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    The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24: Matthew
    The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24: Matthew
    The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24: Matthew
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    The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24: Matthew

    By Myron Augsburger

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    Written BY Preachers and Teachers FOR Preachers and Teachers

    The Preacher's Commentary offers pastors, teachers, and Bible study leaders clear and compelling insights into the Bible that will equip them to understand, apply, and teach the truth in God's Word.

    Each volume is written by one of today's top scholars, and includes:

    • Innovative ideas for preaching and teaching God's Word
    • Vibrant paragraph-by-paragraph exposition
    • Impelling real-life illustrations
    • Insightful and relevant contemporary application
    • An introduction, which reveals the author's approach
    • A full outline of the biblical book being covered
    • Scripture passages (using the New King James Version) and explanations

    Combining fresh insights with readable exposition and relatable examples, The Preacher's Commentary will help you minister to others and see their lives transformed through the power of God's Word. Whether preacher, teacher, or Bible study leader--if you're a communicator, The Preacher's Commentary will help you share God's Word more effectively with others.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateFeb 10, 2004
    ISBN9781418574444
    The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24: Matthew

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      The Preacher's Commentary - Vol. 24 - Myron Augsburger

      EDITOR’S PREFACE

      God has called all of His people to be communicators. Everyone who is in Christ is called into ministry. As ministers of the manifold grace of God, all of us—clergy and laity—are commissioned with the challenge to communicate our faith to individuals and groups, classes and congregations.

      The Bible, God’s Word, is the objective basis of the truth of His love and power that we seek to communicate. In response to the urgent, expressed needs of pastors, teachers, Bible study leaders, church school teachers, small group enablers, and individual Christians, the Preacher’s Commentary is offered as a penetrating search of the Scriptures to enable vital personal and practical communication of the abundant life.

      Many current commentaries and Bible study guides provide only some aspects of a communicator’s needs. Some offer in-depth scholarship but no application to daily life. Others are so popular in approach that biblical roots are left unexplained. Few offer compelling illustrations that open windows for the reader to see the exciting application for today’s struggles. And most of all, seldom have the expositors given the valuable outlines of passages so needed to help the preacher or teacher in his or her busy life to prepare for communicating the Word to congregations or classes.

      This Preacher’s Commentary series brings all of these elements together. The authors are scholar-preachers and teachers outstanding in their ability to make the Scriptures come alive for individuals and groups. They are noted for bringing together excellence in biblical scholarship, knowledge of the original Greek and Hebrew, sensitivity to people’s needs, vivid illustrative material from biblical, classical, and contemporary sources, and lucid communication by the use of clear outlines of thought. Each has been selected to contribute to this series because of his Spirit-empowered ability to help people live in the skins of biblical characters and provide a you-are-there intensity to the drama of events of the Bible which have so much to say about our relationships and responsibilities today.

      The design for the Preacher’s Commentary gives the reader an overall outline of each book of the Bible. Following the introduction, which reveals the author’s approach and salient background on the book, each chapter of the commentary provides the Scripture to be exposited. The New King James Bible has been chosen for the Preacher’s Commentary because it combines with integrity the beauty of language, underlying Greek textual basis, and thought-flow of the 1611 King James Version, while replacing obsolete verb forms and other archaisms with their everyday contemporary counterparts for greater readability. Reverence for God is preserved in the capitalization of all pronouns referring to the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. Readers who are more comfortable with another translation can readily find the parallel passage by means of the chapter and verse reference at the end of each passage being exposited. The paragraphs of exposition combine fresh insights to the Scripture, application, rich illustrative material, and innovative ways of utilizing the vibrant truth for his or her own life and for the challenge of communicating it with vigor and vitality.

      It has been gratifying to me as Editor of this series to receive enthusiastic progress reports from each contributor. As they worked, all were gripped with new truths from the Scripture—God-given insights into passages, previously not written in the literature of biblical explanation. A prime objective of this series is for each user to find the same awareness: that God speaks with newness through the Scriptures when we approach them with a ready mind and a willingness to communicate what He has given; that God delights to give communicators of His Word I-never-saw-that-in-that-verse-before intellectual insights so that our listeners and readers can have I-never-realized-all-that-was-in-that-verse spiritual experiences.

      The thrust of the commentary series unequivocally affirms that God speaks through the Scriptures today to engender faith, enable adventuresome living of the abundant life, and establish the basis of obedient discipleship. The Bible, the unique Word of God, is unlimited in its resource for Christians in communicating our hope to others. It is our weapon in the battle for truth, the guide for ministry, and the irresistible force for introducing others to God. In the New Testament we meet the divine Lord and Savior whom we seek to communicate to others. What He said and did as God with us has been faithfully recorded under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. The cosmic implications of the Gospels are lived out in Acts and spelled out in the Epistles. They have stood the test of time because the eternal Communicator, God Himself, communicates through them to those who would be communicators of grace. His essential nature is exposed, the plan of salvation is explained, and the gospel for all of life, now and for eternity is proclaimed.

      A biblically rooted communication of the gospel holds in unity and oneness what divergent movements have wrought asunder. This commentary series courageously presents personal faith, caring for individuals, and social responsibility as essential, inseparable dimensions of biblical Christianity. It seeks to present the quadrilateral gospel in its fullness which calls us to unreserved commitment to Christ, unrestricted self-esteem in His grace, unqualified love for others in personal evangelism, and undying efforts to work for justice and righteousness in a sick and suffering world.

      A growing renaissance in the church today is being led by clergy and laity who are biblically rooted, Christ-centered, and Holy Spirit-empowered. They have dared to listen to people’s most urgent questions arid deepest needs and then to God as He speaks through the Bible. Biblical preaching is the secret of growing churches. Bible study classes and small groups are equipping the laity for ministry in the world. Dynamic Christians are finding that daily study of God’s Word allows the Spirit to do in them what He wishes to communicate through them to others. These days are the most exciting time since Pentecost. The Preacher’s Commentary is offered to be a primary resource of new life for this renaissance.

      This volume, Matthew, is written by one of the leaders of today’s biblical resurgence. Myron Augsburger is a world-recognized scholar, preacher, and teacher. His numerous books have opened the rich treasures of the Bible for countless readers. Dr. Augsburger has had a distinguished career as lecturer, evangelist, and preacher, as president of Eastern Mennonite University, and as adjunct professor for several seminaries.

      Matthew’s Gospel is vividly portrayed in this commentary. The arrangement of the exposition introduces us to Christ the King and the adventure of living in His kingdom. My prayer is that you will discover, as I have, new insight and inspiration as you communicate with the King and seek to communicate the joy of His reign and rule in the minds and hearts of people today.

      —LLOYD J. OGILVIE

      INTRODUCTION

      The Gospel of Matthew holds first place in all extant witnesses to the text of the four Gospels. Standing first, it forms the link between the Old Testament and the New. However, most scholars today are agreed that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the synoptic Gospels, and that the writers of Matthew and of Luke had access to Mark’s Gospel as an aid in their writing. Matthew, however, was responsible for an earlier collection of the sayings of Jesus called the logia . In the actual writing of the Gospel of Matthew this provided the basic content material.

      History provides witness to a previous form of Matthew’s Gospel, as the earlier Gospel, written in Hebrew or Aramaic from the setting of the Jewish community. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis about A.D. 140, said, "Matthew composed his history [logia; sayings] in the Hebrew dialect and everyone translated it as he was able."¹ About A.D. 185, Irenaeus wrote, Matthew, indeed, produced his gospel written among the Hebrews in their own dialect whilst Peter and Paul proclaimed the gospel and founded the church in Rome.² And Pantaenus, A.D. 195, was reported to have found in India the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.³ Origin identified the logia as by Matthew, the same that was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it in the Hebrew.⁴

      Matthew is the bridge from the Old Testament to the New, the basic source for the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. In this Gospel there are sixteen statements, That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying. . . . This is significant for: (1) here we have classic examples of the New Testament use of the Old Testament; (2) it helps us recognize that the Christ events, His birth-death-rising again, are a fulfillment of the total sweep of salvation history which Oscar Cullmann calls Heilsgeschichte; and (3) it helps us to understand the identification in the Gospel of Matthew with Hebraic history and tradition. Matthew relates the whole of salvation history to its culmination in the Person of Christ, moving from an ethnocentric to a Christocentric faith in God.

      As one of the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew has its own unique characteristics. As Bacon and other writers have shown, the story of Jesus’ life is interspersed with five great discourses: (1) Righteousness, in 5:1–7:29, (2) Missions, in 9:35–10:42, (3) Kingdom, in 13:1–58, (4) Church, in 18:1–35, and (5) Eschatology, in 24:1–25:46. These five discourses have been called the five books of Matthew and are the major presentations in the Gospel of the teachings of Jesus. Krister Stendahl sees these five books, always concluding with a similar identifying formula, as the outline for the Gospel itself. He finds reasons to identify this Gospel with the history of Israel, suggesting a conscious identification with the five books of Moses. However, as shown by Jack Kingsbury, this may do violence to Matthew’s own pattern of systematizing the materials from Jesus’ ministry.

      It is without question that we owe our knowledge of the substance of our Lord’s teachings to Matthew, for it is supremely the Teaching Gospel. William Barclay says in the introduction to his commentary on Matthew, Broadly speaking, to Mark we owe our knowledge of the events of Jesus’ life; to Matthew we owe our knowledge of Jesus’ teaching.⁵ And Matthew presents (1) Jesus’ radical claims to discipleship, to obedience to God’s will; (2) Jesus’ own life as a model for these high ethical demands; and (3) Jesus’ emphasis on the church as the community of faith in which the ethic is lived.

      The material of Matthew, the accountant, was very systematic in composition. Special attention is given to money, with two parables dealing with financial transactions found only in this Gospel (Matt. 18 and 20). He also notes financial details in Judas’ betrayal and the bribing of the guards at the sepulcher. As a systematizer, he arranged the material in the Gospel in ways which make it easy to grasp and even memorize units; enabling greater retention of sections, especially important when there was a limited amount of printed material available for the Christian church. For example: the Sermon on the Mount is found in three consecutive chapters rather than spread throughout the Gospel as in Luke. This is true also of the grouping of miracles in chapters 8 and 9, of the listing of parables in chapter 13, and of the teachings in chapters 21 through 25.

      In the earliest days, the Christian church had a strong oral tradition. From the death and resurrection of Christ (around A.D. 30) to the earliest of Paul’s letters (to the Thessalonians, around A.D. 50), we have no documents. A Rule of Faith provided a new Christological approach to the Old Testament Scriptures. The writing of the Gospels came later. Perhaps Matthew’s Hebrew logia were first; contemporaneous with Paul’s writings, to be followed by Mark between A.D. 60 and 65, then the Greek composition of Matthew was written, as we know it, in the late or middle 60s, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.

      Since the publication of The Messianic Secret by M. Wrede in 1901, the school of form criticism has sought to gain an understanding and interpretation of the significance of this oral tradition. Form criticism regards the Gospels not as biographies but as confessional material of the Jesus story. The purpose of the Gospels, alike for all four, is the portrayal of Jesus as the Messiah. Simply stated, form criticism is the study of the oral tradition, of the preliterary stage of the Jesus-tradition. A later work by K. L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu, in 1918, interpreted Mark, the earliest writer, as providing a framework to which the oral traditions of Jesus’ life and teachings were attached. This is known as redaction criticism, the attempt to separate out the writer’s redactional work. Popularized by Bultmann, it has largely determined the approach of the less conservative scholars.

      Redaction criticism is not the approach I have followed in writing this commentary. Holding an evangelical theology with a more conservative approach, I believe in an inspiration of the Scripture by the Holy Spirit who provides us with a correct statement of Jesus’ life and teachings from the context of His own ministry. This is not to say that the Holy Spirit dictated a revelation of material, but that He guided the writer in the research of oral tradition and in the selection of materials for composing a gospel of our Lord that is authentic and trustworthy in all details. Nor does this mean that the Holy Spirit preempted the writer’s personality or style in research and writing, nor that He excluded from the writer possible perspectives gained from His work in the Christian church following Pentecost. Rather, we recognize the promise of Christ that the Holy Spirit would be the Guide into all truth. Therefore, my approach gives first consideration to the primary setting of Jesus’ teachings in the historical setting of His life and ministry.

      It is significant to compare Matthew with the other synoptic Gospels. Mark, the shortest and no doubt the earlier of the Gospels in their present forms, has 661 verses. Matthew has 1,068 verses and Luke is the longest with 1,149 verses. Matthew, with his concern for content, reproduces at least 606 of Mark’s verses, while Luke reproduces 320. There are some 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce, but of them Luke reproduces 31. This leaves only 24 verses in the Gospel of Mark not reproduced in either Matthew or Luke. Between the two of them they reproduce 637 of Mark’s verses.

      In Matthew and Luke there is much more material than Mark supplies, and, comparing the two, there are some 200 verses of this additional material that are almost identical. This similarity has led scholars to see a common sourcebook of the teachings of Jesus which does not now exist. To designate this source scholars use the letter Q from the German word for source, Queue. As a handbook of the teachings of Jesus, Q provided a source from which the synoptic writers drew material. It might have been the manuscript which Papias refers to as Matthew’s collection of the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue. We cannot affirm more regarding Q than the internal evidence. There are several hundred verses which appear in Matthew and Luke but are not in Mark. A study of Matthew’s and Luke’s use of Mark also shows those usages in all three Gospels which point toward a common source. Whether Q is the early collections of Jesus’ sayings by Matthew, or whether it is material gathered and written by some other person remains unknown.

      Matthew expands Mark at both ends, adding new materials. While he follows Mark’s sequence in chapters 3 through 4 and 12 through 28, he rearranged Mark’s materials in chapters 5 through 11. He groups material according to theme or type and uniquely presents Jesus’ teachings in five major units with a similar concluding formula (7:28–29, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, and 26:1). Luke says that many had written of the things fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1–2 NIV). While the early church was producing writings about Jesus from oral tradition, the Spirit of God motivated and inspired particular writers to provide an authentic word of the Person and teachings of Jesus Christ which has come down to us in the four Gospels. Tasker explains, The differences between Matthew and Mark may equally well be explained on the supposition that the Gospel of Matthew retains details originally handed down by the apostle of that name, and that the Gospel of Mark often draws upon Peter’s reminiscences.⁶

      The proposal that Matthew was written basically for the Jewish community needs to be critically examined. Some claim that Jesus introduced the kingdom to the Jewish community but, upon their rejection, the kingdom was postponed to a future time; i.e., the millennial reign. This theory is advocated by persons who hold a dispensationalist theology with a theory of the postponement of the kingdom. The teachings on the kingdom are consequently seen as nonapplicable to the church but are given for the future millennial age. An advocate of this position, C. I. Scofield, states that the Sermon on the Mount is legal language, and that it is not for the present day but for the millennial age. He then contradicts himself, stating that all of the spiritual teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount for the church-age can be found in the Epistles.⁷ In contrast, E. Stanley Jones calls the Sermon on the Mount the Christian’s working philosophy of life.⁸

      This issue is answered when we read the Gospel of Matthew under the larger rubric of Heilsgeschichte; i.e., salvation history. Rather than having been written to the Jewish community to offer hope of a future kingdom for them, the Gospel shows the emergence of the people of God in the Judaic tradition; a people which extends beyond the Jewish community to the Gentiles and to the whole world.

      As evidence of this interest in the larger world, we call attention to the repeated references to Gentiles. The lineage of Jesus includes various Gentile persons. Following His birth He was visited by Gentile sages from the East. To protect His life from Herod, His parents took Him to Egypt. Upon His return He did not live or grow up in Jerusalem, the heart of Judaism, but in Nazareth of Galilee, called Galilee of the Gentiles. Early in His ministry, Jesus accepted the Gentile Centurion and ministered to him, saying that He had found greater faith in this Gentile than in the Judaic community (ch. 8). In the same context Jesus stated that many will come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 8:11). The kingdom of heaven transcends national lines, and the superior loyalty to God forms the basis of judgment upon the sons of the kingdom who, although of Israel, are not men of faith.

      In chapter 12, verse 50, it becomes clear that Jesus not only moves the meaning of the kingdom beyond the Judaic community, but He also moves the mission of the kingdom beyond family ties. His emphasis on whoever does the will of My Father lays the meaning of kingdom membership open to other than the Judaic community. Jesus took His disciples to Caesarea Philippi, the border where the Judaic people met the people of the Gentile world, to ask the disciples the question, Who do men say that I . . . am? (16:13 f.). In this context He stated that He would build His church in the world. The kingdom is for a people of faith rather than for those of a particular religious lineage. The people to whom the kingdom is given is His church, a fellowship of both Jew and Gentile. Jesus’ exposure of the unbelief of the Judaic religious leaders should not be construed as a rejection of the Jewish people as such. On the contrary, in the new covenant He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. . . so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace (Eph. 2:14–15).

      The people of God emerged from the Judaic tradition, but expanded to include the Gentiles, reaching out into all the world. Rather than reading the Gospel of Matthew as a Jewish book for a Jewish people, we may recognize it as a book written in the Jewish context to show the roots and origins of the messianic faith. It moves from the tribal to the universal. A view which would apply the teachings of Jesus basically to a millennial period does as much violence to the integrity of Jesus’ ministry as factors in redaction criticism appear to do in attributing words of Jesus to the early church.

      A significant emphasis in Matthew is the church. In all of the synoptic Gospels, the concept of church as ekklesia is found only in Matthew. Jesus introduced the church, in response to Peter’s confession, as the ultimate redemptive purpose of the Christ. It was when He introduced it that Jesus also told His disciples of His coming death and resurrection. The church was to be an expression of the New Covenant of the people of God in contradistinction with the Judaic tradition of the continuing expression of the people of God. Jesus’ selection of the Twelve was a deliberate symbol that He was constituting a new Israel, and this people of faith were the true heirs of salvation history.

      As the early church wrestled with the acceptance of the Gentiles into the Jewish church, James, the brother of our Lord and leader of the church, affirmed that God visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. He based his belief on the prophetic word from Amos 9:11: After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the LORD who does all these things. Known to God from eternity are all His works (Acts 15:14, 16–18).

      As further evidence that Matthew was not written primarily for the Jew, we note the inclusion of materials which are direct confrontations with the Jews. Beginning with John’s denunciations in chapter 3, we move to Jesus’ conflicts with the Jewish community (chs. 9, 12, 15, 16, 21) and especially the pointed denunciations in chapter 23. Furthermore, the Gospel of Matthew was not written until A.D. 70 to 85, late enough in the experience of the early church that the gospel had already been extended to the Gentiles. The early church had ratified the acceptance of uncircumcised Gentiles into the church as full participants in the people of God (Eph. 2:11–22).

      It seems far more appropriate to affirm Matthew as authentically expressing the acts of God in salvation history. He is showing the movement of God’s unfolding revelation through the history of God’s acts in the Judaic community to the introduction of the New Covenant by and in the person of Jesus Christ. The church is not parentheses in salvation history as we await the kingdom of God, but is rather the expression of the activity of the kingdom of God in the world. It is this kingdom which penetrates all nations, Jew and Gentile, to extend the grace of God to all people.

      The extensive use of this Gospel in liturgy and teaching in early church history supports this interpretation. From the second century on, it has been the most frequently quoted book of the Gospels by the church in her worship, in her ethical teaching, and in her discipline. For instruction of new converts it has served as a manual for the life and mission of the church. The Gospel creates a new community built on the heritage of Israel’s faith, a community which is heir of the true meaning of God’s revelation in history fulfilled in Himself.

      My own appreciation of Matthew is enhanced by its place in the Anabaptist heritage of the sixteenth century which is the background and theological conditioning of the Mennonite Church. It was under the evangelical preaching of Huldrich Zwingli, the reformer in Zurich, in his expositions of Matthew, that Conrad Graebel and Felix Manz became born-again disciples. These men, who worked with Zwingli, later separated over their Christological hermeneutic and in January of 1525 began a Free Church movement. Their emphasis on the meaning of Christology in conversion, discipleship, ethics, and church discipline drew heavily from the teachings of Jesus in this Gospel.

      While exegesis deals with meaning, preaching deals with significance for life. My attempt throughout this commentary is to interface exegesis with proclamation. While the exegesis is not always explicit, it has conditioned the writing which points the way for application to our contemporary needs.

      Matthew, the Gospel of Heilsgeschichte, is the Gospel of the King and His kingdom. With the apostle Peter we say, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And we also hear the words of the Master, All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth; go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations. . .

      NOTES

      1. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, tran. C. F. Cruse, III, 89, p. 127.

      2. Ibid., V, 9, p. 187.

      3. Ibid., V, 10, p. 190.

      4. Ibid., VI, 25, p. 245.

      5. William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1963), 1:xii.

      6. R. B. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979), p. 14.

      7. C. I. Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1945), footnote on Matthew 5.

      8. E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Mount (Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), p. 11.

      AN OUTLINE OF MATTHEW

      I. The Person of the King: 1:1–4:25

      A. The Lineage and Birth of the King: 1:1–25

      B. The Safety and Development of the King: 2:1–23

      C. The Announcement of the King: 3:1–17

      D. The Testing and Ministry of the King: 4:1–25

      II. The Message of the King: 5:1–7:29

      A. The Attitude of Disciples: 5:1–48

      B. The Character of Disciples: 6:1–34

      C. The Integrity of Disciples: 7:1–29

      III. The Authority of the King: 8:1–9:38

      A. Authority for a New Community: 8:1–22

      B. Authority to Call Disciples: 8:23–9:13

      C. Authority to Proclaim the Good News: 9:14–38

      IV. The Ministry of the King: 10:1–12:50

      A. The Ministry to the World: 10:1–42

      B. The Ministry Duly Attested: 11:1–30

      C. The Ministry Divinely Affirmed: 12:1–50

      V. The Parables of the King: 13:1–58

      A. Parable of the Sower: 13:1–23

      B. Parable of the Weeds: 13:24–30, 36–43

      C. Parable of Small Beginning: 13:31–35

      D. Parables of Kingdom Value: 13:44–46

      E. Parable of the Net: 13:47–50

      F. The Parable of Life Itself: 13:51–58

      VI. The Compassion of the King: 14:1–15:59

      A. The Account of John’s Martyrdom: 14:1–12

      B. Jesus’ Compassion and Power: 14:13–36

      C. Compassion and the Law: 15:1–39

      VII. The Confession of the King: 16:1–20:34

      A. Distinguishing the New Community: 16:1–23

      B. Discipleship and God’s Power: 16:24–17:23

      C. Priorities of the New Community: 17:24–18:35

      D. Covenant in Marriage: 19:1–15

      E. Eternal Life: 19:16–30

      F. The Greatness of God’s Grace: 20:1–34

      VIII. The Presentation of the King: 21:1–23:39

      A. Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem: 21:1–17

      B. Jesus’ Teaching on Faithfulness: 21:18–46

      C. Jesus’ Teaching on God’s Claims: 22:1–22

      D. Jesus’ Interpretation of Messiah’s Role: 22:23–46

      E. Jesus’ Woes upon False Leaders: 23:1–39

      IX. The Predictions of the King: 24:1–25:46

      A. The Sweep of History to the End of the Age: 24:1–14

      B. The Destruction of Jerusalem and Tribulation: 24:15–28

      C. The Affirmation of Jesus’ Parousia: 24:29–35

      D. Jesus’ Instructions to Be Prepared: 24:36–25:30

      E. The Ultimate Judgment of the Nations: 25:31–46

      X. The Suffering of the King: 26:1–27:66

      A. Jesus’ Awareness of His Impending Death: 26:1–16

      B. Jesus’ Celebration of the Passover: 26:17–30

      C. The Gethsemane Vigil: 26:31–46

      D. Betrayal, Arrest, and Trial: 26:47–68

      E. The Suffering Servant Stands Alone: 26:69–27:14

      F. The Mockery of the Savior: 27:15–31

      G. The Crucifixion and Death of Christ: 27:32–56

      H. The Burial and Securing of the Tomb: 27:57–66

      XI. The Victory of the King: 28:1–20

      A. Jesus Is Risen from the Dead: 28:1–8

      B. Jesus Appears to His Followers: 28:9–10

      C. The Guards Are Bribed: 28:11–15

      D. Jesus Commissions His Followers: 28:16–20

      CHAPTER ONE—THE PERSON OF THE KING

      MATTHEW 1:1–4:25

      Scripture Outline

      The Lineage and Birth of the King (1:1–25)

      The Safety and Development of the King (2:1–23)

      The Announcement of the King (3:1–17)

      The Testing and Ministry of the King (4:1–25)

      The expectation of the remnant, or the faithful in Israel, was the coming of the Messiah. He would be the Deliverer-King, a Savior to release Israel from its oppression, reconstituting the people as the kingdom of God. The Book of Matthew is written in the historical context which, while understanding this expectation on the part of Israel, also understood a new interpretation of that kingdom as was being experienced and taught in the early church.

      By the time the Gospel of Matthew was written, thousands of Jewish believers constituted the church, including hundreds of priests from the Jewish community who had been converted to faith in Jesus Christ as risen Lord and now participated in His kingdom. This church, including Gentiles from many parts of the Mediterranean world, understood its mission as the pronouncement of the gospel of the kingdom of God.

      For forty days after His Resurrection, Jesus had appeared to His disciples, discussing with them things relating to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). When the disciples asked Him whether He was now going to restore the kingdom to Israel (v. 6), Jesus told them to leave it with God, saying instead, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). The movement of the missionary church in the Book of Acts follows this outline. There are various references to the ministry of the church and its mission as declaring the gospel of the kingdom of God (Acts 20:25; 28:31).

      The Gospel of Matthew was written with a focus on the King and His kingdom, interpreting the new understanding of the messianic role. Significantly, the concept of the kingdom appears fifty-five times in the Gospel of Matthew. Thirty-three references refer to the kingdom of heaven, a phrase which is found only in Matthew, but understood in the Jewish community as the rule of God. Matthew is the bridge from the old covenant to the new covenant. He introduces the Christ and His kingdom as the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.

      His approach to the way of salvation is a call to repentance for entry into the kingdom, to a commitment of one’s self to the King as His follower. In Luke salvation is described as a call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. In Mark salvation is described as taking up the cross in identification with Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John salvation is spoken of as a new birth, a new beginning, as abiding in Christ as the branch abides in the vine, of belief or faith that commits one’s self to Jesus as Lord. Matthew uses language that relates the rule of Christ to people’s lives. This means that the life of faith is to recognize Jesus as Lord and ourselves as His subjects. Faith is to confess Him as King of kings, and to commit ourselves to Him as the expression of our highest loyalty.

      Matthew begins his Gospel by introducing the King Himself, Jesus Christ (Kristos, Messiah).

      THE LINEAGE OF THE KING

      1:1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

      ² Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. ³ Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. ⁴ Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. ⁵ Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse begot David the king.

      David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. ⁷ Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. ⁸ Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. ⁹ Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. ¹⁰ Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. ¹¹ Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

      ¹² And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. ¹³ Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. ¹⁴ Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. ¹⁵ Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob. ¹⁶ And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

      ¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.

      —Matthew 1:1–17

      In Jewish history the most natural and essential way to begin the story of a man’s life is to give his genealogy. This passage, which might appear uninteresting, is of great importance in Jewish history. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, writing his own autobiography, began with his personal pedigree. King Herod the Great was despised by the pure-blooded Jews because he was half Edomite. As a consequence, Herod destroyed official registers so that others could not prove a more authentic pedigree than his own!

      Matthew begins by calling this The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, a common phrase among the Jews when giving reference to the record of a man’s lineage.

      During a preaching mission in India in 1969, I learned of a young Hindu man who came to Christ by reading the first chapter of Matthew. When asked what there was about the genealogy which led to his conversion, he stated that for the first time he had found a religion which is actually rooted in history in contrast to the mythology of Hinduism and Buddhism. Matthew roots his Gospel in history, beginning with the lineage of the King. It is the lineage of salvation history, of Heilsgeschichte. This salvation history expresses the acts of God in history, His unfolding of a revelation of Himself, having chosen the people of Israel as the channel through whom He would bring the Messiah as Savior for the world.

      Matthew’s first reference is to Jesus Christ as the Son of David, a reference to the royal kingly line; and as the Son of Abraham, a reference to the line of promise or line of grace. Matthew begins his genealogy with Abraham, the man who was called the friend of God, the father of the way of faith, showing that Jesus fulfilled Israel’s hopes.

      We are reminded in verse 2 of the many occasions in the Old Testament when God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. A personal friend of mine, Dr. Robert Lamont, for twenty years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, once gave me the following very stimulating sermon outline to elaborate the significance of this Old Testament reference: He is the God (1) of differing personalities; (2) of varying circumstances; and (3) of succeeding generations.

      The lineage of Jesus is presented in three sections with fourteen periods for each. This distinctive grouping has a functional purpose. The three groupings correspond to the three great stages of Jewish history. The first stage is the history from Abraham to David, a stage which moves from the call of faith to the period in which David welded Israel into a nation. The second stage covers the history of Israel down to the exile in Babylon, a stage which deals with the interplay between man and God, exposing man’s unfaithfulness and the consequent captivity. Interspersed with the captivity was the prophetic word of judgment, of grace, and of hope. The third stage carries the history of Israel from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Jesus Christ. It shows how the salvation history continued through a remnant of the faithful, focusing on the family of faith through which God entered the world in the Incarnation, in Jesus of Nazareth.

      The summation in verse 17 marks off fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the captivity, and fourteen from the captivity to the coming of Christ. This use of generations is a teaching method on the part of Matthew to help persons grasp and memorize this sweep of history. Actually, the listings are not harmonized with Luke’s list, nor with the Old Testament accounts. Rahab appears much later in the line than in the Old Testament account (v. 5). In comparing 1 Chronicles 3 with the genealogical listing in Matthew, we discover that in verse 8 Matthew skips across several persons we might call generations (i.e., Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah). Matthew goes from grandfather to grandson in moving from Josiah to Jeconiah (v. 11). He moves from Shealtiel to Zerubbabel as though this is father and son (v. 12), while 1 Chronicles 3:19 and Ezra 3:2 together state that while these are in a close family lineage, Shealtiel is actually Zerubbabel’s uncle.

      This suggests that Matthew’s use of generation is not as literalistic as ours when we go from father to son, but rather that it is a method he used to mark off periods of time in salvation history. We need to leave this part uninterpreted (how Zerubbabel carries on the lineage of his uncle Shealtiel) with awareness that in the Old Testament, to safeguard a heritage and lineage in family experience, it was not unknown for a man to have his brother or his brother’s son carry on his inheritance and lineage in the stream of history.

      Prominence is given to four women who are named in the Messiah’s

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