Isra'el for all that they have done," says ADONAI.
That passage makes two things very clear about whatever this new covenant is:
First, God's ordained laws will not disappear. And second, to make the point as
graphic as possible, the Lord says that if these laws do ever leave His presence,
only then will Israel and their offspring stop being a nation. The Law remains in
force, and only should the sky (the Universe) be measured and the earth
fathomed (an expression meaning something that cannot and will never happen),
would God reject Israel. Yeshua reinforces these thoughts 700 years later.
Using very similar imagery to what Jeremiah recorded, during the Sermon on the
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Mount Jesus says:
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
In Jeremiah 31 God says the Law is going nowhere, however He is going to
place that Law within humans as opposed to it existing only outwardly; and Christ
reinforces that thought in Matthew 5 and really throughout His Sermon on the
Mount. Assuming that Jeremiah 31 is the source of this "new covenant", then the
one thing we do know is that it is not a covenant that replaces anything, and
especially not the covenant of Moses. Biblically no covenant made between God
and man is ever abolished or replaced; but new ones do get added. In my
opinion, at the Last Supper, Yeshua announces that the moment of the
prophesied new covenant of Jeremiah 31 has arrived, and it goes into effect
upon the moment His blood is shed on the cross. Further, what the new covenant
is, is the Laws God gave to Moses (the Torah) that have now miraculously been
placed into the hearts and minds of His chosen. That is, no more mechanical
obedience to what is essentially a rule book, but rather the sincere intent and
substance underlying the Law of Moses will become melded into the minds of
those who love God and demonstrate faith in Him by loving and committing
themselves to His Son, Jesus Christ. The new covenant in Christ's blood didn't
void the Law of Moses; it internalized it into our very nature enabling a deeper
devotion to it, and providing the ability for Believers to carry it out in the loving
and righteous spirit God intends. This would be symbolized by the very real act
that would happen in about 50 days after Yeshua's death. On the Feast of
Shavuot (Pentecost) the Holy Spirit would come as the embodiment of the Law,
and dwell within us.
Some 30 years after Christ's execution, the Apostle Paul felt the need to instruct
about this Last Supper ceremony of bread and wine to his fellows, no doubt
because it greatly troubled especially the Jews. The idea of eating bread as flesh
and drinking wine as blood smacked of cannibalism to the Jewish people and in
any case eating blood of any kind was expressly forbidden. So even Yeshua's
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
symbolic representation didn't go over well at all. As a result, the Jewish scholar
Paul having gone to the elite Rabbinic school of Gamaliel, did what trained
Rabbis do: He made a drash (a midrash) about it and taught it to his followers.
CJB 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 23 For what I received from the Lord is just what I
passed on to you- that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took
bread; 24 and after he had made the b'rakhah he broke it and said, "This is
my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to me"; 25 likewise also the
cup after the meal, saying, "This cup is the New Covenant effected by my
blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to me."
26 For as often
as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord,
until he comes.
We have here a perspective that Paul adds to the Last Supper ceremony that it
appears Yeshua didn't include, because it is here that we find the instruction:
"As often as you drink it do it as a memorial to me". There is no instruction in
Matthew 26 from Christ for his disciples to repeat this ceremony. It is presented
as a one-time event. No instruction exists in Matthew or in Mark that this bread
and wine ritual was to be repeated as a memorial to Yeshua. But, such an
instruction does exist in Luke 22. So why in Luke does his Gospel account refer
to the covenant Yeshua is talking about as "new", and that the taking of bread
and wine is meant to be a repeated memorial to Him, but the other Gospels
don't? The connecting tissue must be Paul's midrash on the subject. Recall that
Luke, the Gospel writer, is the same as Luke, Paul's traveling companion and
student. Luke heard this interpretation from Paul and so when Luke wrote his
Gospel it would seem that he incorporated Paul's understanding of the meaning
of the Last Supper by what we just read in 1Corinthians 11.
Look again at Matthew 26 verse 29. This statement is also a prophecy of His
death and resurrection, although no doubt the disciples didn't understand it that
way at the time. That is, the reason He won't be drinking wine again is because
He only has perhaps as little as 16 more hours to live. Could it mean that He
won't be celebrating the Passover again until after His death and resurrection?
But will at a later time in the Kingdom of Heaven? Yes, it could, but I don't know
that it does. It's rather ambiguous.
One of the important take-aways from this verse comes at its end when He
speaks of the Kingdom and who the owner of it is: His Father. Never does Christ
called the Kingdom of Heaven, His Kingdom, and we should never think of it as
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Lesson 90 - Matthew 26 cont 2
such. He will rule over it with all authority; but He will do so as His Father's
agent.
I cannot close today's lesson without pulling it together and encapsulating it in
the best possible context. Isaiah 53 does that in a far superior way than I could
ever conjure up.
READ ISAIAH CHAPTER 53 all
We'll continue with Matthew 26 the next time we meet.
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 91, Chapter 26 Continued 3
In our previous study of Matthew chapter 26 we took a careful look at a rather
peculiar ceremony that took place at an unknown location within the city walls of
Jerusalem, with Jesus and His 12 disciples in attendance. It occurred in the first
hour or so of Passover and therefore happened soon after dark on Nisan 14th
,
just after Nisan 13th ended (as the Hebrew reckoning of days is sunset to sunset).
It has in Christianity taken on the name of Last Supper or the Lord's Supper, and
as we discovered this could not have been the traditional Passover seder
because that occurs by biblical command 24 hours later, in the first moments that
the calendar turns to Nisan 15th
, when the Feast of Passover ends and the first
day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins.
The Apostle John (in John chapter 19) makes careful note that the
Judeans... meaning residents of the Roman province of Judea... nicknamed the
entire day (the entire 24-hour period) of the 1-day Feast of Passover, Preparation
Day. That is, Passover day was used by the local residents of Judea as the time
to prepare the commemorative seder meal (but not eat it, yet), during which time
their Passover lambs would be slaughtered at the Temple and then each family
would prepare and cook their slaughtered lamb in one of the many public ovens
set up around Jerusalem. Upon sunset of Passover day, when it becomes the
first day of the Feast of Matzah, then the prepared meal was eaten. The reason
that meal preparation could not continue into the first day of the Feast of Matzah
is because both the first and seventh days of that feast are God-ordained special
Sabbath days, so no work can be done.
CJB Leviticus 23:4-8 4 "'These are the designated times ofADONAI, the holy
convocations you are to proclaim at their designated times. 5
'"In the first
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and
complete darkness, comes Pesach for ADONAl. 6 On the fifteenth day of the
same month is the festival of matzah; for seven days you are to eat
matzah. 7 On the first day you are to have a holy convocation; don't do any
kind of ordinary work. 8 Bring an offering made by fire to ADONAl for seven
days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; do not do any kind of
ordinary work.
Biblically, the Law of Moses does not call for this ceremony that Jesus officiated
on the opening hours of Passover. So, what was it? By all accounts and
educated guesses it seems that this special meal that Christ and His 12
celebrated was a strictly manmade tradition that the Galileans created and
observed, but Judeans and other Jews did not seem to share in it. I think we've
explored in this and the previous lesson about as far as recorded information,
biblical or otherwise, gives us about this ceremony. The important part of this
special meal ceremony is this: the eating of the bread as representative of
Yeshua's body, and the drinking of the wine as representative of His blood, were
meant symbolically as His disciples identifying with Christ's death. Flesh and
blood are human, not divine, characteristics. Thus, Yeshua's humanity is the
focus. Frankly, from what we have thus far learned, I can't imagine the disciples
understanding the point of it at all; in fact, I suspect that they had to be not only
perplexed but disturbed about it since the drinking of blood was forbidden by the
Torah. And the eating of human flesh could not have evoked anything less than
the idea of cannibalism. Without doubt exactly what this peculiar observance
meant, which centuries later was formulated into the Catholic Church sacrament
called Communion, puzzled Yeshua's Jewish Believers for years to come after
His death and resurrection. This is why it fell to Paul 3 decades later to better
explain it in a letter to the Corinthian congregation (ICorithians 11).
I want to also remind you of something that is uncomfortable for us because of
what has been said and taught in the Church for centuries, and thus we take for
granted. Christian academics have for some time acknowledged (usually in an
obscure footnote) that in reality when we read in Matthew's Gospel of Christ
saying "for this is My blood, which ratifies the New Covenant", many (and the
most ancient) of the Greek New Testament manuscripts do not have the word
"new". Instead that same passage reads: "for this is my blood, which ratifies the
Covenant". Even the centrist modern traditional scholar Ben Witherington III in
his commentary on the subject says this:
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... the word "new" in verse 28 seems not to be an original part of our text
but is rather a scribal attempt to conform our text to Luke 22:20 or to
ICorinthians 11:25.
In other words, it seems that a later Christian editor added the word "new" to the
verse. I have taken the position that mostly likely even if Matthew did not include
the word "new" in his Gospel account, nonetheless Jesus was probably making
refence to the fulfillment of the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah in
Jeremiah chapter 31. Therefore, we must be careful to not take the meaning of
the term "new covenant" too far. When Jeremiah said it, it was not meant
as the formal name of a new covenantal agreement between God and Israel.
That is, we need to understand the term as meaning a covenant that is new-er or
maybe even re-newed. For instance; if we go out and purchase a new car, that
car doesn't acquire a formal name of New Car. New is just a description of the
car, not a formal name for it. New is an adjective, not a noun. As I have
previously explained, this new-er covenant was not new in the sense of its
substance and its ordinances, but rather it was "new" in the sense of
how and where it existed and resided...and Jeremiah makes that quite clear (if
one reads the next couple of verses in that passage). That is, the newer
covenant is not the abolition of the older rules and currently existing covenants
that are replaced by new rules (a newer car doesn't abolish the older car). All of
the covenants God made are still intact as a series of covenants, not each newer
one replacing the previous ones. So, what does the new or newer covenant
actually do? According to Jeremiah it is that the Law (the Covenant of Moses)
was now mysteriously placed into our inward parts (our hearts, in Jewish thought)
as an act of God, with the devotion to it and understanding of it becoming part of
our nature, as opposed to it having existed externally only on stone tablets and
sheep skin scrolls as a kind of physical rule book that was held primarily in the
possession of the religious leadership. This thought should not at all alarm a
Christian. After all, central to Christian belief is that the event of Pentecost moved
the Holy Spirit from existing as external and apart from us to becoming internal
within us, with the effect that our inward natures were modified to become more
receptive to God and His commands. It is my opinion that the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is the means and the vehicle within which the spirit and intent of the
Law of Moses became transferred from outside of us to inside of us.
Even though that subject is fascinating and inspiring, and we could discuss it for
hours, let's move on to Jesus returning to the Mount of Olives and the series of
prayers He made to His Father in Heaven as the terrible reality of the ordeal He
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
was about to suffer in a few hours, began to set in. Open your Bibles to Matthew
26; we'll start reading at verse 30.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:30 - 45
The CJB says that after Yeshua and the 12 finished this special Galilean
celebratory meal, they sang the Hallel. The word "Hallel" does not appear in the
Greek manuscripts. Rather the more literal translation of the Greek word used
(humneo) is to sing a song or a hymn. Translating this to "Hallel" assumes that
the group would have sung a traditional Jewish praise or blessing normally used
in this Spring holiday season, and that seems most likely. The Hallel consists of
passages taken from Psalms 113 - 118 and then set to music. This praise-song
seems to have been the traditional closing to this special Galilean observance we
call the Lord's Supper. Next Yeshua moved Himself and His entourage back to
the Mount of Olives.
In verse 31 Jesus makes a startling prediction: all of His 12 disciples will lose
faith in Him. He sets this distasteful statement in the context of the fulfillment of a
prophecy found in Zechariah 13.
CJB Zechariah 13:7 7 "Awake, sword, against my shepherd, against the man
who is close to me," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot. "Strike the shepherd, and the
sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the young ones.
Let's begin by noticing that Yeshua says "tonight" you'll lose faith in Me. This
loss of faith is going to happen in only a matter of a few hours. It won't be a slow
fading away; the loss of faith will happen suddenly. Yet Messiah tempers this bad
news with some good: after He rises from the grave He will meet them in the
Galilee. In other words, all... not some... of the discipleswill fall away from the faith
and trust they had in Him. However later they will regain that faith and then rejoin
Him back in their home province of Galilee. The implications of what this is
saying are enormous not the least being that it makes quick work of the
erroneous Christian doctrine among some denominations known as "once saved
always saved".
One of the major tenants of that doctrine that tries to explain-away the many
warnings in the New Testament about the eternal consequences of a Believer
disavowing their faith in Christ is to say that those who do so were never
Believers in the first place... they were merely pretenders. If that is the case, then
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so were Christ's venerated 12 Disciples pretenders... and I don't think any of us
of any denomination would make such a drastic claim. While we'll revisit this as
we get a little further into Matthew 26, I ask you to go forward understanding that
no amount of clever spin can take away from the plain reading and
understanding of the Greek words that the 12 disciples will renounce their trust in
Yeshua. They will cease being Believers for a time. Although I don't want to get
into semantics, they will lose (or better, disavow) their salvation. However, this
principle is immediately expanded upon when we read that despite this nearly
unfathomable desertion of their Master by the 12, Jesus will meet up with them
again in the Galilee. In other words, this is a story of faith lost and then restored.
What a hope that is for us and for our family members and others who at some
point have abandoned their faith in Christ. The door to eternal security if not yet
fully closed for them as long as they have breath in their bodies to consciously
regain that faith, if they so choose.
Clearly the "after I have been raised" comment went in one ear and out the other
for all the disciples. I'm not sure what else they could have been thinking that
meant other than resurrection from the dead. That said, it was either that they
were so stunned by being told they are about to renounce their faith in Him that
what He said next simply didn't register, or they didn't believe Him that He
would be resurrected. And folks, not believing in the resurrection of Yeshua is the
wide-open gate into disbelief in Him as our Savior. Sadly, a watering-down of His
resurrection into Him not actually having been dead but only "swooning" or not
having a detectable heart-beat but still being alive, or some other such thing, is a
growing and spreading tenet that Bible scholars are pressing since miracles are
not something many of them believe in any longer. Without Christ's death and
resurrection, then our faith that He has atoned for our sins, is in vain. In fact, to
not believe in His death and miraculous resurrection is to have no belief in what
He accomplished on our behalf.
Naturally the always exuberant Peter is the first to immediately speak up: "I'll
never lose faith in You" even if all the other disciples do. Peter's bravado will
soon be exposed as false. I love Calvin's characterization of it as "the
intoxication of human self-confidence". A book could be written around this
subject. When we back away and think about it in a larger sense, we must first
recognize that Peter is telling Jesus that He is wrong. Jesus doesn't know what
He's talking about. This warning might apply to everyone else, says Peter, but
never to me. Others might be tempted into falling away, but never me. My faith in
Messiah is so deep and enduring that I have finally passed that point of even
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
being capable of renouncing Him, thinks Peter. I'm different than all the other
Believers. Christian and Messianic leaders (I'm speaking to you, now), it is no
small thing that it is Peter expressing this sentiment. Peter is the leader of the
disciples. He is second in command only with Christ above him. I have personally
met too many leaders of our faith who believe that the temptation to fall has more␂or-less passed them by; that they have gained a kind of immunity. This false
bravado actually makes them the most vulnerable to it. Statistics show that
among Believers, it is leadership that is the more likely to fall to temptation. In
fact, most studies done on the subject say that around 3 in 10 Christian leaders
will commit some type of serious moral failure, nearly always involving improper
sexual conduct.
Yeshua immediately pushes back against Peter and tells him that before the *
crows he will disavow Jesus not once, but 3 times. The * crowing simply
means daybreak. The reality is that roosters will crow at almost any time. But it is
also observed that just as daylight is about to erupt, their internal clocks will
indeed cause them to crow. Thus, it is an ancient expression of saying "when the
* crows" as meaning the time when the sun is about to light the horizon.
Peter, himself sort of crowing like proud rooster, responds again that Jesus is
wrong. In verse 35, Peter ups the ante. He says that even if he has to die along
with His Master he'll never disavow Yeshua. The Greek word used changes to
the much stronger term aparneomai. That is, there is no question that the sense
of the word in modern English is to disown. It means to fully dissolve whatever
relationship had previously existed. Matthew tells us that the other disciples also
chimed in at this point and agreed with Peter. So now all of them are rebutting
Jesus and telling Him that He is mistaken. As we'll soon see, they will all... to a
man... do the opposite of what they claimed. At least, finally, Peter and probably
all 12 of the disciples, have accepted that Jesus is about to die. Resurrection?
Apparently not. They still remain blind if not delusional about what lays ahead.
What comes next is a power struggle within Yeshua that disquiets many
Believers; so much so that all manner of explanations by various Church
authorities to try to dismiss the obvious have been contrived in hope of gaining
some peace about it. However, we're going to face it just as it is written and
therefore as it happened.
Verse 36 has Yeshua and the 12 on the move yet again, but this time not very
far. They remained on the Mount of Olives, only relocating to a place called
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
Gethsemane. However, that's not what they would have called it. In their Hebrew
language it was Gat-Sh'manim, meaning "olive oil press". So, wherever they
were, it was where a well-known olive press was present. John in John chapter
18 calls this place a garden. In the other Gospel accounts only Mark along with
Matthew gives that formal name to the place. Christ tells His disciples that while
He goes, alone, to a quiet nook to pray they are to stay where they are. Let's
pause. Let that sink in for a moment. Yeshua, whom the Church rightly confesses
is divine, goes to pray. Praying inherently involves addressing someone greater
than oneself. He prays to whom? In verse 39 this person is identified as My
Father. This means that Yeshua as God's Son, and Himself divine, is not on an
equal status footing as the Father. There is, of course, a divine hierarchy of
authority. There is no co-equalness of the God-head. We certainly never hear of
the Father (or the Holy Spirit) praying to Jesus, nor does Jesus ever tell us to
pray to anyone except The Father. So, He follows His own instructions.
That said, verse 36 explains that Yeshua took with Him Peter, James and John.
We see that as time has rolled along, those 3 have become the innermost of
Yeshua's inner circle of friends and followers. These are the same 3 who were
there at the Transfiguration of chapter 17. Apparently as His most trusted
confidants, Yeshua descends into a sorrowful and painful confession. He says
that He is so distressed and anxious that He wishes He could die. No doubt "I
wish I could die" is meant in the same way we use it today. It is not meant
literally; it simply means that the person has reached the end of their ability to
deal with or process something that is grievously dreadful for them. There is no
getting around it; Christ is very worried about what is about to happen to Him. So,
while He doesn't want to include the 3 disciples as part of a prayer ring, He does
want them near to Him for comfort as He prays to His Father.
As I thought about what was happening here, I was flailing around about how to
describe what Jesus was going through. I couldn't find the right words for it.
However, Psalm 55 solved it for me. I will read to you the opening verses of
Psalm 55, a Psalm written by Yeshua's ancestor, David.
CJB Psalm 55:1 For the leader. With stringed instruments. A maskil of
David: 2 Listen, God, to my prayer! Don't hide yourself from my plea! 3 Pay
attention to me, and answer me! I am panic-stricken as I make my
complaint, I shudder 4 at how the enemy shouts, at how the wicked
oppress; for they keep heaping trouble on me and angrily tormenting
me. 5 My heart within me is pounding in anguish, the terrors of death press
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
down on me, 6
fear and trembling overwhelm me, horror covers me. 7 1said,
"I wish I had wings like a dove! Then I could fly away and be at rest.
As we think about Christ praying, this Psalm is a good characterization of how He
felt and what was going through His mind. This is borne out by the prayer He
raises up to His Father.
CJB Matthew 26:39 Going on a little farther, he fell on his face, praying, "My
Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet- not what I want, but what
you want!"
I think we can take "he fell on his face" pretty literally. Even the worst sinners,
and sometimes those who have resisted God all their lives and suddenly realize
their end may be at hand, nearly instinctively fall face down on the ground as
they plead with God to help them. It's almost like assuming such a lowly position
while sending up an urgent plea to the Creator, is built-in to us as humans. Once
again it is Jesus's humanity that is on full display here. In the position of
submission, He begins with "My Father", which essentially conforms with the
important opening element of the Lord's Prayer of Matthew chapter 6. And then
Jesus continues with "take this cup from Me". What "cup" is He talking about?
The usual take is that He is asking for the terrible beating and then painful
beyond imagination experience of crucifixion to be taken away. However, in
the Tanakh (the Old Testament), in Revelation, and even in the Apocrypha
(those books written during the 400-year period between the Old and New
Testaments), the term "cup" is always associated with suffering God's wrath. It
cannot mean any other than that here. We know that in His final moments of life,
agonizing on the cross, hardly able to breathe, He cries out and wants to know
why the Father has abandoned Him. There is no better definition of God's wrath
than to be abandoned by God and to suffer what inherently comes with that.
So, while no doubt Jesus is stressed out about the agony He is about to
experience, the bigger issue is that He knows that part of that experience is going
to be to suffer from His Father's wrath. When we get to that part of the Passion
Narrative, we'll discuss just why that had to be. Don't let it fly by... nor sugar coat
it... that Yeshua asks The Father to NOT pour out His wrath upon Him and for Him
to NOT have to suffer the humilities He is about to. Yeshua asks God if He really
has to go through this and of course the meaning must include that
He'd rather not go through it. And yet, somehow in the midst of this emotional
agony, Yeshua remains resolved to go through whatever He must in order to
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
fulfill the Father's will. It must be noted that in the Jewish mind of that day and
even until the present that in response to sincere prayer God can change His
mind. We see a prime example of that in Abraham's pleadings to God about the
residents of Sodom.
How as mere humans, do we rationalize what Yeshua is asking His Father for?
How do we deal with Him seemingly inquiring if perhaps there isn't another way... maybe even another person... that can bear this horror that He is being asked to
do? John of Damascus makes this observation: Jesus's words show that He
did, in truth, possess two wills... corresponding to His two natures.
It is interesting that the most orthodox of Christian faith has been quite reluctant
to accept that Jesus had two natures and thus two wills, because it would shine
too much of a light on His humanity, when what we most want from Him is His
indominable divinity. We prefer a strong, courageous, can't be deterred Yeshua
of Nazareth, as opposed to one that seems to be on the verge of wilting. The
problem is that this is the classic case of re-imagining Jesus into the Jesus we
want instead of the Jesus that was and is. We have here (and in all the Gospel
accounts) a record of Yeshua in a mammoth struggle between His human will
and the will of God. It is not an issue of Yeshua trying to deny or defy His
Heavenly Father; but rather it is an issue of Him coming to a place in His mind
that finally accepts that there is no plan B, there is no other option, and that
because the human will is simply not in tune with God's, therefore the struggle
within will continue. It's an issue of full submission, as opposed to trying to find a
happier medium.
Paul understood this dilemma well and in a passage that I dearly love to
remember and to quote, I suppose because I see myself in it, he said:
CJB Romans 7:14-25 14 For we know that the Torah is of the Spirit; but as for
me, I am bound to the old nature, sold to sin as a slave. 15 I don't
understand my own behavior- 1don't do what I want to do; instead, I do the
very thing I hate! 16 Now if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am agreeing
that the Torah is good. 17 But now it is no longer "the real me" doing it, but
the sin housed inside me. 18 For I know that there is nothing good housed
inside me- that is, inside my old nature. I can want what is good, but I can't
do it! 19 For I don't do the good I want; instead, the evil that I don't want is
what I do! 20 But if I am doing what "the real me" doesn't want, it is no
longer "the real me" doing it but the sin housed inside me. 21 So I find it to
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
be the rule, a kind of perverse "torah," that although I want to do what is
good, evil is right there with me! 22 For in my inner self I completely agree
with God's Torah; 23 but in my various parts, I see a different "torah," one
that battles with the Torah in my mind and makes me a prisoner of sin's
"torah," which is operating in my various parts. 24 What a miserable
creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for
death? 25 Thanks be to God [, he will]!- through Yeshua the Messiah, our
Lord! To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God's Torah; but with my
old nature, I am a slave of sin's "Torah."
Paul wasn't Yeshua, and neither are we. Yet we share some similar attributes.
Our human nature, as given to us from Adam, is an unfixable corrupt nature. We
will not be fully cured from it until after our death. With faith in Yeshua as our Lord
and Savior, with trust and obedience in His Father that His Word to us is true and
is our guidebook that reveals His expectations of us in this life, many of
the symptoms of our corrupt humanity can be relieved. Nevertheless, that
corrupt nature will remain alive and well alongside our new God-given redeemed
nature, and the war between them will never abate in this life, nor should we
expect it to. It will be a frustrating string of battles; we'll win some and lose some.
Even Yeshua, perfectly lacking in sin, was in His prayer to His Father at
Gethsemane struggling between the two natures because He was somehow as
human as He was divine.
Although we're not directly told what the answer was from His Father, clearly
what proceeds says the path was not re-routed. Yeshua returns from private
prayer to find the disciples asleep. He chastises them for not being able to even
stand vigil with Him for a relatively short time (about an hour). He accuses them
of being weak (that is, weak of will). Jesus goes on to say that they need to stay
awake and pray for themselves that they will not succumb to the test that looms.
And this because while they have a spirit in them that is eager to do what God
wants, their flesh (their human nature) is weak. And thus, here we get this
famous proverb of Jesus that has been in use for many centuries: the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak. This speaks of our 2 natures.
What "test" is Yeshua talking about? No doubt it is the test of them watching
their master get arrested, knowing what the Romans do to such a person and
often to His associates, and them being able to keep their faith in Him at the risk
of losing their own lives. They have just stated that they are all willing to go to
their deaths if necessary for Yeshua, and to this claim Yeshua says that they
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
better get to praying and keeping praying if they have any hope of following
through with their bold promise to Him. We can take Yeshua's instruction to stay
awake as a rather general one that we have encountered throughout His many
teaching discourses, and most recently in the illustration of the 10 virgins with the
oil lamps that go out to meet the bridegroom. Being alert and prepared heavily
involves prayer and leaning on God's Word; as the betrayer is about to strike,
sleep is out of the question. So, while this directive applies to the sleeping
disciples on the P'shat level, on the Remez level it applies to all of Christ's
future followers right up through today as we await His return. We are going to
have our faith and trust regularly tested. I cannot let this pass without making a
social comment concerning the world as it stands today, in the year 2021. Our
faith is under attack. Some Christians might not think so, because they see no
danger to either attending their Church or to their tax exemption for giving being
taken away. What they must not be seeing is that Western society and Western
governments especially have openly announced that they see the Christian and
Jewish faiths as a threat to their vision of the future. They are demanding through
the media and by law that for the social good we must give-in to the trajectory of
secularism, and that begins by calling what is evil good, and what is good evil.
We must see the Bible and its moral principles as a relic, science as our new
god, and that we can make different decisions in our time than what the ancient
Jews made or were obligated by God to make. As long as we agree to that, then
we will be allowed to function. But function as what? It will certainly no longer be
as a Church devoted to God and to Christ, but rather as a Church devoted to
existing in whatever form necessary to continue to exist.
How will we know right from wrong if the new Christian mantra is that everyone
has their own personal truth, because we each have our own personal Holy
Spirit, that designs a customized set of commands and morals just for us? And,
of course, these commands and morals will agree with whatever State and
society says they should be. Every new dictatorial regime that has come into
existence from ages past knew and knows one thing for certain: to establish their
new order, all remnants of the previous order must be erased. History, traditions,
morals and ethics of the past must be replaced by a new set, and that
necessarily begins with the elimination of the old and distancing us from any
memory of it. When our faith institutions either discourage its members from
knowing and following the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and seek to replace
such knowledge with manmade doctrines that essentially turn God's Word on its
head, we must soundly reject it.
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
Do not be deceived; we are being tested right now. If you didn't know it, wake
up! If you don't recognize that reality it can only be because you don't know
God's Word or you don't trust it, and so you don't know what to look for or how
to judge what it is that you see. Jesus chastised the original 12 disciples for their
obliviousness to the imminent threat they faced, telling them they would fail the
test if they didn't wake up to the reality that they indeed were being tested... and
to do something... pray!
But, to no avail. Yeshua again goes to pray (and prays the same thing), only to
come back and find the disciples again deep in slumber. He goes yet a third
time... same prayer... and finds the disciples asleep when He returns. Why did He
go to pray the same thing 3 times? It was Jewish tradition that to ask for
something 3 times indicated sincerity and earnestness. We find this sort of
pattern in the Book of Kings, and in the Psalms. We find it in Daniel as he prayed
3 times per day towards Jerusalem, and thus 3 times per day prayer has become
Jewish tradition. Soon when we find Peter disavowing Jesus 3 times, then any
Jew reading Matthew's Gospel would understand that this means that Peter is
very sincere and earnest in his renouncement of Christ; that is exactly how we
are to understand it. Peter had multiple opportunities to rethink it, but instead
doubled-down on His renunciation of Jesus.
After this 3
rd prayer, we hear Jesus say:
CJB Matthew 26:45 Then he came to the talmidim and said, "For now, go on
sleeping, take your rest.... Look! The time has come for the Son of Man to
be betrayed into the hands of sinners.
This is a sarcastic remark from a disappointed and disgusted Yeshua. It is saying
something like: well, I warned you, but here you are sleeping again. I sure hope
you enjoyed your sleep because now the time is over to prepare yourself for the
test that is but moments away. I've told you what will happen, I've warned you
of the consequences, but you've ignored it and now it's too late because the
betrayer has arrived and the events underway will have an inevitable ending. You
will fail. Can you hear the Lord saying that to us... the 21st century generation? I
sure hope you're enjoying your sleep because events are now underway thanks
to your laxity and disinterest and general faithlessness. The betrayer, the Devil, is
here and (for now) he's winning. He has corrupted even the institutions that were
supposed to represent God on earth. The gate is now flung wide-open for the
Anti-Christ to work his evil likely with worldwide co-operation including that of
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
influential portions of Church and Synagogue.
Yeshua again calls Himself the Son of Man; a title not of His humanity but of His
divinity. He is saying that He, as God's offspring and agent, is about to be
horribly despised, mistreated, and ultimately killed not because the Romans are
angling for it, but because the Jewish religious leadership desperately wants it.
Let's read a little more.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:46 - 50
After rousing His sleepy-eyed disciples Jesus says that the betrayer (Judas) has
arrived. Judas walks up to Jesus and kisses Him, which was the designated
signal to the cohort of soldiers that this was the man they had been seeking.
Apparently the troops and maybe not even the High Priest knew what Yeshua
looked like, and certainly didn't know where He was camping out. There was no
outstanding feature about Yeshua that made Him easy to identify; not even the
presence of His 12 disciples gave Him away. No doubt there were scores if not
hundreds of Rabbis and Teachers and their flocks waltzing around Jerusalem for
these holy days, and the dress of the peasant Jews was very similar. Trying to
find Yeshua was something like the needle in a haystack metaphor; Judas
provided the solution for the Temple and Synagogue leaders.
It is hard to overlook that Judas was hand-selected by Christ as one of the
original 12; never until they all reached Jerusalem do we hear of anything against
him or of any shenanigans by him. Here again orthodox Christianity often tends
to play this down by saying that Judas was never sincerely part of the group; he
was only a pretender. Or that Judas was a spy from the beginning. The idea
being that there is no way that Christ could have been fooled by Judas. We have
no indication that Yeshua had pre-knowledge that Judas would turn against Him.
I think Judas is simply an example of the seed that falls among the rocky soil
such that it starts to grow but then eventually withers and dies. In Judas's case,
the dead seedling turned toxic. Judas's actions indicate a rather extreme and
rash person who nearly certainly was a member of the Zealot party and truly
thought (for a while) that this man from Nazareth was the longed-for Messiah that
would form an army and chase Rome from the Holy Land. That is, Judas saw
Christ in the wrong light, expecting the wrong things, and when his expectations
weren't met he not only walked away from his faith, he essentially became an
adversary. How many people we've all heard of (if not known personally) that
excitedly accepted Christ, and for a time came to a Church meeting every time
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Lesson 91 - Matthew 26 cont 3
the doors opened, volunteered for everything, and when they ran into a personal
challenge that wasn't immediately fixed, they lost faith and then became a loud
and public advocate against Jesus and His followers. I think this is at least
somewhat what happened with Judas.
We'll continue with Yeshua's arrest and mock trial, next time.
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 92, Chapter 26 Continued 4
When we left off last time in Matthew 26, Yeshua had just been identified by
Judas and betrayed to the Temple authorities. It was nighttime, a short time after
the Last Supper, and so it occurred within the first few hours of the day of
Passover, Nisan 14th
. Let's re-read the short section where the arrest happens.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 26.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:47 - 56
Matthew describes a crowd that came with Judas leading them to arrest Christ.
The Apostle John describes this crowd as consisting not of ordinary Jewish
citizens but of military-like people, no doubt the Temple police. These were not
Roman soldiers, but rather a militia of Jews (probably Levites) loyal to the Jewish
religious authorities and formally employed to help control the many people, Jews
and gentiles, that came to the Temple, and to arrest violators of religious laws.
We're told that some chief priests along with elders were among the group. The
chief priests were senior priests (Temple representatives) but not the High
Priest. The elders were representatives of the Synagogue system so both ends
of the Jewish religious leadership spectrum were present and very likely these
men were all members of the Sanhedrin and would be part of the council
convened to condemn Jesus.
When Yeshua is grabbed hold of by the Temple police one of the men with Him
(one of His 12 disciples) reacts instinctively, pulls out a sword, and cuts off the
ear of one of the police in the crowd. Matthew doesn't name the disciple with the
sword or the man whose ear was amputated, however John does.
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
CJB John 18:10 10 Then Shim'on Kefa, who had a sword, drew it and struck
the slave of the cohen hagadol, cutting off his right ear; the slave's name
was Melekh.
John supplies the information that it was Peter (what a surprise) that was the one
that acted impulsively, and that it was a servant of the High Priest whose ear was
severed... his name was Melekh (in Hebrew it means "king"). John wants us to
notice that Peter didn't just swing his sword at random, but rather picked out the
High Priest's household representative that was present. It shouldn't fly by us
that Peter was armed and dangerous, which seems a little odd after all of
Jesus's teachings about being passive, or at least peaceable, in the face of evil
or oppression. Clearly Peter saw danger in being Christ's disciple, and also saw
himself as Christ's personal bodyguard.
Jesus instantly chastises Peter for his action and completes His statement with a
saying that has become famous at least in the world of Western Christianity: "for
everyone who uses the sword will die by the sword". This is neither a promise
nor a new divine law pronounced by Christ; rather it is a proverb. A proverb is a
general truism or wisdom saying that doesn't necessarily apply in every situation
nor does it always turn out that way; but it is a good rule of thumb. I want to take
a moment to discuss this slightly more because I think due to this scene,
especially, Yeshua is sometimes characterized by Christians as an adamant
pacifist.
We are dealing here with a very specific set of circumstances. First, Yeshua by
His nature was not a violent man. Jewish Holy men, Tzadikim, were, within their
divine calling, healers, miracle workers, diplomats, and teachers. Second, Jesus
knew (in His later adult life) that mistreatment, brutalization, and then execution
was His God-ordained fate and thus to do anything that would subvert or delay
that would be to go against His Father's will. Third, it is God's general will for His
followers to always seek peace on earth and goodwill towards all men, and
Yeshua exemplified that... to a point. Paul made a midrash (an interpretation) on
this concept that itself is more proverb than command, in the Book of Romans.
CJB Romans 12:17-21 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what
everyone regards as good. 18 If possible, and to the extent that it depends
on you, live in peace with all people. 19 Never seek revenge, my friends;
instead, leave that to God's anger; for in the Tanakh it is written, "ADONAI
says, 'Vengeance is my responsibility; I will repay."' 20 On the contrary, "If
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to
drink. For by doing this, you will heap fiery coals [of shame] on his
head."
21 Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good
Paul recognizes in Christ's teachings that we are (generally speaking) to
approach our fellow man as peaceably as possible, but sometimes it's not up to
us. Thus, there is a fine line to walk in order to carry this instruction out. Jesus,
for instance, is not depicted as being attacked during His arrest; only led away by
government officials. But the idea that a Believer is never to act in self-defense
against a violent criminal aggressor is not part of the concept. Rather, it is to
understand that there are going to be many times in our lives when our options
are limited, life hangs in the balance, or justice is not done on earth; and yet we
are not to become vigilantes to try to extract justice as we see fit (that's what
revenge amounts to). Rather God will make right the wrongs in the world to
come.
At the same time, we have witnessed Yeshua taking on the deceived and corrupt
Jewish religious establishment using strong and even offensive terms that He of
course knew would provoke a strong backlash that could (and would) eventually
lead to violence. Fourth, just as the Law of Moses prescribes, Jesus doesn't ever
speak against soldiers killing the enemy in battle, or against someone protecting
their homes or families against aggressive criminals bent on physical harm. The
Torah defines those defensive actions as proper, and is labeled as justifiable
killing (which is not a sin).
Things change however, as concerns Jesus, when the Son of Man returns. The
same One preaching non-violence (for the time being) transforms into God's
unstoppable avenger. Much of the population of planet Earth will be killed by Him
and those Believers (and angels) that He leads as an army to execute God's
wrath against the irredeemably wicked.
So, we should not make Jesus into the type of Joan Baez pacifist who once said
that even if a killer was standing over the crib of her infant child, bent on killing it,
she would do no more than beg him not to. She would assert no physical action
to stop him, whether by fighting with him or by using a weapon. Rather, in the
case of Christ's ministry and arrest, all His passiveness was intended for Him to
arrive at a pre-destined purpose; going to the cross for you and for me.
Then in verse 53 Yeshua says something that simply drips with interesting
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
implications. He says that the reason Peter should not attack those arresting Him
is that if Yeshua intended on stopping it, all He had to do was to ask His Father to
send a dozen (12 is what the Greek says) armies of angels to help Him. The first
thing we should take from this is that Jesus was well aware that he had a choice;
He wasn't a programmed robot...He had a free will. He could have averted the
humiliations and the crucifixion if He wanted to. The second thing to notice is that
once again the hierarchy of divine authority is highlighted. Yeshua doesn't call
angels to help Him on His accord; He must ask His Father to send them. So
Yeshua's level of authority is always junior to the level of His Father's authority.
Third, while calling upon angels to protect Him would subvert His purpose in this
His first coming (which was to die as a sin offering for humanity), in His return
angels will indeed be called upon. This current conflict that He is experiencing is
meant to keep its location firmly earthbound; Jerusalem. Only later will this great
spiritual battle spill over to include the cosmos. Fifth, Holy War has always been
part of God's *. Holy War is what Joshua waged on God's behalf to claim
the Holy Land, and angels are regularly part of Holy War. Yeshua's current
situation would not see Holy War employed because the time for it wasn't yet at
hand. When He returns in the future, it is Holy War that will be fought at a level
never seen before nor will it ever again. And finally notice that the number 12 is
used; 12 legions of angels corresponding to the 12 tribes of Israel. Then in verse
54, Jesus explains why He has chosen to allow Himself to be tortured and killed.
He asks Peter a rhetorical question as regards calling on angels to rescue Him:
"...if I did that, how could the passages in the Tanakh be fulfilled that say it has to
happen this way?"
So, Jesus is following the determined path He is on, knowingly allowing evil to
overcome Him, in order that the full listing of OT prophecies about Him are
checked off. None can be skipped. I have heard atheists and even some religious
Jews argue that because Yeshua admitted He was doing these many things with
the intent and purpose to publicly fulfill the writings of the biblical prophets, then
this means He was but a somewhat deranged man contriving His own demise so
that many might think He must be the subject of these OT prophecies, when in
fact any other would-be Messiah (with sufficient grit and courage) could have
done the same. I would only argue that for the many centuries before Yeshua
showed up, no one (at least none I've ever heard of) attempted to do what He
did. Perhaps the better way to think of what Yeshua was doing is that it was
much less choreographing His own death, than merely allowing Redemption
History to take its God-ordained course without resisting it. Besides: there is no
credible way that anyone, no matter how intelligent or courageous, could have
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
willed all the many elements and people and decisions involved to happen in a
perfectly coordinated manner and arrive at the same place at the same moment
as we see unfolding.
David Stern did a good job of listing several of the Old Testament Prophecies
that Jesus was fulfilling, and I'll highlight a few.
Isaiah 49:7 says that at first He'll be hated without reasonable cause, yet later
the nations will applaud Him.
Zechariah 11:12 says that He'll be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.
Zechariah 13:7 prophecies that when He's been struck down, His sheep (His
followers) will abandon Him.
Isaiah 53 perhaps has the most to say about Him. He was a plain man; nothing
special with His appearance. People avoided Him and many despised Him. Like
any other human being, He suffered sorrow and pain. He would be crushed and
wounded not for anything wrong that He did, but for all the wrong that we have
done. He would be buried in the grave of a rich man. His ordeal will make many
men righteous before God. While being condemned as a great sinner, He
actually is interceding on the behalf of true sinners. There's more, but this alone
is sufficiently sobering and amazing as the accuracy of it in hindsight boggles the
mind.
After rebuking Peter, Jesus proceeds to rebuke the Jewish religious authorities
who have come after Him. He essentially denies that He is any sort of rebellion
fomenter or leader. But, they approach Him in the dark of the night, with many
men equipped with swords and wooden clubs, as though He was a dangerous
person that had to be apprehended with utmost caution. He points out that His
actions were but teaching in the Temple courts... hardly something a rebel leader
would do...so if His teachings are the problem, why not arrest Him there? Of
course, that question was already answered a few sentences earlier. The High
Priest and others feared that publicly arresting this popular Galilean Holy Man on
the occasion of Passover would cause riots... for which the High Priest would be
held responsible by Rome. He repeats to the cadre of the Temple guard the
same thing He just told Peter: all this is happening to fulfill the prophets. In other
words, He is making all them participants and facilitators of prophecies
concerning the Messiah.
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
Isn't it odd that no one seems to ask: which Prophets? What prophecies? Just as
what is coming soon at the mock trial of Jesus, there is no truth seeking going on.
This is a political witch hunt perpetrated by the elite of the Jewish religious
system of that day. Personal ambitions, their fierce guarding of the religious
power structure that benefited them so luxuriously, and probably a growing
hatred of this man that they may not have been able to explain, is at the core of
their determination that Yeshua had to go. What God wants and what is right
never seems to enter the picture. What we see happening is truly the mystery of
how biblical prophecy becomes fulfilled. These fulfillments are a mixture of
unexpected circumstances, along with inexplicable levels of human desires or
fears or hatreds, that just seem to erupt out of nowhere. As a prophetic fulfillment
unfolds none of the involved, the wicked or the righteous, have any idea that they
are but instruments in the Master's hands. And I promise you that in
the 21st century, as we proceed at jet speed towards the End of Days, all those
yet to be fulfilled prophecies will play out just like that. We think we won't be
surprised because we're so ready and wary of current events; but we will be. All
prophecies have come about in this same pattern. We should approach this
conundrum not by thinking "then what's the use of knowing the prophecies". But
rather like we would knowing hurricane season is coming. We in the south know
that sooner or later we'll get hit; we just don't know when (and it certainly
doesn't happen every year). We get warning, but occasionally it's a surprise as
a hurricane blows up suddenly or changes its track. If we're knowledgeable and
prepared, surprise or not, we're OK. If we're ignorant and not prepared,
however it happens, it is going to be potentially very harmful to us. In Matthew's
Gospel we see regular warnings by Yeshua to His followers to be alert and be
prepared for the Day of Lord. Not so much so that they can see it coming, but
because they probably won't.
The final words of verse 56 are so very sad and in some ways ought to be a bit
terrifying for us. It says that when after Yeshua had dressed-down everyone
present, the 11 remaining disciples deserted Him. I cannot stress enough that
what is happening here is not merely some frightened men running off to hide.
The entire point is a loss of faith. Back in verses 34 and 35 Yeshua predicted that
all of them would disown Him... not just run away because they got scared. I think
the speculation is fair to say that once their Master got arrested, they figured their
movement was over. They had been mistaken and had tied their hopes and
future to the wrong man. If those 12 disciples would either betray or renounce
Jesus when things got tough, what might we do when things get tough for us?
Can we be so naive as to think that their loss of faith wasn't also loss of
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
salvation? If it's not, then faith as the condition for our salvation has no meaning.
Let's read some more of Matthew.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:57 - 68
What comes next is sometimes called the Trial of Jesus. Yet, similarly attempting
to understand exactly what the Last Supper was in Jewish tradition, so it can be
as challenging to figure out what was really going on when Yeshua was taken
before a group of men at the home of Caiaphas, the High Priest.
The panel of men gathered at Caiaphas's house was no doubt some or most of
the Sanhedrin (the High Priest was always the President of the Sanhedrin). So,
some thought and organization had gone into finding Christ, arranging to arrest
Him, bringing Him to a pre-designated place, and then having these men already
assembled to quickly pass a verdict on Him... without a nosy public being aware.
We are meant to notice that expected Jewish justice was not being done here. It
was not allowed for the Sanhedrin to meet at night and hold a trial. Instead, what
we have is a group of men meeting with the full intent to do wrong; but to do it
under the false cover of the authority of the biblically ordained justice system.
Religion of every manner, at all stages of history, has been misused to do
intentional injustice and harm for a wide array of purposes and wicked intentions.
This is because flawed human beings are the leaders and officials of every
religion. So, in that sense, nothing unusual or unique is happening here at
Caiaphas's home... except that unbeknown to these members of the Sanhedrin,
their rotten deed is being used by the God they claim to know and worship to
achieve a goal different from theirs.
We're told that Peter followed the procession of the posse to Caiaphas's house,
even into the courtyard. Next he went and sat down with the guards (almost
certainly the same Temple guards who had just arrested Jesus), because he was
curious as to what would happen next. For whatever reason these guards didn't
associate Peter with Jesus and seemed fine with him sitting there, waiting along
with them.
Matthew makes the intent of the Sanhedrin, as a single-minded assembly, quite
clear. They have no good legal reason to do anything to Jesus and they know it;
so, they seek false evidence so that they can contrive a reason to kill Him. What
is happening is not a trial at all; it is a meeting of conspirators that are plotting
murder. They are searching for something... anything... to charge Yeshua with to
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
try to make the killing of Him seem justified. It must necessarily be something that
rises to the level of the death penalty and there was only a tiny handful of crimes
that could be punished as capital offenses. Remember: what they had to find was
not something criminal in the civil sense of it, but rather the breaking of a Jewish
religious law. Criminal offenses were tried under the authority of Rome; in Roman
courts under Roman law. As verse 60 points out, what must have been a very
frustrated court trotted out a string of liars, but the judges still couldn't come up
with an offense that even remotely approached a death sentence. Finally,
however, 2 men were brought in who said that Jesus had said that He could tear
down the Temple and build it again in 3 days. In Jewish tradition, saying anything
against the Temple was considered as bad as saying something against God.
As regards the timing of this event, it had to have been on Nisan 14th
, Passover,
because Nisan 15th was the first day of Unleavened Bread and thus a special
festival sabbath, so there is no way that Caiaphas would have been able to
convene any type of assembly on a sabbath. As wicked as were these men,
Jewish tradition still ruled their thoughts and they weren't about to do something
that (ironically) they thought would get them in trouble with God.
Caiaphas latched onto this hope of a finally finding a suitable crime and bellowed
at Yeshua to respond to the accusation; Yeshua stood silent and refused to
answer. Clearly this accusation wasn't going to go anywhere so Caiaphas tried
something different. By refusing to answer, Jesus even facilitated Caiaphas
moving on to something that not only gave Jesus an opening to announce to the
Jewish religious authorities who He really was, but also would be the nail in the
coffin so to speak, that could finally move this process along of getting Him to the
cross. Caiaphas says that He puts Christ under oath to answer if He is the
Messiah, the Son of God. What is really sort of fascinating is that the question
Caiaphas has put to Jesus is the entire point of the Gospel. Are you the Messiah,
the Son of God He says to Yeshua? Yeshua responds that the words are your
own; it is a Jewish expression of affirmation. Caiaphas got it right! But, Yeshua
didn't stop there. He also makes a prophecy that the Sanhedrin recognized as
indicating a divine connection. He says that one day they will see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of Power. And that they will also see Him "coming" with
the clouds of heaven.
Yeshua has shifted His reference point from the present to the future; to the End
Times when judgment falls. The court full well understood the Son of Man
reference as found in Daniel and saw it as messianic in nature, but not
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
necessarily as divine. It was the "sitting at the right hand of Power" and "coming
with the clouds of heaven" part that enabled Caiaphas to charge Jesus with
blasphemy. Power (or better The Power) was another designation for God.
Coming with the clouds of heaven is an interesting statement to deal with. For
Caiaphas this was Jesus associating Himself with the divine. But how should we
take it? Should we take the clouds as literal or even somewhat figurative clouds
(the white fluffy kind that floats in the sky... in the heavens) or might the "clouds of
heaven" refer to legions of angels alongside perhaps myriads of Believers that
had, earlier, been resurrected and/or raptured to Heaven and are now returning
to earth from Heaven to fight a Holy War alongside Messiah Yeshua? While I
can't dismiss the latter, I think it is too much part of Daniel's prophecy of the
Son of Man coming in the clouds to stretch this to mean clouds of Believers and
angels coming back with Jesus. For Jews the Son of Man primarily represented
judgment. The thought of clouds as revivified Believers came much later in
Christian thought. So, at the least it certainly didn't mean that to the Sanhedrin.
There's a couple of other notions included in Christ's claim. The "you will see"
doesn't so much mean the men sitting in that chamber, but rather it is a general
and panoramic "you", probably meaning "everyone". It conjures up the thought
of the general resurrection to come when both the wicked and the righteous shall
arise from their graves, and so perhaps being witness to Christ's return. "From
now on" definitely frames this as a future event, but it could be the near or very
far future. This is a rather cryptic statement that for the Sanhedrin didn't impart a
lot of specific information other than that Yeshua was definitely saying that He
was indeed Israel's Messiah, and Daniel's Son of Man, and that He is in some
manner divine. More than enough for Caiaphas to cry: "Blasphemy!". I suspect
for him that cry more meant: "Victory!". Yeshua had just condemned Himself. In
Jewish law a suspect that confesses negates the need for two corroborating
witnesses. Blasphemy was the most serious breaking of the Law of Moses and it
was a capital offense. That they didn't immediately execute Him says they
couldn't; they didn't have the authority to do it. They'd have to wait until they
could get in touch with Pilate in the morning and ask for Yeshua's execution. The
members of the Sanhedrin are said to agree that He was guilty and that death is
the proper sentence. They are now equally and fully liable for sending God's Son
to the execution stake.
We're told that they spit in His face and hit Him with their fists, and mocked Him
by saying to prophesy, which of them hit Him. Spitting was to put shame upon the
one who was receiving their spittle.
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
Let's re-read the remainder of chapter 26.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 26:69 - end
The focus returns to Peter, somewhat representative of the entire 12 disciples
(and in a deeper sense, all of us). He is still sitting in the courtyard of Caiaphas's
house when a house servant says that she recognizes him as having been with
Yeshua from Galilee. We've spent much time emphasizing that when reading
the New Testament and especially the Gospel accounts we need to be able to
draw a necessary distinction between the Jews of the Galilee and the Jews of
Judea. Each not only had a number of different traditions concerning the
observances of various holidays, but they had a general difference in style of
living and in underlying values. Nearly all nations have such divisions. For
example: in the USA we have recognizable differences in values and styles of
living between people of the Northeast versus the South, and from the Midwest
versus the West Coast. We can recognize different accents, notice outgoing
versus more reserved behavior, different modes of dress, and there are
numerous other indicators that reveal where someone might be from. And in this
modern polarized world, there can be outright dislike and disrespect from people
living in one region towards people living in another. This is what life was like in
the Holy Land in the 1
st century. Judeans generally considered themselves more
sophisticated and pious than that Galileans, which they looked down upon as
inferior. The Galileans looked at the Judeans as snooty and hypocritical self␂righteous people.
Immediately upon the accusation, Peter denied He even knew what the girl was
talking about. He made his denial in front of numerous people meaning denial of
His faith was as public as was His initial profession of faith; the current profession
erasing the first. As he begins to try to slink away from this girl who recognizes
him, he moves to a further outward area where a girl confronts him because
she's not buying it; despite his denial she knows its him. She announces to no
one in particular that Peter was with Yeshua of Nazareth. Peter resorts to
swearing... that is, making an oath that necessarily in the Jewish world invokes
God's name... that He doesn't know this man Yeshua. Some bystanders now
approach Peter... probably after overhearing this servant girl... and say that Peter
must be "one of them" because his accent gives him away. Yes, the Galileans
had a known accent that was different from the Judean accent. Now Peter goes
all in and even invokes a curse on himself (if he's not telling the truth) and insists
he doesn't know Jesus.
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
In Jewish thought of that era, just as saying or doing something positive 3 times
denotes sincerity and eagerness to do right, so does saying or doing something
negative 3 times denote sincerity and eagerness to do wrong. Peter went to full
length to deny any knowledge of, and therefore any faith in, Jesus Christ. He had
3 opportunities to recant his renunciation, but he didn't. Peter no longer
confessed the Lord. Peter no longer acknowledged even knowing who the man
was. Peter had only hours ago boasted that he was willing to die with the Lord if
necessary; but when he wasn't even threatened with death, only perhaps being
punished in some small way, it was enough for him to lose courage.
The * crowed and it served as a reminder that Yeshua had told him that this
is exactly what was going to happen. Jesus's prophecy is repeated: "Before the
rooster crows you will disown me 3 times". Peter had saved himself from any
kind of jeopardy; but it was a soul-destroying decision. He wept bitterly. I don't
want to sound overly dramatic; however, we ought to consider that Peter's
sudden loss of salvation happened before Christ's death and resurrection. When
Peter made the decision to renounce Christ the proof of who Yeshua is, which
lies mainly in the cross and the empty tomb, hadn't yet happened. Perhaps
that's why Yeshua was so willing to anticipate that He would meet up with this
same group of reformed deserters back in the Galilee. But what of everyone
since after His death and resurrection? We have the knowledge of it; the many
witnesses; it is history and not prophecy. To my mind, it is an even greater
condemnation of one's character at this point in history to deny Him, or (maybe
worse) to know Him and then walk away from Him, than it was for Peter and the
disciples.
I think Peter's bitter weeping is that first step towards his repentance. He has
failed, utterly. He knows it. He has to face now who he really is. And when we
approach Christ that way, it is all the more humbling to know that God so loves
us that He sent His only Son, an innocent man, to die for us. And that His Son,
who could have chosen otherwise, followed through. I've always enjoyed
Matthew's Gospel because he tries the least of them all to put a happy face on
the character and behavior of the 12 disciples, including Peter. We have the
opportunity to learn from Peter. The lesson is that we must take care and take
precautions at all times, and not think too greatly of ourselves or believe that
somehow that new nature God has given us has wiped away the old that remains
dangerously active within.
New Testament authors repeatedly warn us that we are always in danger of
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Lesson 92 - Matthew 26 cont 4
falling away from our Savior Jesus as did Peter. James gives us the good news
of hope that it doesn't have to be our end story:
CJB James.5:19-20 19 My brothers, if one of you wanders from the truth, and
someone causes him to return, 20 you should know that whoever turns a
sinner from his wandering path will save him from death and cover many
sins.
On the other hand, the anonymous writer of the Book of Hebrews warns of the
ominous consequences of turning our backs on Christ:
CJBHebrews 10:26-27 26For if we deliberately continue to sin after receiving
the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, 27 but only the terrifying prospect of Judgment, of raging fire that will
consume the enemies.
We'll open chapter 27 to begin our next lesson.
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 93, Chapter 27
Matthew chapter 26 concluded with a mixed group of Jewish religious leadership,
representing both the Temple and the Synagogue authorities, gathering at night
in an official capacity at the High Priest Caiaphas's home with one purpose in
mind: to find false allegations against Yeshua so that they could produce an air of
legitimacy to convicting and executing Him. To their relief, after several aborted
attempts to find cause for their predetermined outcome, the frustrated High Priest
bellowed at Christ: "By the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son
of God". Jesus, after having remained silent at a series of false charges levied
against Him by lying witnesses who couldn't even get their stories straight,
affirmed what the High Priest just stated. But He went even further in
pronouncing an eschatological prophecy (that is, a prophecy about the End
Times) concerning Himself. He said: "...one day you will see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of The Power, and coming on the clouds of
heaven". "Blasphemy" says the High Priest; the other members of the
Sanhedrin agreed, and collectively pronounce the death sentence.
What we need to know to help us understand why chapter 27 begins as it does
(by the Sanhedrin taking Yeshua to the Roman governor Pilate), is that while
they could pronounce the death penalty for a Jew committing a religious offense
within the Jewish Law system, they could not carry it out. This was reserved only
for the Roman government to decide and to do.
Yeshua's fate was sealed, God's will was advancing rapidly, and at the same
time His disciples had all deserted Him and renounced their faith in Him. To
emphasize the earnestness at which they, and especially Peter, had fallen away
in their trust Peter denied even knowing who Yeshua was and did so in an
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
escalating level of conviction. From a simple denial, to swearing an oath that he
had no association with Him, to finally pronouncing a curse upon himself if he
was not sincere about not knowing Christ. It was Jewish custom that to claim or
state something 3 times was to make it the strongest possible degree of denial or
affirmation. The point being that this was not an issue of 11 frightened disciples
hiding the truth from the authorities because they were scared, but secretly
retaining their loyalty; rather it was exactly as Jesus prophesied in chapter 26
verse 31:
CJB Matthew 26:31 Yeshua then said to them, "Tonight you will all lose faith
in me, as the Tanakh says, 7will strike the shepherd dead, and the sheep of
the flock will be scattered.'
The 12 disciples to the last man had all reverted to their former spiritual state, just
as they were before they ever met Yeshua up in the Galilee. To put it in Western
Christian jargon, they had lost their salvation by denying they're Savior. Let's
move on to Matthew chapter 27.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27 all
Chapter 27 could be said to be a chapter of ironies. The first irony we should note
is that the great End Times Judge, Yeshua, has been judged by the very people
He is going to judge sometime in the future.
The opening words of this chapter "early in the morning" are tied to the final
words of chapter 26 that say: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown Me 3
times..." That is, the rooster crowing is Yeshua saying WHEN (at what time of
day) Peter will disown Him. It will be just as daylight is breaking, and so this
connects to the first words of chapter 27, "early in the morning..." Much is
happening in a very short time span.
Many Bible scholars explain that what we are reading about is a 2
nd trial, or
perhaps Christ's actual trial (with what we saw happen in chapter 26 as only a
sort of pre-trial hearing). While we probably ought not to insert more meaning
than is actually intended, it's probably best to view this not as a matter of a
second trial but rather it is a 2
nd meeting that now includes the entire Sanhedrin,
whereas the 1
st meeting had only some of its members. So, this 2
nd meeting was
not about determining Yeshua's guilt or what His sentence should be, but rather
it was working out the details of just how to be certain that He would be put to
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
death at the hands of the Romans, at the same time they could appear to have
been following both Jewish and Roman legal procedure. By putting Jesus in
chains and handing Him over to Pontius Pilate, this fulfilled Christ's prophecy of
Matthew 20:18 - 19. In it, Yeshua said to His disciples:
CJB Matthew 20:18-19 18 "l/l/e are now going up to Yerushalayim, where the
Son of Man will be handed over to the head cohanim and Torah-teachers.
They will sentence him to death 19 and turn him over to the Goyim (the
gentiles), who will jeer at him, beat him and execute him on a stake as a
criminal. But on the third day, he will be raised." Pontius Pilate is a man known in history outside the Bible; he was at different
points the prefect over the Roman provinces of Judea, Idumea and Samaria. He
ruled from 26 to 36 A.D. so we have a 10-year window during which time Jesus
was executed. No matter all the attempts over the centuries at trying to pin down
the exact year of His death, we'll probably never know for certain. Pilate was
known to be a cruel man who hated the Jews. Against the wishes of the
Emperor, Pilate would find ways to aggravate and rile up the Jewish people so he
would have cause to punish them. He forcibly took money from the Temple to
build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. He brought the standards and shields of the
Roman legion into Jerusalem that bore the image of the emperor knowing how
passionate the Jews were against images of men especially when hailed as
gods. He is even said to have murdered Galileans on the Temple grounds at the
same time they were slaughtering their animals for holy sacrifices on the Temple
altar. The Jewish historian Philo says Pilate was "naturally inflexible, a blend of
self-will and relentlessness". He ordered the execution of countless Jews without
the benefit of trial, and nearly always by crucifixion, because it was the most
horrible and humiliating way to die known to him.
In verse 3 Matthew takes a short detour to deal, again, with Judas. It seems that,
similar to Peter, Judas suddenly had a bout of regret and guilt once he heard that
Yeshua had been condemned to death. He tried to return the 30 pieces of silver
he had received to the senior priest that had given it to him saying that he had
betrayed an innocent man; as though this outcome was a surprise to Judas. The
callous priest and his fellow senior priests replied that they had no interest in his
remorse or the money, and that whatever he did didn't concern them in the least;
his guilt was his problem. Judas threw the silver coins at them and went off and
hanged himself. Interestingly, Matthew is the only Gospel that records Judas's
death. The only other New Testament mention of Judas dying is found in the
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
Book of Acts.
CJB Acts 1:15-19 15 During this period, when the group of believers
numbered about 120, Kefa stood up and addressed his
fellow-believers: 16 "Brothers, the Ruach HaKodesh spoke in advance
through David about Y'hudah, and these words of the Tanakh had to be
fulfilled. He was guide for those who arrested Yeshua- 17 he was one of us
and had been assigned a part in our work." 18 (With the money Y'hudah
received for his evil deed, he bought a field; and there he fell to his death.
His body swelled up and burst open, and all his insides spilled out. 19 This
became known to everyone in Yerushalayim, so they called that field Hakal␂D'ma- which in their language means "Field of Blood").
While both accounts speak of Judas's death clearly there's differences in the
circumstances, although it may have more to do with aspects of the aftermath of
his death than with the manner. That is, Matthew is straightforward in that Judas
committed suicide by hanging, while Luke (in Acts) says Judas's body swelled
up and burst open. While I don't wish to get gruesome or graphic, the reality is
that after a few days of hanging dead from a noose, indeed his body would have
swelled up from the gases of decay building up in his body cavity and when cut
down, as he hit the ground, it could have resulted in his body splitting open.
Either way, it was known that Judas died and his death was undignified to say
the least.
Different branches of Christianity have different takes on Judas's mindset, and
even his state of salvation, when he died. Note how Luke makes it clear that
Judas was as much part of the original 12 disciples as any other by saying "he
was one of us". And, that Judas, too, had an assignment to be part of the work of
the disciples. Thus, for a time, Judas was a follower of Jesus; there is no hint,
even in the hindsight of the New Testament authors, of Judas not being sincere
in his faith. Matthew speaks of Judas's regret for what he did (lying and helping
to condemn an innocent man), but regret is in no way repentance. Yet we find
that some Christian institutions profess a regaining of salvation by means of such
regret. Once again this seems to be more a way to spin a pre-existing
denominational doctrine and tradition than in accurately reporting what is
painfully obvious in the Bible. Yeshua Himself pronounces in advance the
damnation of Judas for what he will do back in verse 24 of chapter 26:
CJB Matthew 26:24 ... but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
betrayed! It would have been better for him had he never been born!"
This as opposed to how Yeshua does NOT * the remaining 11 disciples, but
even says He will meet up with them again, after His resurrection, in the Galilee.
This seems to be a prophecy of regained faith and thus reclaimed salvation,
which history confirms. I will repeat something I've said on numerous occasions
because it is pivotal to our understanding as regards maintaining our salvation.
Nothing is more dangerous to our eternal future with God than the "once saved
always saved" doctrine of the mostly evangelical Church denominations. While
sounding lovely, it is biblically, factually and spiritually incorrect. Nothing could be
more opposite of what Christ teaches, what other New Testament writers warn
against, or what we're reading about here in the Book of Matthew. The "once
saved always saved" doctrine implies that once someone has approached God
and said the sinner's prayer and determined at that moment to be a Christ
follower, then no change of heart or lack of obedience to God, or lack of good
fruit in his or her life has any bearing on their salvation. Even publicly disowning
Christ (as did Peter) will not be taken seriously in Heaven. The doctrinal rebuttal
to my position on this matter is always that anyone that would pray to receive
Messiah Yeshua, and then later (whether weeks or years) completely fall away
from Him, was never a Believer in the first place; he or she was something
else...something we also don't find in the Bible... someone called a pretender.
Not only is this idea illogical, it defies the plain Scriptural teachings of several of
the New Testament writers. Judas went to His eternal death, judged by Christ.
Had the other 11 disciples for some reason died after firmly renouncing Jesus an
hour or so after the Last Supper event, and prior to the regaining of their faith not
long after His resurrection, they, too, would have been eternally damned. The
good news in all this is that should you (or any of us) fall completely away from
the faith, you can with proper repentance and sincerity, be accepted back into the
Kingdom by God.
CJB Ezekiel 18:21 21 "However, if the wicked person repents of all the sins he
committed, keeps my laws and does what is lawful and right; then he will
certainly live, he will not die.
Our feelings of guilt and regret are not good enough. Repentance means to turn;
it means to chart a different course... a righteous course... in your mind and in your
behavior. It has to be the right kind... the Godly kind; not any kind that seems right
to you or to the present world order. Jesus outlined in several of His parables and
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
illustrations about the Kingdom of Heaven and who the members (those who are
saved) will be, and what is expected of those who hope to be members. It
amounts to more than the mouthing of words or temporary sincerity. If you are
wondering if you are destined for the Kingdom or alternatively for the Lake of
Fire, I urge you to look again at those parables we studied together to help you
find out.
Following the recounting of Judas's suicide there is a paragraph on exactly what
the priests did with the money Judas gave back to them. They rightly say they
can't put it in the Temple treasury because it is "blood money". What is "blood
money"? On one level, it is money paid that purposely leads to the death of
someone. On another level (the more usual level) it means money paid to bribe
someone to cause the death of an innocent person. I think that's how it is meant
here. When Judas tries to return the "blood money", and says that he betrayed
an innocent man to death... and the priests say "not our problem" ... I think they
fully expected Judas to end his own life. In the Torah, should a liar's testimony
lead to the conviction of the innocent the liar is to receive the same penalty that
the falsely accused did. Judas, the liar and betrayer, was subject to death for his
despicable act.
CJB Deuteronomy 27:25 '"A curse on anyone who accepts a bribe to kill an
innocent person.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
The senior priest (not the High Priest) took the coins Judas returned and bought
a field where they could bury foreign visitors to Jerusalem. The Greek word that
is usually translated to foreigners or strangers is xenos; it has a wide range of
meanings from strangers to guests. Some suggest that it is means Jewish
visitors to Jerusalem; I am doubtful of that. It was known that thousands of
gentiles flocked to Jerusalem to see the incredible Temple that Herod had rebuilt
at enormous expense. I suspect that due to the wicked source of the money... and
that it was acknowledged as blood money... that the field purchased as a
cemetery was probably not used for Jews. It is because of the unclean blood
money that the cemetery came to be known as the Field of Blood. This act, too,
was done to fulfill prophecy. What is a bit odd is Matthew says that it was a
prophecy of Jeremiah; that doesn't seem to hold true. Rather we find a highly
paraphrased verse from Zechariah.
CJB Zechariah 11:11-15 11 On that day when it was broken, the most
miserable of the sheep who paid attention to me knew that this was indeed
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
a message from ADONAl. 12 1said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me
my wages; if not, don't." So they weighed out my wages, thirty silver
[shekels, that is, twelve ounces]. 13 Concerning that "princely sum" at
which they valued me, ADONAl said, "Throw it into the treasury!" So I took
the thirty silver [shekels] and threw them into the treasury in the house of
ADONAl. 14 Then I snapped in two my other staff Hovalim [bound together],
in order to break up the brotherhood between Y'hudah and
Isra'el. 15 ADONAl said to me, "This time, take the equipment of a worthless
shepherd.
There's been much academic head scratching about Matthew 26:9. Even when
we look to Zechariah, it's difficult to connect it to Judas. That said, as we look at
the original Hebrew of Zechariah, we need to know that the Hebrew name
Y'hudah is most properly translated into English as Judah. Judas is a kind of
twisted secondary translation of Y'hudah. There is no known Jewish name of
Judas and so I doubt the original language of Matthew's Gospel that was
Hebrew had it that way. All translation by definition is an editing of the original.
To sum it up, it's a stretch to make Zechariah 11 explain what happened with
Judas, and there are numerous scholarly speculations as to why Jeremiah is said
to have been the prophet and not Zechariah. It's not worth our time to wrestle
with what can't be known. There is a scientific proverb used in such conundrums
that would do us all good to remember; it is called Occam's Razor. The proverb
is that in the end, the simplest solution to any problem is usually the best one.
The problem of Jeremiah being mentioned instead of Zechariah is most likely a
scribal error that came later.
After Matthew's detour to include what happened to Judas, verse 11 brings us
back to Yeshua's march to the cross. Jesus is taken to Pilate and Pilate asks
Him if He is King of the Jews. Notice that Pilate's concern has nothing to do with
the Sanhedrin's accusation of blasphemy. However, I have little doubt that the
politically astute Caiaphas and his close associates knew that telling Pilate that
Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews versus telling him that Jesus had
committed blasphemy would stand a far better chance of getting Christ executed.
Pilate was all too aware of the Jewish belief that a Messiah would come in the
mold of King David and lead a successful rebellion against Rome. Thus, for the
High Priest to tell Pilate that Yeshua claimed to be King of the Jews wasn't really
a lie, because for the High Priest that's exactly what Yeshua's admission as
being the Jewish Messiah meant to him. And if it hasn't occurred to you yet, it's
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
time to notice that the High Priest, the Senior priests, and the highest officials of
the Synagogue didn't really want a Messiah; especially not one in the mold of
long held Jewish thought. These men had lucrative positions of power and wealth
and lived very comfortable lives; a rebellion against Rome would have been
counter-productive for them. This is the entire reason they wanted Jesus (or any
would-be Messiah) eliminated. It was only the common Jews that wanted a
Messiah.
Jesus affirms Pilate's question if He is the King of the Jews. Pilate needs to hear
nothing more. In the Roman Empire there can be only 1 king: Caesar. So, for
Pilate this is sedition, plain and simple. The same crowd of wicked Jewish
leadership were there with Christ and Pilate, and so started peppering Yeshua
with more accusations (needlessly I would argue), to which He won't respond.
Pilate is taken aback; Jesus won't defend Himself. On the one hand He is
refusing to dignify nonsense; on the other He has determined to submit Himself
to the will of His Father and that will is for Yeshua to die on the cross.
Verse 15 explains that during Pilate's tenure as prefect, at the time when
Jerusalem was overrun with Jews for Passover, he would set 1 prisoner free,
apparently as chosen by the crowd on a voice vote. Here we encounter another
and little noticed irony. There was apparently a notorious revolutionary in custody
(likely a Sicarii) that Mark also identifies as a murderer; a rebel whom our Bibles
call Barabbas. Pilate asked the crowd who they would rather he pardon and
release; Barabbas or Yeshua.
Before we proceed, let's spend a few moments about a topic that I'll call
"what's in a name?" The Bible is positively crowded with names, and the first
name/last name nomenclature so common to us in the West didn't exist in
ancient times. Rather it was usually a name and then some kind of designation
that might connect the named person to a particular family or family industry, or
more likely to just the name of that person's father (Simon son of Jacob, for
example). Just as in almost any culture, among the Jews there were favored
names that got chosen far more often than
others. Shim'on (Simon), Yaacov (Jacob), and Yeshua (Jesus) to name a few
were the 3 most popular around Yeshua's era. In fact, according to Rabbi
Joseph Shulam and others, Yeshua was the 2
nd most popular male name in the
1
st century among Jews. It was no different for women, with Miriam (Mary)
and Elisheva (Elizabeth) particularly popular.
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
So, let's take a look at the name Barabbas. It becomes much easier to identify if
we simply remove the "s" at the end of the name (a letter that doesn't belong
there, but had to have been added in Christian Bibles at some unknown point).
Bar-abba, then, is really two words in Hebrew: Bar and Abba. Bar is actually
Aramaic and means son or son of. Abba means father. So, this man's name as
we have it is literally "son of the father". Was that his real name? I doubt it. First
because there is no attestation to the name Bar Abba anywhere in Jewish
literature at any time in the ancient past, and second because no Hebrew man
would have held the formal name of "Abba". Abba (father) was used
occasionally as a title; but never as a name.
Interestingly in some of the oldest scriptural Greek fragments of Matthew that
have been found and attested to by the early Church Fathers Origen and
Chrysostom (among others) Bar-Abba is further identified with the name Yeshua.
That is, just as we correctly find it in the CJB in verse 16, Matthew calls this
notorious prisoner Yeshua Bar Abba (Jesus, son of the father). Can we not also
view Christ as Yeshua Bar Abba (Jesus, son of the Father... the Holy Father... God
the Father?) So, we essentially have 2 Yeshua Bar Abbas before us: the one is a
rebel and murderer, the other is divine, without sin, and is going to meekly die on
the cross to save those Jews standing before Him who currently are clamoring
for His death. The irony is thick and unfortunately once again translation (and
perhaps a hint of something intentional) hides this rather surprising part of the
account from view. As the preeminent New Testament Scholar Bruce Metzger
notes, there is little doubt that the more ancient fragments with Barabbas' name
written as Yeshua Bar Abba is correct; later gentile Christian editors would have
had far more motive to erase the name Jesus from Barabbas's name than to add
it.
Verse 18 explains that Pilate was fully aware that Yeshua in reality was no threat;
that He was only being thrown to the wolves because the Temple and
Synagogue authorities were jealous of Him (jealous in the political sense of
fearing Christ's growing popularity). Then something awfully strange occurs.
Pilate's wife comes to him during this so-called trial and warns him of something
she's just dreamt. She advises her husband to leave this innocent man alone
because she suffered so terribly in the dream (in other words, it was a
nightmare). No details are given. Another irony. The Jewish religious leadership
want Yeshua to be guilty, but the gentile woman knows He is innocent. How does
she know? A dream.
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
Biblically, God intervening, warning, or simply passing along information in a
dream, has happened all throughout Hebrew history. But more interesting is how
many times the dream method of divine communication occurred with a pagan
gentile who then brought the contents of the dream to a Hebrew to interpret. That
is, God at times spoke to gentiles and did so here with Pilate's wife. Although
there are also other instances, Pharaoh and Joseph come to mind as does
Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. We can even think of the gentile Magi who were
warned in a dream not to return to Herod with news of the location of the Christ
child. I like the way Daniel J. Harrington puts it in his commentary on Matthew:
"The gentile woman's insight contrasts with the spiritual obtuseness of the
chief priests and elders". And so, yet another irony unfolds as verse 20 finds
the chief or senior priest leading a rally among the crowd to free Barabbas and to
have Jesus crucified. We must notice the issue of choice: a choice to choose the
divine or the worldly. The evil or the righteous. Who is the crowd? It can only be
Jews. Likely the bulk of them were the Jews of Judea, although some Jews from
Galilee and other regions no doubt were present as well. It is here that we are
forced to deal with a touchy subject: are the Jews really the Christ killers as they
have regularly been cast within Christianity for century after century? Or as some
Christians (and today, Messianics) that fight against that notion will claim... no, it
was really the gentile Romans who killed Christ? I would argue that Matthew
shows us that both divisions of the world's population...gentiles and Hebrews...
are equally responsible if one chooses to look at it that way. But even then only
to a point.
It is long past time to leave such a disingenuous debate in the smelly dumpster of
religious history. Should any modern gentile Christian feel responsible for what
Pontius Pilate did in condemning Jesus to the execution stake over 2000 years
ago? Should any modern Jew feel responsible for how the illegitimate High Priest
Caiaphas and several other Jewish men connived to get rid of Jesus, back in the
early part of the 1
st century? Even more, notice how Matthew always focuses
(rightly so) on the leadership. It was with the Jewish leaders that Yeshua always
had a bone to pick, and He blamed them for the common Jews' lack of Scripture
knowledge and right doctrine, and therefore for the precarious spiritual condition
it put them in. It was only the gentile Roman prefect of Judea that condemned
Christ to the cross; even the gentile Roman soldiers who were tasked with
carrying it out were but following orders from the Roman leadership. It was not
entirely of their own accord that the crowd of Jews cried for Christ's death
instead of Barabbas's; they were deceived and egged on by the Jewish religious
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
leadership that had brought Jesus to Pilate in the first place.
None of us should look to people groups, nations or tribes, in ancient times or in
the future, to place blame for Christ's death. From the moment of Adam and
Eve's rebellious sin in the Garden the day of Christ's death became necessary
and a certainty. If we want to face facts, in a certain sense all of us have had a
part in His death because all of us have sinned and must have a Redeemer if we
are to have any hope. And the only way that redemption works is for sins to be
paid for with blood.
To highlight the lack of understanding of the now frenzied Jewish crowd standing
before Pilate, in verse 23 Pilate asks the crowd a question: "Why" should
Yeshua be executed, asks Pilate; "What crime has He committed?" The
response was not to answer his question but rather for them to simply double␂down on wanting Jesus dead. They want Him dead because their leaders want
Him dead; they need no more information than that. End of the trial. Pilate could
care less whether this 1 Jew lived or died. Pilate symbolically rinses his hands in
a bowl of water and says his hands are clean from the death of Jesus. Likely he
did this because he understood that in Jewish culture to wash one's hands in
water is to ritually cleanse them; to make them pure. It amounted to a declaration
of ritual innocence. This was not a Roman custom. Pilate has just given in to the
Jewish mob; there is no semblance of justice. He bears personal responsibility
for what comes next that no amount of hand washing will alleviate.
Pilate announces to the crowd that this man's blood (His death) is on them. They
enthusiastically respond that they accept the responsibility for the death of
Yeshua, extending it so far as to include what amounts to a curse on their
children because of being complicit in the death of an innocent man; this indeed
has reciprocal spiritual and earthly consequences. It is here that the early
institutional gentile-controlled Christian Church took their que, deciding that Jews
are the true Christ Killers. So, a doctrine was contrived that said that as a
consequence God shifted His love and the blessings of His Covenants from
Israel to the gentile Church. While I don't want to get too far into the matter of
curses and the Jewish people, I cannot hide the elephant in the room. Just as the
individual Jews in that crowd were responsible for their own personal responses
to the choice put before them by Pontius Pilate they are not somehow
representative of all the Jews alive in the 1
st century. Yet there is no escaping
how a curse affects future generations. It is not necessarily that God enforces a
curse upon children, grandchildren and future descendants who had no hand in
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
breaking a vow, or in committing a crime against God; in fact, Scripture speaks
against such a concept.
CJB Ezekiel 18:4, 20 4 Look, all lives belong to me- both the parent's life and
the child's life are equally mine- so it is the person who sins, himself, who
must die 20 The person who sins is the one that will die- a son is not
to bear his father's guilt with him, nor is the father to bear his son's guilt
with him; but the righteousness of the righteous will be his own, and the
wickedness of the wicked will be his own.
The offspring doesn't bear the sins of their parents. Rather it is that
circumstances can be set into motion by parents that will necessarily and
inevitably affect their offspring and descendants in a negative way, generally
along the lines of something that I think can be seen as natural or unavoidable
consequences. For instance, none of us committed a sin in the Garden of Eden;
Adam and Eve did that. Nonetheless, the natural consequence of what
humanity's common parents did is that we all suffer from physical death, and
face the possibility of eternal death if we don't accept God's redemptive mercy.
Children from drug or alcohol addicted parents are far more likely to themselves
become drug or alcohol addicted, and then pass it along to their children, and so
on. It is equally known that violently abusive parents, or parents who wind up in
gangs or go to prison, are more likely to produce children that do the same. I
cannot tell you how that works, or how much (if any) is genetic, or if it more
comes down to the environment and family system the children are raised into.
In ancient times those sorts of things were often explained in terms like
"generational curses". We moderns don't like to deal in things like curses (it
sounds too primitive), so we give these sometimes-inexplicable realities other
names and assign them psychological terms. The point is this: these sorts of
decisions and choices by parents especially as concerns a relationship with God...
choices like we read about from the Jewish crowd on that fateful Passover
morning... will have far reaching effects that they'll never realize and probably
won't live to see. And, their children and even later generations may not
understand where that heavy ball of oppression that seems to follow them around
was first given its push. We'd probably all like to firewall off one generation from
the next, like turning the page to a new chapter in a book or changing a channel
on TV. But the Bible, and merely living long enough to observe it, provides
sufficient proof that this is not how life works in this present age.
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Lesson 93 - Matthew 27
How much better it would have been for the many future generations of Jews had
the Jewish crowds yelling for Yeshua's death refused to accept the phony
verdicts of their own Jewish religious leaders as well as that of their Roman
prefect, Pontius Pilate, in order to kill an innocent man, and instead have
recognized Him for who He was. How much better it would have been had their
ears and minds listened, obeyed, and been more open to the truth of God's
Word and to the presence and saving power of God's Son, than to the
comfortable human attraction of manmade tradition, the narcotic of custom, and
the naive certainty that their religious leaders must be the objective holders of
divine truth and righteousness. The curse that crowd put upon itself for the blood
of their Messiah has most definitely affected millions of Jews that would come
later. Not because those who would come later are also cursed of God for
something they didn't do and are not responsible for, but because sin is
infectious, and because what people are wrongly taught by the previous
generations has a ripple effect across time, like throwing a stone onto the waters
of a pond and watching how it disrupts the calmness of it, the waves rebounding
off the edges and colliding yet again to continue the effects.
Parents, the curse you place upon yourselves for refusing to accept your Savior,
to not live righteously, and thus to withhold from your children a truth you could
have known but chose not to, is more apt than not to carry over to your children
and grandchildren and beyond. They may well be cursed by your curse, even
though that's not what you intend.
We'll continue in chapter 27 next time.
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 94, Chapter 27 Continued
Verses 11 through 26 in Matthew chapter 27 have been perhaps the chief source
for persistent anti-Semitism within our faith; and this has been so for as much as
1800 years. The question these verses have been alleged to deal with is: who is
responsible for Christ's death? By a large margin institutional Christianity says
the answer is the Jews as a people, and thus God has transferred all the
blessings of the covenants He has made with them to the gentile Church, while
leaving the Jews with all the curses. Yet that by no means was a question that
Matthew intended to raise or to answer.
In this section we find 3 identifiable persons or groups of persons involved in the
decision to execute Jesus of Nazareth: the Jewish religious leadership of both
the Temple and the Synagogue authorities, the Roman Prefect over the Roman
province of Judea (Pontius Pilate), and the Jewish crowds that stood before him
on that fateful Passover day. All agreed to send Yeshua to the cross. The crowds
(as typical of mobs) were rather easy to manipulate because certain recognized
leaders knew how to prey on their already explosive emotions, which rose high
and spread like volcanic ash during all the pilgrimage feasts. So, what caused the
mob to turn against Jesus? Verse 20 says:
CJB Matthew 27:20 But the head cohanim persuaded the crowd to ask for
Bar-Abba's release and to have Yeshua executed on the stake.
Once again we find that the leadership are the culprits. Even so, the crowds
cannot be absolved from their participation. They are given the choice of having
the notorious and known murderer Bar-Abba freed as a Passover gift from Pilate,
or they could choose to have the innocent Christ released. They chose Bar-Abba
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
(Barabbas in most Bibles), and even vowed before God to accept any penalty
that might come from their choice. But even more that this penalty from God,
should there be cause for it (a curse, in Jewish thought), it would extend to their
children. Clearly this was not a serious or well thought out expression of the
sureness of their choice or of a consequence they were actually willing to bear,
but rather one brought on by a reckless frenzy fomented by the Jewish religious
leadership.
Matthew's point was to make a historic recollection of how Jesus's formal
condemnation occurred and the execution proceeded, as opposed to trying to
point a finger of blame for it. In fact, so far it's the Jewish religious leadership
that Yeshua has indicted for the spiritual state of the naive and misinformed
common people, since it is the leadership that is tasked with properly instructing
them in God's laws and commands. And yet the misinformed cannot claim
innocence when, finally, they are shown God's truth but they prefer to stick what
the falsehoods they have previously known. Bottom line: a mob cannot be
representative of an entire population, race, or people group. Nor can the general
population be held responsible for the decisions of a corrupt and perverse
leadership that cause violence to happen. Especially in a 1
st century political
environment when leaders were not chosen or elected by the people, but rather
leadership offices were handed down within families or bought and paid for or
acquired through subterfuge, can the common people be held accountable.
Therefore, placing blame for Christ's death on the Jews or the Roman gentiles is
a red herring, and is certainly not the point Matthew was making. Therefore, it is
not something that we, today, ought to be distracted with as we study the
Passion Narrative.
Let's read a little more of Matthew chapter 27.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27:26 - 44
I've mentioned in earlier lessons that all the Gospel accounts about Yeshua's
death use only a couple of pages or so to speak of it. Matthew, especially, is
quite brief and concise in telling us what transpired. The trial and death of
Yeshua, even the aftermath, is almost anti-climactic for these Gospel writers and
it is something we need to ponder deeply. While it is a Church mantra that about
all that matters for a Christian is Christ's death and resurrection, then why does
the New Testament spend so little time on it? I'd like to think that the 90+
lessons in Matthew that we've so far studied together answer that question: who
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
He was historically, what He represents, and what He taught us is equally
important as His death and resurrection. If we were to go by the volume of
inspired writings on the matter, the former is even more important than the latter.
Do not mistake what I'm suggesting. I'm in no way meaning that His death and
resurrection are not the defining moment in which Salvation from our sins
became a possibility for us. Rather it is that it is not an either/or situation. We
cannot on the one hand claim Salvation based on our faith in His death and
arising from the grave, if we (on the other hand) determine to largely ignore living
out that Salvation in the way He tells us we are obligated to do. Or as Yeshua's
biological brother James put it:
CJB James 2:19-26 19 You believe that "God is one"? Good for you! The
demons believe it too- the thought makes them shudder with fear! 20 But,
foolish fellow, do you want to be shown that such "faith" apart from actions
is barren? 21 Wasn't Avraham avinu declared righteous because of actions
when he offered up his son Yitz'chak on the altar? 22 You see that his faith
worked with his actions; by the actions the faith was made complete; 23 and
the passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled which says, "Avraham had faith in
God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness." He was even
called God's friend. 24 You see that a person is declared righteous because
of actions and not because of faith alone. 25 Likewise, wasn't Rachav the
prostitute also declared righteous because of actions when she welcomed
the messengers and sent them out by another route? 26 Indeed, just as the
body without a spirit is dead, so too faith without actions is dead.
James uses a wonderful metaphor to help us understand the importance of
following through with the actions that Christ told us to do; that of the relationship
between body and spirit. When he says "spirit" he is referring to the invisible life
force that makes us living beings. So, if faith in Christ's death and resurrection
represents the body, then doing what He taught us to do represents the spirit. If
we don't do what He taught us, then the body is dead because there is no spirit
(no life force) to make our faith alive. James does not put one above the other;
both are important and required in equal measure.
Verse 27 initiates the sequence of moving Christ to the cross. The governor's
soldiers (meaning Roman soldiers) took over. Jews were no longer part of the
process. Although we can't come up with a number, there were more than a few
soldiers surrounding Yeshua no doubt because His impending death was so
controversial and it was the Feast of Passover when messianic fervor was at a
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
fever pitch in Jerusalem. They began by removing His standard peasant-Jew
garb, and putting a scarlet robe on Him. Where was Jesus at this moment? It was
likely at one of two places: either the Antonia Fortress located on Temple
grounds, or it was the former Herod's palace in the upper city where Pilate
stayed when he was in Jerusalem. Pilate's actual home was located in Caesarea
Maritima located on the Mediterranean Sea, north of Jerusalem, and that's
where he resided most of the time. He only came to Jerusalem at the times of the
feasts in order to make sure there weren't riots, or when some kind of official
business was necessary there.
Matthew's Gospel says a scarlet robe was put onto Jesus, but Mark says it was
purple; Mark was not correct. Purple was a color used mostly by royalty. Where
would the Romans have obtained a purple robe? Scarlet was the color of a
Centurion's robe or cape. No doubt the Centurion in charge of the cohort lent his
scarlet cape to be put onto Jesus as a mock royal robe in order to make fun of
Him. To further humiliate Him they took some kind of a vine that had thorns on it
and wove it into a mock crown. When we see the sort of diadem worn by Roman
Emperors then we realize that this was what the soldiers were imitating since
Jewish kings wore crowns of gold. They also handed Him some type of reed to
imitate a king's scepter. Whatever these items were, they were at immediate
hand; there is no feasible way that these rough soldiers planned this humiliation
in advance or took the time to seek out these various items to place on Yeshua.
To complete the comedy, they knelt down before Christ and said: "Hail to the
King of the Jews".
When we back away from the scene, and when we see what happens once He's
nailed to the cross, we understand that as far as the soldiers know, and as far as
Pilate was concerned, Yeshua's crime was His claim as being a king. In the
Roman Empire this was the highest form of treason; only Caesar could be a king.
Thus, while the Jewish Sanhedrin convicted Him of blasphemy, they knew better
than to take that charge to Pilate. Rather they told Pilate that Christ claimed to be
a king, knowing that this was the surest way to get Pilate to agree to condemn
Him because this made Jesus a threat to Roman sovereignty. As we've
discussed on numerous occasions: from an earthly standpoint, and from a purely
historical standpoint, Jesus died as a political prisoner for political reasons.
What is so interesting, and ironic is that in truth Jesus was the King of the Jews.
And He stated as much when He claimed the role of Messiah, which was
understood by the Jewish people since ages past to be a new Davidic king. The
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
Roman soldiers spat on Yeshua. Spitting upon Him was then, just as it remains
today, one of the worst acts of contempt. Culturally it was an infliction of great
shame to be spat upon. Thus, as He continues His journey to the cross, He is
now in a societal state of shame so far as Jewish society was concerned. The
soldiers took the reed or stick from His hand and lashed Him with it. When they
had finished their physical and psychological abuse, they removed the cloak from
Him and gave it back to the Roman Centurion that lent it.
Backing up a little bit, verse 26 had told us that He was whipped. What this
means is flogged. Flogging was a truly terrible experience, and something that
was regularly done to prisoners that were going to be crucified because it was
bound to hurry along the dying process. Flogging involved hitting a person, over
and over again, with a device called a flagellum that had multiple leather arms,
and at the end of these arms were bits of metal or sharpened bone that would
tear into the flesh and rip it. Profuse bleeding along with intense pain was the
result. It was not unusual for a man to die during flogging. Obviously Jesus
survived it, but what comes next tells us that He was greatly weakened by it.
Verse 32 tells the story of a Jewish man from Cyrene named Shim'on that was
forcibly enlisted to carry Christ's cross. The picture of this event is one of the
most popular painted by Christian artists. However, the idea that Yeshua truly
carried his own cross is not tenable. The Roman execution stake was huge and
no single man could have carried it. Rather what was carried was the cross
beam. This beam, called a patibulum, was usually tied to the condemned
prisoner's arms and he more or less carried it on his shoulders to the site of his
impending crucifixion. Part of the reason for this procedure was to further publicly
disgrace him, but also to be a very visible warning to any Jew that would think to
oppose Rome. Further it would exhaust the prisoner and as he hung on the cross
it would reduce his ability to push up with his legs to lessen the agony of not
being able to breathe well. Again, in a cruel way, it might hasten the death
process.
In any case some random Jewish person from among the onlookers was
grabbed by the Roman soldiers and made to carry the cross beam as Yeshua
was simply unable to after being flogged and beaten. Cyrene was a city that lay
on the coast of what today we call Libya. It already had as early as the 4
th century
BC a substantial Jewish population, no doubt as a result of Israel's exiles.
Shim'on was but one of many scores of thousands of Jewish pilgrims in town for
the Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits. Mark's
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
Gospel further identifies this particular Shim'on (a very popular and widely used
Jewish name) as the father of Alexander and Rufus, and indeed Shim'on was
just arrived to Jerusalem when he saw this disturbance happening (talk about
bad timing!). Such a reference might indicate that while Shim'on lived in Cyrene,
Alexander and Rufus were locals.
The place where the crucifixion would take place is called Gulgolta; it's an
Aramaic word that means "skull" or in our passage it would be fair to call it "the
place of the skull". The Latin Vulgate Bible translated this to calvaria, from which
we get the English word calvary. So, does the term Gulgolta as indicating "skull"
mean that the place where it happened somehow looked like a skull? Or was it
kind of a macabre name for a non-descript place where hundreds, probably
thousands, of crucifixions happened? I really won't venture a guess, since there
is no way to know for sure and one guess is as good as the other. Where,
exactly, this place was located in Jerusalem is another issue. To be clear,
however: there is a difference between where He was crucified and where He
was entombed. Gordon's Calvary is currently the most popular guess as to
where He was crucified. There is a rock formation there that does have some
resemblance of a skull. Whether it looked like that 2,000 years ago is another
matter. A couple of hundred yards away is what today is known as the Garden
Tomb; this is the place some think Jesus was buried. Another candidate for His
burial place is where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is built. I truly don't have
any better opinion on the matter than do the many scholars who have chimed in
on it over the centuries. What I do know is that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
as we see it today wasn't built until the Crusader era. Prior to that there was a
building there that was an edifice dedicated to Emperor Constantine, which had
been built over an edifice bult to Emperor Hadrian. Such is the way religious sites
have worked over the centuries. In Christ's era, this place lay outside the walls of
Jerusalem. Since neither a place of execution nor a place of burial would have
been allowed inside the city walls, then the place of the Holy Sepulcher can't be
ruled out. On the other hand, it seems a most unlikely place for a tomb, but it's
not out of the question.
Therefore, the place called the Garden Tomb (to which I've taken many tour
guests), is the more likely location of His burial. And it is adjacent to the place
that has a cliff that looks like a skull. The irony is that today both of these sites lay
outside the Damascus Gate, meaning they are in a Muslim area. In fact, a bus
station used mostly by Muslims was built many years ago immediately below the
cliff that looks a bit like a skull. Wherever the execution took place it must have
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
been very public. There had to have been roads and paths that went by it for
easy access and because the Romans wanted it to be highly visible to as many
people as possible. And finally, it had to be well outside the walls of Jerusalem
because as a place of death it was ritually unclean, and the Romans would have
honored that in order to keep the peace. Beyond that we'll likely never know
exactly where Christ was crucified or buried.
Matthew's Gospel says that BEFORE He was nailed to the stake, He was
offered a mixture of wine with something called gall. Gall is more a description of
something bitter or not very good tasting than it is the name of a particular
substance. Mark says the actual substance in the wine was Myrrh. Myrrh was a
narcotic when ingested. So, wine (probably with a high alcohol content) mixed
with Myrrh was intended as an act of mercy to dull the pain. This, too, was rather
standard Roman practice. Recall that crucifixion was reserved strictly for Jews. It
was not a form of execution used on gentiles (at least not in the Holy
Land). Yeshua refused to drink it. Why? Good question. Some of the evangelical
branches of the Church say it was because it was wine that contained alcohol;
these are the same branches that don't believe the "wine" mentioned in the
New Testament or that Christ used at the Lord's Supper was actual wine but
rather merely grape juice (which, if one knows much of anything about Jewish
1
st century society and of Torah ritual practices, it is that low alcohol content wine
drinking was normal and customary). None of the Gospel writers explain
Yeshua's refusal of the pain killer, and so we won't attempt it either. But they do
agree that this is what happened.
After He refused the narcotic pain killer, Yeshua was nailed to the
Roman stauros... the Roman style execution stake that Christians call a cross. A
victim being nailed to the stake was actually the usual practice. There is a
mistaken belief among many Christians that Jesus's crucifixion was unique
partially because they used nails through His wrists and feet (to make it extra
gruesome) instead of tying his hands and feet to the stake using ropes. A heel
bone with a spike through it and dated to that time period has actually been found
to prove the point. The Gospel writers all speak of Christ being nailed to the cross
matter of fact-ly and simply move on; in other words, nothing unusual to see
here. As the nailing was going on, some of the soldiers took Yeshua's garments
and played a dice game for them. None of them could have seriously wanted this
peasant Jew's garments; they had no value. But, it was apparently a kind of
Roman custom among soldiers. The mention of it is likely to highlight the
fulfillment of yet another messianic prophecy.
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
CJB Psalms 22:17-19 17 Dogs are all around me, a pack of villains closes in
on me like a lion [at] my hands and feet.* 18 1 can count every one of my
bones, while they gaze at me and gloat. 19 They divide my garments among
themselves; for my clothing they throw dice.
Next, the Roman soldiers handling the executions that day sat down to wait as
the ones hanging on the execution stakes slowly expired.
Verse 37 makes plain what we talked about a little earlier. A sign was placed
above Yeshua's head telling what the charge against Him was. It said "This is
Yeshua, King of the Jews". It was usual that a sign would be created and hung
around the neck of the condemned stating what offense had been committed.
Yet, assuming all our Gospel writers got it correct, the sign was placed above the
head of Christ and it was less a list of charges and more a continued ridicule and
mocking. In other words, it was meant for the Jews who passed by to see and
take heed to forget this Messiah figure some hoped would lead a rebellion
against Rome and then become the first Jewish king in many centuries. The
message: this is what will happen to any Messiah that happens to show up.
Submit to Rome; you have no hope.
Since a sign was placed above Jesus's head, then there had to be at least a bit
of the vertical post that rose up higher than the horizontal cross beam. So even
though most historical illustrations of a Roman death stake have it in the shape of
a capital "T", apparently there was a few inches of the post above it. Either way,
the shape of the cross as we know it today was in no way like it was in that era.
In fact, the earliest use of a cross as a Christian symbol was in the 300's
A.D., based on the Greek letter Tau. Later Constantine promoted this kind of
cross as the official Christian symbol. Obviously the cross is nothing that early
Jewish Believers could ever possibly have accepted because it was symbolic of
the most barbaric form of execution used on them. And while accepted by most
branches of Christianity, the exact shape of the cross varies significantly across
these branches. The Bible never pushes forward the idea of a wooden cross as a
God-given symbol of Christianity, or even as something to remember Christ by.
The cross is a Christian tradition and ancient custom; it is not a biblical command
or even a recommended biblical icon. The cross is, and has been, far too much
used as a symbol of gentile Church superiority, or in some cases as downright
bigotry against Jews. It is far past time to rethink some of the symbols that while
having become entrenched as holy in Christian institutions, are in the end only
tradition-based icons. When the use of the cross causes great hurt to our Jewish
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
brothers and sisters in the faith (and for good reason), and thus creates a strong
wall of separation, we have to carefully think through the value of using it. Let me
be clear: I am not anti-cross. I understand that most well-meaning Christians
aren't intending it as an insult to Jews. But, when we know that it is offensive for
what it means for them, and when our most basic biblical command is to love our
fellow man as we love ourselves, then we have to ask if the insistence upon
using certain symbols doesn't do more harm than good in promoting faith in
Yeshua. After all, Yeshua was the Jewish Messiah. Enough said.
Verse 38 says that 2 robbers or thieves were placed upon their own crosses next
to Yeshua; one on either side of Him. The Greek word for the two criminals
is lestes. It carries the general meaning of a thief, but somehow that really
doesn't fit with the scenario. Rome did not execute common thieves. So,
whatever these men did extended well beyond mere thievery. Some language
scholars think the term is broad enough to include the kind of robbers that attack
and even kill people to steal from them (what we'd call armed robbery
today). So, we must not think of a couple of poverty-stricken Jews who stole
bread or a fish to feed themselves or their families. These were men who had
committed serious offenses that very likely involved harming people. Perhaps
they were thought to be Jewish rebels.
The charge of some of the Jewish onlookers of saying that Jesus was going to
destroy the Temple and build it back in 3 days mostly results from a
misunderstanding of what He had earlier said and meant. He meant it
prophetically and in a couple of different senses. He knew that a few years later
the Temple would be destroyed. The building itself had become so sacred to the
Jewish people, and the historical memory of it having been destroyed by the
Babylonians so hateful for them, that the thought of Jesus implying that He was
going to destroy the Temple (something He did NOT say) brought on instant
anger. We've already heard about people swearing (making vows) using the
Temple itself as the guaranteeing 3
rd party, almost as if it was alive. The only real
value to the Temple had always been as the place of God's presence on earth,
at the moments He chose to be there. Otherwise, it stood empty except of
furniture. Since the Babylonian exile, and the rebuilding of the Temple, not even
the Ark of the Covenant was present any longer. The building itself was viewed
as a holy place, even as today the foundation walls for a Temple in Jerusalem
that hasn't existed for nearly 20 centuries (the Western Wall, the Kotel) is
considered holy by the religious Jews.
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
Of the many passers' by of this highly visible place of crucifixions, some hurled
insults at Yeshua, and some shook their heads at Him and mocked Him as did
the Roman soldiers. This, too, is prophetic fulfillment.
CJB Psalm 22:7-8 7 But I am a worm, not a man, scorned by everyone,
despised by the people. 8 All who see me jeer at me; they sneer and shake
their heads:
It is interesting that in Mark's Gospel the insults hurled at Yeshua are called
blaspheming (which clearly is not meant by Mark in its most technical function).
And yet, while in the P'shat sense (the literal and simplest sense) these are but
offensive slurs aimed at Christ, in the Remez sense (the deeper hint
sense) these passer's by actually are committing blasphemy in its fullest biblical
function because they are saying these foul and slanderous things to the divine!
In truth this understanding of blaspheming Jesus can only be discovered with the
benefit of hindsight, and yet He regularly showed His fellow Jews His divine side
through the incomparable miracles He facilitated and because He outright said
He was divine by identifying Himself (countless times) as the Son of Man. The
people were just blinded to it by their centuries of manmade Tradition that had
obscured the truth.
Among the many scorning words thrown at Yeshua included "If you are the Son
of God then come down from the cross". Such wicked words can't help us from
remembering something similar said to Him much earlier in Matthew.
CJB Matthew 4:3-6 3 The Tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son
of God, order these stones to become bread." 4 But he answered, "The
Tanakh says, 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that
comes from the mouth of ADONAI"' 5 Then the Adversary took him to the
holy city and set him on the highest point of the Temple. 6 "If you are the
Son of God," he said, "jump! For the Tanakh says, 'He will order his angels
to be responsible for you.... They will support you with their hands, so that
you will not hurt your feet on the stones."' The connection is unmistakable. These jeerers are acting as Satan's agents
towards Jesus, even using the same word formula! Earlier Satan tempted
Yeshua when He was hungry, then tempted Him to prove Himself by jumping off
a high place. Now these people are telling Jesus to climb down off the cross, if
He really is who He says He is. All these temptations have to do with Christ
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
gaining something for Himself; whether it is bread to satisfy His hunger, or
performing a high dive to obtain a kingdom Satan says he'll give to Him. Now it
is to come down from the cross to ease His personal suffering and to avert death.
When these same jeerers tell Christ to save Himself they don't mean it in the
sense of salvation as we think of it. Rather it is in the sense of saving Himself
from agony and death; they know nothing about any claim of spiritual deliverance
through Him.
Next we're told that Jewish religious figures mocked Him. I suspect at least
some of these were members of the Sanhedrin that had pronounced the death
sentence on Him and they wanted to come and view this dark spectacle to satisfy
themselves that their will was being carried out by Rome. Like the other jeerers
they say something like "He can save others but not Himself". And say if He is
who He claims to be then come down from the cross. I wonder, might any of us in
that era based on what seemed to be the available information at the time have
understood the idea of "saving" in the sense of personal salvation from our sins?
Even Christ's 12 disciples didn't seem to get it. So, while we can study our New
Testaments, and benefit from the many fine teachings given to us by excellent
teachers and Pastors, and understand from a distance of time what these words
and events meant in the larger spiritual if not cosmic realm, it simply was not so
obvious to the Jews of that day.
These Jewish leaders (no doubt playing to others around them) say that the proof
they demand of Yeshua being the Son of God is for Him to come down from the
death stake. In other words, they are asking for another sign. His response to the
demand of a sign the first time it was thrust upon Him was never more
appropriate than at this moment.
CJB Matthew 12:38-40 38 At this some of the Torah-teachers said, "Rabbi, we
want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39 He replied, "A wicked and
adulterous generation asks for a sign? No! None will be given to it but the
sign of the prophet Yonah. 40 For just as Yonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the depths of the earth.
The sign of Jonah, being entombed for 3 days and 3 nights, was the only sign
necessary.
Even more prophetic words from Psalm 22 are fulfilled at the vile utterances of
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
the Jewish religious leaders when they say that since Jesus claims to trust God
so much, then let God rescue Him from this crucifixion.
CJB Psalm 22:9 "He committed himself to ADONAI, so let him rescue him!
Let him set him free if he takes such delight in him!"
Even the criminals who are dying on their crosses on either side of Yeshua join in
the insults. It makes me think of people who have resisted Christ all their lives,
are moments from death, and when offered the opportunity to know Him and be
forgiven and saved still refuse it almost as a stubborn badge of honor. Whatever
saving is to be done, they'll do themselves or not at all.
Let's read a few more verses.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27:45 - 50
Matthew records that from about noon to 3 in the afternoon that day as Messiah
hung on the death stake, all the Land was covered in darkness. This must be
referring to the famous prophecy of Amos.
CJB Amos 8:8-10 8 Won't the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn, who
lives in the land? It will all rise, just like the Nile, be in turmoil and subside,
like the Nile in Egypt. 9 "When that time comes," says Adonai ELOHIM, "I
will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad
daylight. 10 1 will turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into
wailing; I will make you all put sackcloth around your waists and shave
your heads bald in grief. I will make it like mourning for an only son and its
end like a bitter day.
What is so dazzling about this prophecy is not only the mention of the sun going
down at noon and darkening the whole Land, but that God will turn the festivals
into a time of mourning. What is Israel joyously celebrating at the moment of
Christ's execution? The 3 Springtime festivals. The reality of recognizing
prophetic fulfillment is that it is often missed because it is not taken literally
enough. Some of the prophetic predictions are so difficult to fathom, or seem so
impossible in and of themselves to happen, that we look for another meaning.
Then they happen just as it was stated and God's people miss it. That's what
was happening with the Jewish people of the 1
st century. Let's not let that
happen among ourselves as the End Times approaches along with the many
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Lesson 94 - Matthew 27 cont
prophetic fulfillments that accompany it.
Was this 3-hour darkness actual tangible darkness? Did the sun become
obscured? Or is this meant symbolically? What "Land" is this speaking about?
Jerusalem? Judea? All of the Holy Land? The entire Earth? Darkness is a biblical
term for evil or for God's impending wrath. Could the sky have also darkened
with some unusual weather event? A sky so dark that it unnerved people? The
evil that was occurring, which borders on an evil that might be the worst in human
history to that point (crucifying Jesus, the Son of God), could be what the Gospel
writers intended. Or perhaps it was the portent of the wrath of God that was going
to (in a matter of minutes) be poured out in a most unsuspected and devastating
way. The term "the Land" is just as problematic because biblically it ranges in
scope from the city of Jerusalem at its narrowest to the Holy Land in general at
its widest.
It was at the final moments of this darkness when Yeshua released His spirit and
died. But not before His Father poured out His wrath upon His Son. And that will
be the opening topic of our discussion, next week.
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 95, Chapter 27 Continued 2
As we are nearing the end of our extensive study of Matthew's Gospel and all
that has been revealed about Jesus's life and teachings along the way, we have
arrived at the epic Redemption History milestone that had it's beginning in the
Garden of Eden and now rests at the foot of a Roman cross around 30 A.D.
Let's re-read a short section of Matthew chapter 27.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27:45 - 54
At 3 in the afternoon, during the hours on Passover Day that the Passover lambs
were being slaughtered, the sky (and it seems all the atmosphere) turns dark and
ominous. Darkness in the Bible is always symbolic and it projects the presence of
evil and just as often of God's impending wrath. Yeshua finds sufficient breath as
He hangs suffocating on the death stake to shout out in Aramaic, "My God, My
God, why have You abandoned Me?" Even in death He is speaking prophetically
from one of the most profoundly messianic Psalms in the Bible: Psalm 22.
CJB Psalm 22:2 My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me? Why so far
from helping me, so far from my anguished cries?
In those words, some onlookers thought they heard Jesus calling for Elijah. This
is another one of those conundrums that has baffled scholars for ages; why
would anyone think He said such a thing? Modern language scholars have
offered a solution that probably resolves it.
It is better known today that there were multiple Aramaic dialects in use then, and
was used so widely in the Middle East in the 1
st century, that if one were to list
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
the languages that everyday Jews in the Holy Land spoke, it would likely be in
order: Hebrew, Aramaic, and then Greek. In one of the Aramaic dialects that
seems to have been common in the Galilee, what Christ is recorded to have said
moments before His death may have sounded to the ear like: "Elahi, Elahi, lema
sebaqtani", as opposed to 'Eli, Eli, lama azabatani". In other words, Elahi
sounds very much like Eliyah. From the dry mouth and parched lips of the dying
Messiah, and to the ears of a Judean, the two words might have been
indistinguishable. So, in English what some thought they heard Him cry out was
"Elijah, Elijah, why have you deserted me?". Yeshua's call for Elijah would have
made sense to a Jew because Elijah was expected to return on Passover, which
is why to this very day at the Passover seder Jews will symbolically leave an
empty seat at their table along with a goblet of wine for Elijah.
Not only does the Aramaic dialect matter help resolve the issue, but what further
bolsters the argument for it is that next we read that a bystander immediately
thinks to offer Yeshua something to drink. In other words, the bystander thought
that Yeshua's dry lips and parched throat, and lack of lung power at this point,
caused whatever Jesus said from the cross to not be entirely intelligible. So, the
hope was that some liquid would help Him to speak more clearly.
What was offered to Yeshua wasn't really vinegar (as we usually read it). Who
would drink vinegar no matter how thirsty they might be? The Greek word
is oxos and it is no doubt referring to a cheap low- quality wine that the poorer
parts of society drank. Why offer wine and not water to a thirsty man? Because of
the alcohol content of wine, the goal was mainly to help dull the pain while
providing a little bit of relief for thirst.
Christ is now dead; His spirit has left Him. We MUST ask ourselves: what has
just happened here on the cross? How are we to understand it's ramifications?
What was Yeshua intending by pushing out the dying words about God, His
Father, abandoning Him?
Christians often go no further in attempting to understand exactly what transpired
on that cross than to repeat well-worn phrases like "Jesus atoned for our sins",
or "His blood paid for our sins", or "He was a sacrifice for our sins". Those
phrases are spoken millions of times over in Churches worldwide every week; but
those simple thoughts don't explain how or on what premise Yeshua
accomplished those things. Let's attempt to go beyond those traditional sayings
and see if we can put together a coherent, understandable, biblically based
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explanation. I want to say in advance that whatever you may think you hear
coming from me in no way repudiates or challenges the notion that in some
mysterious and marvelous way, Christ suffered and died so that we can have
eternal life.
Repeatedly during His ministry Yeshua appealed to the Jewish people to pay
attention that He was fulfilling the centuries-old biblical prophecies about Israel's
Messiah. Few Prophets present such amazing predictions about the Messiah and
details of his death as Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 53. We've read it a few times
(sometimes in small portions) but I'll again draw on a couple of its verses to
make my point.
CJB Isaiah 53:4-5 4
In fact, it was our diseases he bore, our pains from which
he suffered; yet we regarded him as punished, stricken and afflicted by
God. 5 But he was wounded because of our crimes, crushed because of our
sins; the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him, and by his bruises*
we are healed.
To understand what Yeshua set out to accomplish we must focus at least as
much on His humanity as on His divine nature. This is because just as Adam is
biblically representative of all humanity since Creation... humanity as a fallen and
sinful race... so Christ carried a similar burden upon His human shoulders. Every
person is responsible to God for our sin nature that is unavoidably passed down
to us from Adam, but also for our own personal sins of misbehavior and immoral
thought. God being just and always true to His word had to punish us collectively
as a race of created creatures for our rebellion and disobedience to His
commandments. He could not behave as a kindly grandfather, looking the other
way, going against His own ordinances. So, the Father more or less consolidated
all the sins of the world and placed them onto Jesus. On the cross Yeshua was
divinely crushed under the unbearable weight of God's wrath that had been
building up for millennia.
It would have been nice if in the Gospel accounts a fuller understanding of what
Yeshua experienced and accomplished from a spiritual perspective had been
pulled together into a single narrative and carefully explained in detail for the
benefit of posterity; unfortunately, that's not what happened. Instead, it seems to
have fallen mostly to the learned Paul, 3 decades later, to think it through,
assemble and order the many elements and data points, and to give us a better
explanation. But even his exposition of the matter is somewhat confounding
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because the premise of it is so contrary if not illogical to our modern, Western
human manner of thinking; and also because it is not organized into a nice, neat,
Greek-style systematic theology. We can read Paul's words, yet it can still be
hard to make sense of them, because it is not presented in a form we're used to
hearing from a pulpit. In his Book of Romans, we read the following in regard to
that fateful Passover day and the transaction that occurred on the cross.
CJB Romans 5:12-19 12 Here is how it works: it was through one individual
that sin entered the world, and through sin, death; and in this way death
passed through to the whole human race, inasmuch as everyone
sinned. 13 Sin was indeed present in the world before Torah was given, but
sin is not counted as such when there is no Torah. 14 Nevertheless death
ruled from Adam until Moshe, even over those whose sinning was not
exactly like Adam's violation of a direct command. In this, Adam prefigured
the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offence. For if,
because of one man's offence, many died, then how much more has God's
grace, that is, the gracious gift of one man, Yeshua the Messiah,
overflowed to many! 16 No, the free gift is not like what resulted from one
man's sinning; for from one sinner came judgment that brought
condemnation; but the free gift came after many offences and brought
acquittal. 17 For if, because of the offence of one man, death ruled through
that one man; how much more will those receiving the overflowing grace,
that is, the gift of being considered righteous, rule in life through the one
man Yeshua the Messiah! 18 In other words, just as it was through one
offence that all people came under condemnation, so also it is through one
righteous act that all people come to be considered righteous. 19For just as
through the disobedience of the one man, many were made sinners, so
also through the obedience of the other man, many will be made righteous.
I'll try to expound on this using modern terms and language. One man caused
the problem; a long while later another man solved it. Adam created sin and the
consequences of it that extend to every human ever born; Yeshua bore those sin
consequences for every human ever born. Since the consequence for sin is to
bear the wrath of God that includes both physical and spiritual death, that is what
Jesus bore on the cross (it could have been no less). And for Him, and for us all,
besides the tangible consequences that come from sin, so God's wrath
necessarily begins with Him abandoning us. For Yeshua that meant that the Holy
Spirit...the God spirit... that lived within Him... the unique and incomparable divine
aspect of His being... left Him for a time as He hung from the execution stake.
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Especially because of who He was... and who He KNEW He was... that had to
have been the greatest of the many agonies He felt. When the Holy Spirit left
Him, He was no longer whole. He knew in advance this was going to happen; He
knew He was going to bear all of His Father's wrath as the sole and collective
representative of sinful humanity. This is why on the Mount of Olives He prayed
and pled with His Father only a few hours before His ordeal:
CJB Matthew 26:37-39 Grief and anguish came over him, 38 and he said to
them, "My heart is so filled with sadness that I could die! Remain here and
stay awake with me."
39 Going on a little farther, he fell on his face, praying,
"My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet- not what I want, but
what you want!"
It was the cup of wrath from His Father that Christ feared most. We also cannot
just race-by another uncomfortable aspect of His ghastly ordeal. Christians
commonly speak of Jesus as a sacrifice; a sacrifice for us. So, was He literally a
human sacrifice in all its grisly senses? Isn't God against human sacrifice? Are
we to understand that God made an exception in this one case? This is an issue
that has caused many Jews to run the other direction from Christianity because it
certainly seems that human sacrifice that is deplored as pagan and wicked by the
Church, is also the way that Christianity has always framed what Christ did and
was. And there are New Testament passages that seem to support the notion.
CJB Romans 8:3 3 For what the Torah could not do by itself, because it
lacked the power to make the old nature cooperate, God did by sending his
own Son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one [but
without sin]. God did this in order to deal with sin, and in so doing he
executed the punishment against sin in human nature,
CJB Hebrews 10:26-27 26 For if we deliberately continue to sin after receiving
the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, 27 but only the terrifying prospect of Judgment, of raging fire that will
consume the enemies.
The Hebrews' verse starts to tip-toe into the issue of Jesus as a blood sacrifice,
but then we get this:
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CJB 2 Cor. 5:21 21 God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf,
so that in union with him we might fully share in God's righteousness." How, then, do we not frame what happened on that cross as a human sacrifice?
This is the very thing God averted when He asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac,
but then stopped him and substituted a ram. In reality, the way 2Corinthians 5 is
worded in the Greek is NOT the way the CJB presents it. While the CJB says that
this "sinless man" was made a "sin offering" on our behalf, in fact the word
"offering" isn't there. The Greek says only that He was made "sin" on our
behalf. There is a wide gulf between the intent and effect of the terms sin and
sin offering; the first term describing the problem, the second a solution. That
said, most Bible interpretations of this verse heavily imply (if not outright state)
the same meaning that the CJB dares to say out loud: that Yeshua was a human
sacrifice... a human sin offering... for us.
CJB Hebrews 10:11-12 11 Now every cohen stands every day doing his
service, offering over and over the same sacrifices, which can never take
away sins. 12 But this one, after he had offered for all time a single sacrifice
for sins, sat down at the right hand of God,
The CJB wording of this verse is very much in line with most of the other
standard English Bible versions. So how do we not see Jesus as a human
sacrifice; it's just that He was sacrificed on a Roman death stake as opposed to
a Temple altar? Hopefully you're seeing where this creates all kinds of
uncomfortable theological, if not moral, issues that painless denominational
doctrines gloss over, but don't actually address.
It is critical to observe that the simple theme underlying every one of these
passages is that Jesus became the object of God's wrath. Therefore, the
problem with trying to equate Christ's death with the death of animals as Torah␂prescribed Levitical animal sacrifices of atonement for humans, starts to diverge.
God does NOT pour his wrath out on the sacrificial animals. Rather the death of
the animals is what provides the legally required atonement mechanism so that
God forgives the human sinner and any form of God's wrath is averted.
However, in Jesus's case God's wrath was not averted. He indeed experienced
the full weight of God's wrath, which is entirely uncharacteristic of an altar
sacrifice. This is because Yeshua was somewhat different from animals who died
to atone for sin; rather for a few moments Yeshua represented the sin of all
humanity and bore the ultimate punishment. As 2Corinthians 5:21 says (when
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
properly translated), Yeshua became sin. He became the personification of sin;
and God punished the sin of mankind through the wrath He imparted on His only
Son, Yeshua, as He hung on the cross.
Therefore, since Jesus's death cannot be precisely equated to a Temple altar
sacrifice, what about Him being our Passover lamb? One of the most quoted
New Testament passages in this regard occurs in 1Corinthians.
CJB 1 Corinthians 5:7 Get rid of the old hametz, so that you can be a new
batch of dough, because in reality you are unleavened. For our Pesach
lamb, the Messiah, has been sacrificed.
One problem: the word "lamb" doesn't actually appear in this passage in the
Greek. The KJV and some others renders it literally and correctly.
KJV 1 Corinthians 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a
new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed
for us
Notice that here Christ is our Passover... not the Passover lamb. How are we to
understand this strange statement? The Passover is the totality of the event
when, in Egypt, death passed over God's set apart people who loved and
obeyed Him, but it didn't pass over those who worshipped other gods. Back
when Israel was in Egypt and preparing to escape Pharaoh's grip, each Israelite
family was instructed to kill a lamb. They were to use its blood to paint on the
doorposts of their homes as a sign to God that they trusted in Him. And, they
were to roast and eat the lamb. It was not described as a ritual sacrifice; the lamb
was a meal with its blood a symbol and a sign... a sign of protection... not as a
substitute. So, the Passover event was completely unlike the Levitical sacrifices
because the Passover lamb's blood was not used for atonement or forgiveness
but rather it signified obedience to the God of Israel and thus the households with
blood of their doorposts were identified as one of His own. Bottom line: while
there are indeed similarities (and lessons to be taken) between Yeshua's death
on the cross and what went on at the Temple altar with the Levitical sacrificial
system, there are also significant differences. We find the same thing true with
the Passover and the Passover lamb. So, Christ was not just a higher form of
animal sacrifice so-to-speak; higher than bulls and goats. Nor, of course, was He
the literal centerpiece of a ceremonial meal. Rather we are to take these
statements about Him being a sacrifice and the Passover (or Passover lamb) as
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
approximations and comparisons for which we have similar earthly
representations.
With this transcendent matter of Yeshua's death somehow averting our spiritual
death, the divine transaction was unlike anything that had ever happened before
and we must not make the comparisons to Levitical altar sacrifices or to the
Passover lamb too strong or take them too far. Even the use of the term
"sacrifice" regarding His crucifixion, while appropriate, cannot be held in the
strictest technical or ritual sense of it, but rather in the sense of Yeshua selflessly
doing something for us that we couldn't do for ourselves. God finally brought to
fruition His ancient plan to deal with sin; He poured out His wrath on His Son who
had taken on the sin and sins of the entire human race and virtually became sin.
Thus, the wages for sin (which is death) was finally indeed meted out by God and
no longer held back. Let me frame this in a way that might make a better impact
(just, please, don't take this illustration too far because it is not meant to be
precise in all its aspects). Let's use a familiar word for a person who disobeys
the laws of their society: a criminal. In God's eyes a person who disobeys His
laws and commands is a criminal (a sinner). Thus, in God's justice system a
"criminal" must pay the price for his or her crimes. Thus, in that sense Christ
died not as a sacrificial animal, or as a human sacrifice... but rather as the
universal sinner... the universal criminal. Remember what Paul said in Romans 8?
CJB Romans 8:3 3 For what the Torah could not do by itself, because it
lacked the power to make the old nature cooperate, God did by sending his
own Son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one [but
without sin]. God did this in order to deal with sin, and in so doing
he executed the punishment against sin in human nature,
God executing punishment on sin is a far cry from having sin atoned for and thus
His wrath being avoided. According to Paul, God DID execute His wrathful
judgment on sin by executing it upon Jesus. All the world's sin was consolidated
into one big pot, and placed into Christ. It was as though Christ had Himself not
only become the universal sinner, but was also sin itself, and God dealt with it in
that way. It involved elements of the Levitical sacrificial system and of Passover
but wasn't precisely either. This re-shapes our concept of the word "atonement"
because the main way we have understood it over the centuries is that He was a
substitute in the same way a sacrificial animal is a substitute. While true in some
ways, it's also a scripturally incomplete definition.
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Jesus was not a human sacrifice. Rather for a most mysterious moment in time
He was divinely deemed the universal human criminal bearing the responsibility
within Himself for all the crimes (the sins) of mankind. God punished Him horribly
for it. Further, the irony of the 2 criminals flanking Jesus on the cross is not to be
missed. They were guilty criminals in reality; but Yeshua was only a guilty
"criminal" because God imputed their guilt, and ours, upon Him. The ironic
comparison for us to see between Christ and the 2 men hanging beside Him is
intended. So, what does this mean for us? Assuming you have sincere faith and
trust in the God of Israel and in His Son, Jesus of Nazareth, as your Lord and
Savior, it means that in a mysterious way you didn't really escape your
punishment; in God's eyes you've already suffered it and (assuming you
maintain that trust) will never have to suffer it again. This is why we are told that
as Believers we are to identify with Christ's death and His resurrection. Your sins
and mine were poured into Him and so the wrath He suffered for sin, we suffered
vicariously through Him. It's already happened. Our punishment has already
occurred. It's finished. Again: this only applies to those who have and maintain
faith and trust in what God did for us. Why wouldn't everyone want this for
themselves?
Now let's step back and get real. How can this be? How can my sins in
the 21st century retroactively become Yeshua's sins in the 1
st century? In some
ways it sounds preposterous. Because it is, for lack of better words, a happy
fiction. Or better, a happy LEGAL fiction that God accepts as true within His legal
system... His unique justice system... that doesn't operate like human, earthbound
justice systems. God has simply determined or ordained that as part of His
justice system He will inflict upon one man all the punishments and wrath for all
the sins of all the humans who agree to subscribe to His justice system; a system
consisting of 2 separate elements for 2 separate purposes: Jesus Christ and The
Law of Moses. The first is for redemption; the second is our guide for living the
redeemed life. Subscribing begins with acknowledging the God of Israel and
trusting in His Son as our Lord and Redeemer. God's infliction of His wrath upon
one man (Jesus) for all the world's sins, actually reflects divine proportional
justice that blames the origination of all sins upon one man: Adam.
This is why the anonymous writer of Hebrews can say that if we won't accept the
death of God's Messiah as our own death and thus our suffering God's wrath
right along with Christ on that cross, then there's nothing more that is available
to pay for our sins. Since the redeeming event of the cross there is no amount of
blood that can be spilled on the Temple altar that will suffice. The Levitical
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
sacrificial system for sins isn't replaced per se; it's simply no longer relevant. In
fact, since the cross, the term "sin offering" has become an oxymoron.
So, does that mean that the Torah and all the Law of Moses have also become
irrelevant? Yeshua directly answered that question several months before His
death.
CJB Matthew 5:17-19 77 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I
tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Yeshua makes it clear that the Torah continues to be relevant and in force until
the present earth and Universe are obliterated and re-created. Why? Because
sin and sins didn't die on the cross; it's easily observed that both certainly
continue to exist. Rather it is the sinners that have committed sins that died; but
only certain sinners... the ones we call Believers. If we don't look to the Torah
and the Law of Moses as our guidebook for what sin is, what moral behavior is,
what right and wrong is, what evil and good is, then how will we have any
common standard by which to judge our own behaviors and thoughts? Even
more, how will we know God's standard for all those things?
Now we get to deal with yet another interesting issue. Verse 51 explains that "at
that moment" (at the moment Yeshua expired), the veil of the Temple tore from
the top to the bottom, and at the same time there was an earthquake so powerful
that rocks broke. Many Bibles (such as the CJB) will call this Temple veil
the parokhet or say something about the "inner veil". Neither of those
translations is an actual translation but rather both are traditional Christian
interpretations and doctrines that came much later. The Greek word used
is katapetasma, it simply means "veil". The Temple had 2 veils; an inner and an
outer. The inner veil separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. These
were 2 separate chambers that served 2 different purposes and were restricted
to use by 2 different sets of people. The Holy Place... the less "holy" of the 2
chambers... was the front chamber where regular priests could enter and operate,
and in fact they had a number of duties to perform there on a daily basis. On the
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
other hand, the innermost chamber... the holiest of the 2... was where in more
ancient times the Ark of the Covenant sat (but no longer since after the
Babylonian exile the Ark went missing). Only one man, the High Priest, could
enter that chamber, and only 1 time per year on Yom Kippur (the Day of
Atonement). This wasn't Jewish tradition; it was Torah Law.
The front chamber had a veil that separated it from the Temple courtyard where
the Temple Altar was located. Herod's Temple in Christ's era was considered
one of the wonders of the world. Its enormity that some said looked like a white,
so-capped mountain, was enhanced by the presence of a thick veil that stood
perhaps 8 stories high. It could be seen from miles away. The veil's weight
probably could be measured in tons. It hung from a specially constructed stone
lintel. So, the question is: which veil tore? The inner veil or the outer veil?
Another phenomenon that happened at the moment of Christ's death was that
several dead people that were considered holy (righteous) came alive in their
graves. Then AFTER Yeshua arose from His tomb, these newly alive folks
walked out of their tombs and into the city of Jerusalem and it was attested to by
many people who saw them and must have known them. So, it seems to be that
at Christ's death they awoke, but not until Yeshua awoke 3 days later did they
walk out of their tombs. This is hard to explain and I don't think I have a good
explanation that goes beyond what others have attempted. There is much
suspicion among Bible scholars that over time something got lost in the
transmittal of this portion of Matthew. For one reason, it begs the question if
these people now remained alive forever, or they died again? For such an
enormous miracle as the dead being resurrected, there is nothing more than a
simple mention of it and all ramifications seem to be left to the minds of the
readers. What supplies us with some interesting information (that is all too short
on details) is that the Roman centurion (and some others as well) that were there
overseeing Christ's crucifixion experienced the earthquake and "saw what was
happening". They were so overcome by what they witnessed that Matthew has
them saying "He really was a son of God".
Now let's get back to the matter of the veil. Wherever exactly the crucifixion took
place it was a) not far from the Jerusalem city walls and b) up on a relatively high
place with plenty of access for people to walk by and gawk. I believe that place
had to be somewhere on the side, near the top, of the Mount of Olives. Further,
the renting of the veil and other things that happened were witnessed by the
Roman soldiers. Plainly put, there is no way that the Romans standing at the foot
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
of the cross (or anyone else for that matter) could have seen or even known
about the condition of the inner veil of the Temple. But, they did have a plain view
of the enormous and highly visible outer veil.
It is theorized (rightly so) that since the monumental outer veil was hung from a
rock lentil, and there is specific mention of rocks splitting due to the violence of
the quake, that the lentil cracked and broke under the terrific weight of the veil. It
necessarily would have split from the top down. It is my opinion that it indeed was
the outer veil that split, opening up a view into the front chamber where the
regular Temple priests could enter. Almost all of Christianity asserts that it was
the inner veil to the Holy of Holies, and this is assumed because of some words
Paul, Peter and others say about Believers being priests.
CJB 1 Peter 2:3-5 3 For you have tasted that ADONAI is good. 4 As you come
to him, the living stone, rejected by people but chosen by God and
precious to him, 5 you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a
spiritual house to be cohanim set apart for God to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to him through Yeshua the Messiah
There are a few other passages as well that describes Believers as priests, which
has led to a Church Doctrine of the Priesthood of Believers. However, we also
read this:
CJB Hebrews 4:14 Therefore, since we have a great cohen gadol (High
Priest) who has passed through to the highest heaven, Yeshua, the Son of
God, let us hold firmly to what we acknowledge as true.
Here's the thing: if as Believers we, as a result of Yeshua's death, are allowed
into the Holy of Holies (as represented by the tearing of the inner Temple veil, if
that was indeed the case), then we don't become mere priests, we become High
Priests because only the High Priest could venture beyond that inner veil.
However, Yeshua is seen as our spiritual High Priest and there can only ever be
one. Otherwise, the term "High" Priest loses all its meaning. Bottom line: it was
NOT the inner veil that tore. It was not the Holy of Holies that became
symbolically open to Believers. Rather it was the outer veil that tore, which did
symbolically invite Believers into it as servants (priests) of God in His Kingdom.
Paul, Peter and other Jews thoroughly understood this and thus called us
"priests" and never "High Priests".
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
Let's read some more of Matthew 27.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27:55 - end
We haven't read of women disciples of Christ until now. Two of them are
introduced and they were both named Miriam. Mary of Magdala (better known to
most Christians as Mary Magdalene) we are familiar with; but the Miriam who is
said to be the mother of Jacob (better known to us as James) and of Joseph is a
bit uncertain. In the listing of Yeshua's biological half-brothers there is a Jacob
and Joseph. So, this Miriam could well be Jesus's mother; but it would sure
seem to have been much easier to have just said that!
In any case, as the day of Passover wore on and evening was approaching, a
man named Joseph (said to be from Ramatayim) came to Pilate. Joseph is
identified by Matthew as a disciple of Yeshua. That he was able to get an
audience with Pilate says he was probably of the aristocrat class and that Pilate
previously knew of him. The Book of Mark chapter 15 identifies the day as
"Preparation Day", the day before Sabbath. This is where our extensive study of
the Hebrew versus Roman calendars and the timing of the Feast Days comes in.
Remembering that John plainly says that among the Judeans Passover Day is
nicknamed Preparation Day, then we understand that this is what Matthew is
referring to. It is, of course, still Passover Day but this one-day feast is about to
end, and the immediate start of the week-long Feast of Matza is about to begin.
Since the 1st day of the Feast of Matza is a special added sabbath, then that
means that Yeshua's burial had to happen quickly (before this sabbath began),
or the body would have to wait for another 24 hours before it could be entombed.
No burial could take place on any kind of sabbath; feast sabbath or weekly
7
th day Sabbath. This is why the mention of the time of day (evening) and the
urgency of getting Jesus's body down from the cross and placed into a tomb.
Following tradition, the body was wrapped in a linen covering and Yeshua was
laid into Joseph's personal tomb. Apparently the tomb had only recently been
completed and no one had yet been laid to rest in it. Here's how burial typically
worked for Jews in the 1st century. The deceased was cleaned with water (for
ritual purification), then wrapped in a linen cloth. Usually, various fragrant herbs
and spices were wrapped up inside the linen covering for obvious reasons. Then
the body was placed in a tomb. Tombs usually had a few resting spots to hold
perhaps 3 or 4 bodies at once. A body was usually in there for about a year,
while nature did its work. Once nothing remained but bones, the bones would be
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
removed and placed into an ossuary (a bone box), and then moved to another
place (often a designated cave) where many of these bone boxes would reside
as permanent burial. So, tombs were used and reused scores if not hundreds of
times by various people.
A large stone was rolled to cover the door into the tomb and Joseph left. Matthew
says the 2 Mary's remained there near the tomb. Verse 62 takes place a day or
so later. It says that the next day after the preparation the chief priest (not the
High Priest) and some Pharisees went to visit Pilate. It's hard to place this in
time. Whether "after the preparation" means after the preparation of Jesus's
body, or it means the day after Preparation Day, is ambiguous. If they had gone
to Pilate the day after Preparation Day (Passover Day), then it means that they
visited Pilate on a feast sabbath. That is not impossible. If it means they met with
Pilate the day after Jesus's body was prepared, it might mean Nisan 16th
, the
2
nd day of the Feast of Matza. I believe in order to make the timeline work
according to the Prophecy of Jonah, it can only mean that they went to Pilate on
the feast sabbath, the 1
st day of the Feast of Matza, Nisan 15th
. The concern of the Temple and Synagogue leadership, and thus the reason for
their audience with Pilate, was that they were afraid that Yeshua's body would
go missing because they understood Jesus to have said that after 3 days He will
be raised from the dead. While they didn't believe that resurrection would
happen, they were afraid that some of Yeshua's followers might come, remove
the body, and make it appear as though He had arisen. And if that happened,
then the belief that Yeshua was the Messiah and divine Son of God would spread
like wildfire putting the Jewish religious authorities' power and position at risk.
So, they asked Pilate for permission to have guards at the tomb. Obviously these
were Roman guards they were requesting or they'd have no need to approach
Pilate about it; they could have just used a couple of the Temple guards. These
men were far more concerned with making sure that the threat of Jesus was
ended once and for all, than with contracting ritual uncleanness from being near
to dead bodies or in some way violating the festival sabbath rules. Each Gospel
account tells this story a bit differently. Luke has it that the women came to the
tomb shortly after Jesus was laid in it, went back home until after the sabbath,
then later came back with spices to better prepare the body, but the tomb was
empty. Mark has it approximately the same.
Here's the timeline of events that I think happened, as it properly fulfills the
Prophecy of Jonah for Messiah in be in the tomb, dead, for 3 days and nights. On
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Lesson 95 - Matthew 27 cont 2
Nisan 14, Passover, Christ was killed. On Nisan 15, Christ was in the tomb (this
was a feast sabbath). Nisan 16 was the regular 7
th day Sabbath and Christ was
still in the tomb. On Nissan 17th Christ arose. This amounts to 3 days and 3
nights as the Hebrews reckoned it, and it incorporates the reality of the various
sabbaths involved.
We'll begin the final chapter of Matthew next time.
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 96, Chapter 28 END
Today, we shall conclude what amounts to a 2-year study of the Gospel of
Matthew. Although there are some additional facts and events surrounding
Christ's death, resurrection is far and away the central matter of chapter 28, as it
ought to be. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 28 all
Before we start studying these inspired words, I must first give you some
information about which most Bible students aren't aware. Nearly every modern
and even earlier Christian scholar I've researched begins with a similar premise
that all 4 Gospel accounts are to be divided into Pre- and Post-Easter events,
instructions, and narratives. And that what happened before Jesus's death and
resurrection matters considerably less than what happened afterward. Essentially
the mindset is that His resurrection changed circumstances so greatly that
whatever He said and taught prior to His crucifixion must not be given as much
weight... nor His instructions be understood as something that Christians are
necessarily bound to... as to what He said after He arose. Further that whatever
part of His life, speech and behavior is overtly Jewish in its tone and flavor is to
be disregarded as not for members of the Christian Church since although He
died a Jew, He was no longer a Jew when He arose and shortly after ascended
to Heaven. This premise is necessary because Christianity is, as admitted by
Church authorities since the 4
th century, not a religion for Jews but rather only for
gentiles. To sum it up: the underlying assumption of the institutional Church as
regards His resurrection is that it opened a new chapter that essentially greatly
modified or even abolished most of what came before, up to and including what
Christ did and said.
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
This is so important to be aware of that I'll say it again in different terms: the
mindset is that it's not only that the relevance of the Old Testament and its
teachings and commands are said to be not for Christians, it is that the relevance
of much of Yeshua's pre-crucifixion and resurrection instructions have been
largely superseded. This is why various Bible scholars over the past couple of
centuries confess that what we have today in Christianity is not actually a Church
of Christ, but rather a Church of Paul. Part of the reason that this happened is the
realization that several of Yeshua's teachings, and especially the Sermon on the
Mount, are problematic for a gentiles-only brand of Christianity... and we have
discussed several of those matters over the past 2 years. So, the companion
premise is that because of the resurrection Paul re-interpreted those earlier
teachings of Jesus that happened before His crucifixion.
I cannot accept this traditional position and it has much to do with why Seed of
Abraham Ministries exists in the first place. I hope after our deep dive into the
Book of Matthew (that I also hope was preceded by your study in the Torah with
me) that the age-old position of the Church dividing the relevance of Christ's
teachings into Pre- and Post-Easter periods finally becomes unacceptable for
you as well. I also want to make it clear that my goal has never been to create an
anti-Church or anti-cross mentality. Rather it is my hope that some hopelessly
inappropriate doctrines that have crept into our faith over the centuries can be
exposed to the light of day, repented over and rooted out, before the End arrives
and Our Lord returns. Let's move on.
The opening words of chapter 28 tell us when the events of the next few verses
occurred: it was on the 1
st day of the week (what the Western world calls
Sunday). Because the CJB is what is known as a dynamic translation (whereby
in some cases the alleged meaning substitutes for the literal words), then the
words "1st day of the week" are (at the author's discretion) not included.
Nonetheless, the day after the weekly Sabbath is the 1
st day of the week and we
find that bit of information expressed in virtually all other English Bible versions.
NAS Matthew 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the
first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at
the grave.
"Towards dawn" is a general term that nicely equates to the common English
term "at sunrise". Biblically, and as understood and practiced by Jews, Shabbat
had ended several hours earlier at the previous sunset and so at that point the
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
day had advanced from the 7
th to the 1
st day of the week.
Miriam of Magdala (Mary Magdalen) and the woman called "the other Miriam"
(the one in the previous chapter identified as the mother of Jacob and Joseph...
who may or may not have been Yeshua's mother) went while it was still dark to
visit the tomb where the wealthy disciple Joseph of Ramatayim had placed
Christ's corpse. These same 2 women were, among other Jews, present at the
site of the crucifixion as Jesus hung dying upon the cross. That it was
2 women that are mentioned only adds to the historic evidence that this account
is true as the world in that era was a network of male dominated societies, and
especially the Hebrew faith placed men in the leading roles. So, the heavy
involvement and mention of women is a bit of a surprise. Although as Daniel J.
Harrington notes in his research on ancient Judaism, it was the custom at that
time for family and friends to keep watch over the tomb of a loved one for 3 days
to be sure that the person entombed wasn't actually still alive, but had
accidentally been judged as dead!
Just as there had been an earthquake at the moment of Yeshua giving up His
spirit and succumbing to the horrible execution experience of the Roman death
stake, so now another earthquake occurs around the time of the women's arrival
at the tomb. Matthew explains that the earthquake was directly connected with a
representative of God (an angel) arriving on scene, whereby the rock closing the
opening to the tomb was rolled away, exposing the entrance. The angel, quite
visible and no doubt frightening in appearance, sat upon the stone that had been
moved to the side. Saying that the angel's appearance was like lightening must
be referring to the suddenness of it rather than a description of what he looked
like. What he looked like was summed up with the words: "his clothes were white
as snow".
The Gospel of Mark, however, tells a somewhat different version of these same
happenings.
CJB Mark 16:1 When Shabbat was over, Miryam of Magdala, Miryam the
mother of Ya'akov, and Shlomit bought spices in order to go and anoint
Yeshua. 2 Very early the next day, just after sunrise, they went to the
tomb. 3 They were asking each other, "Who will roll away the stone from the
entrance to the tomb for us?" 4 Then they looked up and saw that the stone,
even though it was huge, had been rolled back already. 5 On entering the
tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right;
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
and they were dumbfounded.
Since neither Matthew nor Mark were eyewitness, and both were writing at least
30 years after the fact, then clearly they were getting their information from
different sources (that is the nature of all the Synoptic Gospels). In Mark no
earthquake is mentioned, 3 women and not 2 went to the tomb, there is no direct
explanation for how the tomb had been opened, and there was a young man
dressed in all white sitting NOT outside but rather inside the tomb next to where
Yeshua had been laid. We're left to decide who this "young man" is. It is nearly
universally agreed that this "young man" was an angel. I'm not so sure. Why
wouldn't Mark simply say "angel" if that's the case? When we read a little more
of Mark, my suspicion increases that the "young man" wasn't an angel.
CJB Mark 16:6-9 6 But he said, "Don't be so surprised! You're looking for
Yeshua from Natzeret, who was executed on the stake. He has risen, he's
not here! Look at the place where they laid him. 7 But go and tell his
talmidim, especially Kefa, that he is going to the Galil ahead of you. You
will see him there, just as he told you." 8 Trembling but ecstatic they went
out and fled from the tomb, and they said nothing to anyone, because they
were afraid.* 9 When Yeshua rose early Sunday, he appeared first to Miryam
of Magdala, from whom he had expelled seven demons.
It seems to me that in Mark's Gospel the intent of referring to the "young man"
is not to an angelic being but rather is more likely to be Jesus. Even though this
"young man" says "He's not here", and "He is going to the Galilee ahead of
you", Yeshua regularly spoke of Himself in the 3
rd person, especially when He
talked about the Son of Man. This could explain Mark's otherwise rather
confusing verse 9 about Christ first appearing to Mary Magdalen that seems out
of place. My speculation is that Mark is writing about what the appearance of this
being was to the 3 women (a young human male) and not what his substance
was or who he actually turned out to be. If this is the case, then it differs
significantly from Matthew's account.
I don't think we need to fret much over any of these differences; for one reason
we can't pepper the original authors with questions, so the why and wherefore
can be nothing but our guesses. Yet to pretend that there aren't differences is
not intellectually honest. The precise details of the tomb opening and why the
women came, and even how many women were present (in Mark's version it
was 3 women who intended to complete the funeral process of putting aromatic
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
spices within the folds of the linen covering that envelops the dead body) aren't
crucial to the point of the story, which is the empty tomb. So, as we continue in
Matthew we have the mention of guards (Roman guards) that had witnessed the
earthquake, the stone being rolled away, and the sudden presence of this
terrifying apparition that Matthew says is an angel. Saying the guards became
like dead men simply means they became frozen in fear.
Next, some of the most profound words of the entire New Testament are spoken
by the "angelic" being. He says that the women shouldn't be afraid (no doubt
referring to the nature of his own appearance), and that he knows why they came
to the tomb, and that it was to look for Yeshua who had been crucified. He next
says that Yeshua isn't there in the tomb BECAUSE He has been raised, just as
He had prophesied. So, the angel provides the reason that Jesus isn't there; that
is, His body wasn't taken, it had come alive again. The angel invites the women
into the tomb to see that no one was there and that they were to quickly run to tell
the 11 disciples about what has happened (no doubt meaning that the 11
disciples hadn't scattered but rather stayed as a downcast group nearby, but it
also means the women knew exactly where they were). They are also to tell the
disciples that Jesus is going to be in the Galilee (again, just as He had said He
would be prior to His death).
What is described is so very brief, short on details, and leaves out perhaps the
most puzzling matter that we'd all like to know about: the resurrection itself. We
have no information on how it happened, or what it looked like as it unfolded
inside that tomb. Resurrection is given as a fact and nothing more. We're not
really told by Matthew that Jesus arose on that 1
st day of the week, only that the
tomb opened on that day and that He was already gone. Even the prophecy of
Jonah that Yeshua said He would fulfill as a sign doesn't necessarily state that
He was dead for 3 days and nights; only (like Jonah in the belly of the great fish)
He would be sequestered inside the tomb for 3 days and nights.
CJB Matthew 12:38-40 38 At this some of the Torah-teachers said, "Rabbi, we
want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39 He replied, "A wicked and
adulterous generation asks for a sign? No! None will be given to it but the
sign of the prophet Yonah. 40 For just as Yonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the depths of the earth.
Similarly, Mark doesn't say Christ arose on the 3
rd day. Luke, however, says
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
it was on the 3
rd day that Jesus arose (meaning, came alive from the dead).
CJB Luke 24:7 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful
men and be executed on a stake as a criminal, but on the third day be
raised again'
So, the ambiguity of the time of Christ's revivification in Matthew and Mark is
settled by Luke. Let's consider the timeline of events. Using standard Western
terminology for days of the week, this is the usual Christian timeline: Yeshua was
killed and placed into the tomb on Friday and arose on Sunday. But how can that
add up to 3 days and 3 nights to fulfill the prophetic sign of Jonah? Answer: it
can't. At best it offers just a few minutes in the tomb on Friday, a full day on
Saturday, and a little bit of a day on Sunday. But no amount of spin can ever give
us 3 nights. Friday night and Saturday night are but 2 nights. The solution is
simple but it shakes up standard doctrine; there must be one more day and night
injected. The solution begins by returning to the fact that this was the Spring
Festival period when 3 God-ordained feasts occurred in rapid succession:
Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits. When we view this from the only
way we should (from the Hebrew/Jewish way) that MUST include accounting for
the added feast sabbaths that are biblically ordained for the 1
st and last days of
the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Doing that we can reconstruct a timeline that
works. Using the Hebrew model of days that changed at sunset (not at midnight),
and using the Hebrew numbering system of days (not the Roman day naming
system that we use), then we see that Yeshua died and was entombed on the
5
th day of the week, lay there for the 6
th and 7
th days of the week, and arose on
the 1
st day of a new week. I'll say it a different way: He was placed in the tomb
just before dark on the 5
th day (which begins a new Hebrew day), remained
entombed for the day and night of the 6
th day (a festival sabbath day), and for the
day and night of the 7
th day (the weekly 7
th day sabbath), and arose around
daybreak of the 1
st day of the new week. That gives us 3 days and 3 nights. All
other formulas simply don't add up.
Further, my opinion is that just as when Yeshua died it was announced by an
earthquake, so therefore was the moment of His resurrection announced by an
earthquake, and we know this happened about daybreak. We'll deal a little more
with this matter, shortly.
Verse 8 continues with the women dutifully obeying the angel's instructions to
run and find the disciples and to tell them the news. The women were shaken
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
and badly frightened by what they had just witnessed, but they were also
conflicted in emotion as they were filled with unimaginable joy because the death
of their Lord had seemingly turned to an unfathomable victory. Somewhere along
their way to find the 11 disciples (it wouldn't have been a very long distance)
Jesus suddenly appears to them. John's Gospel tells the story differently from
Matthew's and Mark's.
CJB John 20:11-17 11 but Miryam stood outside crying. As she cried, she
bent down, peered into the tomb, 12 and saw two angels in white sitting
where the body of Yeshua had been, one at the head and one at the
feet. 13 "Why are you crying?" they asked her. "They took my Lord," she
said to them, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14 As she said
this, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but she didn't
know it was he. 15 Yeshua said to her, "Lady, why are you crying? Whom
are you looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if
you're the one who carried him away, just tell me where you put him; and
I'll go and get him myself." 16 Yeshua said to her, "Miryam!" Turning, she
cried out to him in Hebrew, "Rabbani!" (that is, "Teacher!") 17 "Stop holding
onto me," Yeshua said to her, "because I haven't yet gone back to the
Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am going back to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God." So, in John's version it wasn't an angel that told the women to go find the 11
disciples, it was the risen Christ (and, there were also 2 angels present). So, the
women weren't on their way to find the disciples when they saw Yeshua;
instead, He was suddenly standing right there next to them just outside the
tomb's entrance. Which of the 4 Gospel accounts gets the details of this event
most correct? I'd vote for John's since he was nearby at the time, as one of the
original 11. John would have heard the story directly from the mouths of the
excited women eyewitnesses. John was the only Gospel writer that was part of
Christ's first followers.
Much to unpack here but I want to begin with this: Jesus's words once again
confound the co-equal Trinity Doctrine theory that is a mainstay for most of
Western Christianity. That is, if one claims that the New Testament tells us that
God manifests Himself ONLY as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (The
Trinity), then all 3 natures or "persons" of God are co-equal with no hierarchy of
authority, power or knowledge. Listen carefully to what Yeshua says.
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
CJB John 20:17 "Stop holding onto me," Yeshua said to her, "because I
haven't yet gone back to the Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them
that I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your
God."
Yeshua not only refers to "My Father" but also refers to Him as "My God". And
by saying "My God and your God", He is putting His Father's superior God␂status above Himself, the women, and the disciples.
Let's talk now about resurrection, which to my thinking must be the fulcrum upon
which all belief in Yeshua as our Lord and Savior pivots. Paul says that without
Yeshua's resurrection our faith is in vain. Yet it might surprise you to know that
not all Christian denominations believe in resurrection. Some denominations
don't believe in any kind of resurrection (not even of the disembodied soul),
others believe that Jesus was resurrected but He's the only one that ever will be,
and still others believe in resurrection of the soul and not body, and this even
includes the absence of possibility of the bodily resurrection of Yeshua. For some
of the older denominations (like the Baptists) there are splits in their resurrection
beliefs that can be traced to the rise of the European Enlightenment of the
18th century. Especially as we arrive at the mid-20th century the idea of bodily
resurrection (including of Jesus) within the various Western Church branches
was on the wane. This is due to the modern era insistence that the Bible must
agree with science; or better, must conform to science. From that view,
scientifically speaking since resurrection is a miracle, and since miracles cannot
be reproduced and proven in a laboratory, then there can be no such things as
miracles. This issue is one of a small handful that defines the basic division
between what the Church calls its Liberal versus Fundamental (or Conservative)
denominations.
As I have had the pleasure of researching the array of beliefs concerning
resurrection both in documents and (over my lifetime) in talking with Christians of
many denominations, it is sometimes a surprise to members of one side of this
argument or the other that a different view even exists. I assure you that there
aren't just 2 sides to the debate: there are many. We could probably spend a lot
of time on all these various views, their nuances and their sources, but it would
take us down a rabbit trail that is not appropriate for our purposes. So, I'll just
state to you that because I take the Bible as inspired, truthful and literal (literal in
its meaning and intent when taken within the context of the culture it was written)
therefore, I can confidently tell you that Jesus died on the cross, His dead body
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
was placed into a tomb, and on the 3
rd day the Father in Heaven miraculously
revivified Him both in body and soul. While so often this concept of resurrection is
taught within the Church as a new Christian innovation (that is, very much new
and apart from the Judaism of Christ's day) in fact that is not so at all. Such a
thing was completely within the broad spectrum of Jewish theology of Yeshua's
day and had been part of the Hebrew faith for centuries. Although, just as within
modern Christianity, there were (and continue to be) many more than 1 stream of
thought on the matter of resurrection that various Jewish groups adhered to. So,
this is where we'll focus our attention for the next few minutes because it reveals
the mindset of the Jewish people and of 1
st century writers of the New
Testament.
Of the several doctrinal disagreements between the Sadducees and Pharisees
was the subject of resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in it but different
groups of Pharisees variously believed either in spirit-only resurrection or in
spirit and body. Therefore, the concerns of the Sadducee and Pharisee members
of the Sanhedrin that convicted Yeshua and wanted guards placed at His tomb
were different. The Sadducees truly believed that since resurrection was not
possible, then the only way that Christ's body could go missing is if His disciples
took it. The Pharisees, however, had mixed motives. While they were afraid that
Jesus's disciples indeed might come and steal the body, they also couldn't
dismiss the idea that He could be resurrected. And what would they do about a
resurrected Jesus wandering around Jerusalem that would threaten their
authority over the Jewish people even more than the sad remembrance of a dead
and non-resurrected Jesus?
Going back to what many Jewish scholars think may be the first book of Bible
that was written down, is the Book of Job. In it we read this:
CJB Job 14:11-14 11 Just as water in a lake disappears, as a river shrinks and
dries up; 12 so a person lies down and doesn't arise- until the sky no longer
exists; it will not awaken, it won't be roused from its sleep. 13 "I wish you
would hide me in Sh'ol, conceal me until your anger has passed, then fix a
time and remember me! 14 If a man dies, will he live again? I will wait all the
days of my life for my change to come.
So, from a very early date there was hope of a man being brought back to life by
God after he had died. This is what resurrection amounts to even if the word itself
had yet to be coined, and this because more formed thoughts about the subject
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
had not yet been brought together. Much of the source of resurrection thought
actually revolves around the concept of monotheism (the concept that there is
only one God). In other words, if there is only one God, and God is the Creator of
life, and it is God who determines everything, then certainly the power of life and
death and even renewed life lies within His capable hands. So monotheistic
religions like Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam all believe in resurrection of
one kind or another. Another element of this resurrection reasoning is that a
human being was created as a moral unit. That is our body and soul form a unit,
and so they can only be separated to a degree. It follows that in our alive state
the condition of our soul will necessarily have a profound effect on our body, and
vice versa and that resurrection necessarily must be of body and soul together.
So, our basic belief in the One God is our best assurance that resurrection must
be an immutable fact. Our hope in Christ, then, is not about resurrection itself (an
already established fact), but rather the matter becomes our resurrection into
what? It was therefore perhaps the "resurrection into what?" question that
concerned and separated Hebrew thought into various groups and sects.
Because both Ezekiel and Jeremiah shared this view of resurrection as a given,
and of humans as God-defined and created moral units of body and soul, and
because of these Prophets' messianic beliefs (that Jesus so much relied upon to
explain Himself to others), then resurrection gradually came to be seen as a
central part of the eventual reality of the coming Messianic Kingdom (what the
Gospel accounts call the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God).
Resurrection and the Kingdom of Heaven of course only extended for the most
part to Israelites, and especially found its expression in Ezekiel's famous dry
bones (representing scattered and dead Israelites) coming back to life and being
re-covered in flesh as living persons (as moral units). Daniel expressed a coming
resurrection that differed slightly, perhaps, from Ezekiel's and Jeremiah's.
CJB Daniel 12:1 "When that time comes, Mikha'el, the great prince who
champions your people, will stand up; and there will be a time of distress
unparalleled between the time they became a nation and that moment. At
that time, your people will be delivered, everyone whose name is found
written in the book. 2 Many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth will
awaken, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame and
abhorrence. 3 But those who can discern will shine like the brightness of
heaven's dome, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars
forever and ever. 4 "But you, Dani'el, keep these words secret, and seal up
the book until the time of the end. Many will rush here and there as
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
knowledge increases." The difference is that even Jewish scholars see this prophecy including the
possibility (although not a certainty) that it might include resurrection of the dead
even for some gentiles. But Daniel's prophecy also says that there will be
general resurrection that will include not only the righteous but also the wicked.
Therefore, we have the beginning of the issue I spoke about a couple of minutes
ago: our resurrection into what? Daniel says for some it will be resurrection into
everlasting life, and others resurrection into everlasting shame and abhorrence.
The later Ethiopic Book of Enoch (this is not a book in the Bible so don't go
looking for it in your index) builds on Daniel's concept and
proposes that She'ol (the grave or the underworld of the dead) is divided into 4
chambers: 2 that house the righteous dead, and 2 that house the wicked dead. I
won't get into the details, but of the 4 classes of people who die and get divided
up to live in those 4 different chambers, the 2 righteous classes plus 1 of the
wicked ones (all living in their separate chambers) will be resurrected; the
4
th won't be. The 3 resurrected classes were said to be fully body and soul
(moral unit) resurrections.
On the other hand, the Slavonic Book of Enoch (another non-Biblical work)
assumes that all will be resurrected, but only in spirit and never in body. The
Pharisees and Essenes (in general) believed in resurrection of the body and
spirit. However, both saw this as applying mainly or exclusively to Israelites. Over
time, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. and when the priesthood
became disbanded, Rabbis became the new driving force of theology in Judaism.
As one might expect, debates raged over who might be included in resurrection.
For instance; Rabbi Eleazar Ha-Kappar said "As all men are born and die, so will
they rise again". He and other Rabbis shared this view and placed the timing of
the resurrection at the close of the Messianic era. Does all this sound familiar to
you? It ought to. We find this same conclusion coming from Yeshua, Paul, and
from John in the Book of Revelation.
CJB Revelation 20:1 Next I saw an angel coming down from heaven, who
had the key to the Abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the
dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan [the Adversary],
and chained him up for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss,
locked it and sealed it over him; so that he could not deceive the nations
any more until the thousand years were over. After that, he has to be set
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
free for a little while. 4 Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them
received authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been
beheaded for testifying about Yeshua and proclaiming the Word of God,
also those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not
received the mark on their foreheads and on their hands. They came to life
and ruled with the Messiah for a thousand years. 5
(The rest of the dead did
not come to life until the thousand years were over.) This is the first
resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is anyone who has a part in the first
resurrection; over him the second death has no power. On the contrary,
they will be cohanim of God and of the Messiah, and they will rule with him
for the thousand years.
So, when we read what Christ says, and even what Paul will later say, it is
nothing particularly innovative within the Hebrew faith. What is new is announcing
that the Messiah of the messianic era has arrived and His name is Yeshua of
Nazareth.
Let's return to Matthew 28. Verse 11 explains that the Roman guards that had
been frozen in fear went into Jerusalem and told a senior priest what had
happened. The priest met with the Pharisee leadership and together they
decided the best course of action was to bribe the Roman guards to say that
indeed what they were guarding against had come to pass: some of Christ's
disciples came and stole Jesus's body. And should this matter wind up on
Pilate's desk, the Jewish religious leadership will go to defend the guards and
smooth things over. Then we get verse 15 that is usually translated as we find it
in the KJV.
KJV Matthew 28:15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught:
and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
The problem with this verse is the word "Jews"; it doesn't say that. The proper
translation from Greek to English is not Jews, it is Judeans. That is, the Jewish
residents of Judea. Thus, it is the Judeans who bought in to the lie told to the
Roman guards and it is they who perpetuated it.
If the crux of the entire final chapter of Matthew's Gospel is resurrection, then the
crux of the final 5 verses must be what the Church calls The Great Commission.
Apparently Yeshua had not only told the disciples that He would meet them in the
Galilee (something they clearly had not believed would happen), but also the
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
exact location, even though that is not documented in the Gospels. When they
saw Yeshua they fell at His feet and worshipped Him; at least some of them did.
Others held back; some probably dumb struck with who was standing before
them, perhaps others fearful after having disowned Him if they would be still be
welcomed, and others not sure what to make of the whole thing.
Yeshua tells them that all authority in heaven and earth is given to Him. This
fulfills Daniel 7:14; or at least it does to a point.
CJB Daniel 7:13-14 13 "I kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming
with the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the
Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 To him was given rulership,
glory and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should
serve him. His rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and
his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Nothing in Daniel prophecies Yeshua being in charge of Heaven and since the
Hebrew term shamayim means both the universe (what's up in the sky) and the
Heaven where God lives, one has to wonder which is actually meant. Can the
Father really have just ceded control over Heaven to Yeshua? Or is it that
Yeshua has been given control over the earth and the Universe? Does the
opening credo "Our Father in Heaven" now change? I'm not sure I can answer
those questions with complete conviction; however, what I think the meaning is
that just as Jesus has been the Father's agent on earth, so now (sitting at the
Father's right hand in Heaven) Jesus has also returned to Heaven and is His
Father's agent in Heaven. Peter's Epistle might shed some light at least on how
He understood this instruction.
CJB 1 Peter 3:22 He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God,
with angels, authorities and powers subject to him.
What comes next is Yeshua's command to take the Good News of the Kingdom
(that now includes news of His resurrection) to all nations. The Church has
historically taken this to mean that gentiles are now added to the mix; and within
a couple hundred years changed it to mean gentiles only, Jews excluded. But
one has to wonder as we read the various Epistles if Christ's 11 disciples
standing before Him that day, and the many more Jewish disciples that would
become part of the fold in the next few years after His crucifixion, really took it
that way, as opposed to meaning that they should take this message to the
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Lesson 96 - Matthew 28 END
Jewish Diaspora who lived scattered among the many nations outside the Holy
Land? After all, well less than 10% of all living Jews at that time lived in the Holy
Land. Considering the strange encounter that Paul had with the risen Yeshua a
few decades later as he was sent by the Sanhedrin to hunt down Jewish
followers who were indeed taking Christ's message to fellow Jews in the
Diaspora, and then Paul being told that he was Yeshua's choice to take the
same message to gentiles, the passage favors the likelihood that Yeshua's
commission was at first misunderstood. It only became apparent after Paul's
experience with Christ on the road to Damascus that worldwide evangelism of all
humanity, Jews and gentiles, was what Yeshua had intended.
Therefore, this passage fulfills one of the oldest promises of God in the Bible; one
made to Abraham.
CJB Genesis 12:1 Now ADONAI said to Avram, "Get yourself out of your
country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father's house, and
go to the land that I will show you. 2 1will make of you a great nation, I will
bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 1
will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you;
and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed." Yeshua instructs that His disciples are to teach everyone all that He has taught
them. And I would add, not just whatever it is He taught them after His
resurrection. Perhaps one of the most comforting things that Yeshua could ever
have said that has brought peace to so many hurting, persecuted, ill, and
damaged Believers are the final words of the Book of Matthew:
CJBMatt. 28:20 20
... And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until
the end of the age."
Just as His Father did not create us and then abandon us to work our lives out on
our own, so Christ did not do a new work in us and then abandon us to work out
our Salvation on our own.
This concludes our study of the Gospel of Matthew.
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