The King Puts the Hypocrites in Their Place
A verse-by-verse explanation of these chapters.
An overview of the principles and applications from these chapters.
Melding these chapters to life.
Tying these chapters to life with God.
Historical, geographical, and grammatical enrichment of the commentary.
Suggested step-by-step group study of these chapters.
Zeroing these chapters in on daily life.
“It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.”
Calvin Coolidge
In these chapters the conflict escalates as Jesus takes the offensive and enters Jerusalem. Upon his arrival, he receives a king's welcome. He then challenges the corruption he sees in the temple, reclaiming his place of worship. Threatened by his authority, the Jewish leaders soon devise a scheme to trap Jesus. However, in spite of their efforts to subvert him, Jesus proves his absolute authority and establishes himself as the Messiah.
Early in the Vietnam war, a section of jungle called War Zone D was one tough stretch of enemy-infested ground. It was a “secret” zone about which allied intelligence knew almost nothing—except to stay away. Conventional allied infantry units never went near it. Finally, allied intelligence decided to invade the enemy's sanctuary.
But no ordinary unit would do. This operation required another level of intensity and experience. This was a mission which would demand the best. Chosen were thirteen handpicked American Green Berets and a company-sized element of their highly trained and trusted Cambodian guerillas.
Through several weeks and dozens of firefights without artillery support or any chance of reinforcements, these noble warriors fought fifty-one combat engagements, directed tactical air strikes on twenty-seven critical targets, and raided numerous base camps of much larger enemy units. They focused on their mission and stayed at it until it was accomplished.
Life is like that. When it is crunch time, it is time to step up the intensity. The mission requires it. Whether it is a seasoned championship team in the finals, a gifted musician on a farewell tour, or the Army Rangers at Point du Hoc on June 6, 1944. When the mission faces its most critical moments, the seasoned veterans know what to do. Jesus and his disciples had come to crunch time.
In these final chapters of Matthew, Jesus was on a mission. He was set. The opposition had set up roadblock after roadblock, and Jesus simply drove through them. He refused to be a victim. He insisted on being what he was— the king himself, directing the entire operation up to and including his own sacrifice. It was time to march on Jerusalem. In Matthew 21-22 Jesus stepped into “War Zone D” in the capital city.
The King Puts the Hypocrites in Their Place
MAIN IDEA: Jesus is indeed the Messiah-King, having absolute authority and deserving worship and submission from all his subjects.
Conflict predominates in Matthew 21-23. To this point, Jesus had tried to avoid outright conflict, while, at the same time, warning people openly about the poison of the Jewish leaders. When conflict had come, it did so at the initiative of the hypocrites, and Jesus responded to their attacks.
However, at this point Jesus launched a serious offensive. He took the initiative, entering Jerusalem as king and purging the temple (21:12-13). From that point on, the initiative went back and forth. The Jewish leaders took the offensive, challenging Jesus' authority (21:23-27); then Jesus pressed his advantage mercilessly with a volley of three parables aimed at the hypocrites (21:28-22:14). Next, Jesus' opponents banded together in their best coordinated effort, attempting to trap him with three challenging questions (22:15-40). Jesus deftly parried each of their blows, then retook the offensive, striking with the claim of his own identity (22:41-46). He then silenced his enemies with the scathing indictment of the “seven woes” in chapter 23.
The spiritual battle with Satan, introduced in 4:1-11, is rejoined with vigor in these chapters. The threefold attack of the Jewish leaders in 22:15-40 may be intended to remind us of Satan's threefold attack against Jesus in the desert. We will understand these later battles in a new light if we see Satan as the mastermind behind them, using the evil, self-absorbed leaders as his pawns.
Just as Satan attacked Jesus three times, so did the religious leaders (22:15-40). Jesus also responded to the chief priests' and elders' challenge to his authority (21:23-27) with a series of three parables which focused on the religious leaders' failure.
One notable feature of Matthew 21-22 is the frequent use of Old Testament Scripture:
At the peak of the spiritual battle, the sword of God's Word becomes prominent (Eph. 6:17). Matthew 21 is a picture of Jesus fulfilling the messianic Psalm 118. At every turn, whether on the offensive or the defensive, the Messiah-King demonstrated his authority with personal confidence and decisive victory.
Anyone observing this battle with an open mind would have come away with the conclusion that Jesus was indeed who he said he was—the Christ, the Messiah, the king. But the hypocrites' minds were far from open, so they walked away after Matthew 23 with their egos badly wounded from their resounding defeat. But their wills became more firmly fixed than ever on destroying this Jesus. If they could not defeat him in a battle of words (spiritual truth and principle), then physical force would have to be used.
The King Enters His City with Triumph and Meekness (21:1-11)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus is indeed king; he has a fierce commitment to the truth; but he is a king who brings peace with a gentle spirit.
Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem had been foreshadowed with growing anticipation ever since 16:21, where we find Jesus' first passion prediction. There he mentioned Jerusalem as his goal. Jesus mentioned Jerusalem again in his third passion prediction (20:18). James, John, and their mother may have been anticipating the triumphant king setting up his kingdom upon his arrival in Jerusalem (20:21). The cries of the two blind men, using the messianic title “Son of David,” pointed to the entry (20:30-31). And the clearly messianic healing of the blind men built momentum toward the triumphal entry (20:34; cf. Isa. 35:5-6).
From a human standpoint, this marked the high point of Jesus' earthly life, prior to his death and resurrection. The crowds, swollen by pilgrims coming for the Passover feast just a few days away, were swept up in anticipation of a decisive battle to oust the Roman oppressors, which they thought would be led by the promised Messiah. Five days later a crowd comprised of many of these same people would be shouting for the king's execution (27:17-25).
What the people failed to understand was that the king had come to defeat a much greater enemy than Rome—an enemy that knew no national boundaries or respected no political or sectarian differences. It was an enemy whose defeat would have repercussions far beyond the end of this life. Jesus had come to defeat Satan, our own sin, and the claim of death.
21:1-3. The name Bethphage means “House of Unripe Figs.” This was a village on the southeast slope of the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. The mountain was several hundred feet higher than Jerusalem, providing a spectacular view of the city.
Jesus now drew upon his divine omniscience to prepare for his proper entrance into the city. He sent two disciples into the village, foretelling their discovery of a donkey and her colt. He instructed them to untie them and bring them to him and to be prepared for any objections from observers. The Lord had already prepared the hearts of the animals' owner, so that, at the mention of the Lord needs them, the owner would send the disciples promptly on their way with his animals.
21:4-5. Here Matthew added a parenthetical comment to show Jesus' fulfillment of another messianic prophecy—this one from Zechariah 9:9 (about 500 B.C.).
21:6-8. Matthew stated that the two disciples obeyed Jesus, and the two animals were brought to Jesus. The disciples laid their coats (their cloaks or outer garments) on the donkey and the colt, providing a crude saddle. Jesus sat on the colt, riding a humble animal as a king did in times of peace. Most of the people in the crowd took their cue from the disciples' example. They laid their coats across Jesus' path in the road, as though to give him the “red carpet treatment.” Others cut branches from nearby trees to extend the “carpet” into the city. John 12:13 tells us the branches were “palm branches,” thus our celebration of “Palm Sunday” five days before Good Friday and seven days before Resurrection Sunday, or “Easter.”
21:9. The crowd milled around the king, some preceding him as heralds, some following as adoring loyalists. The picture is of a royal procession.
As the crowd moved along, they shouted words of praise, celebrating the arrival of Israel's Savior, the Messiah-King. Hosanna is literally a plea to “save,” but by this time it had become an expression of praise for God's salvation. As had been acknowledged twice by blind men (Matt. 9:27; 20:30-31), and speculated upon by the people who witnessed an exorcism (12:23), now the identity of Jesus as the promised royal Son of David was proclaimed with praise.
For a short time, the people would acknowledge Jesus' true identity as the sovereign Son of David, but they would fail to identify him also as the sacrificial Son of Abraham. They knew he had come to restore his kingdom, but they missed the fact that he was also here to redeem his people. They anticipated the sovereignty but overlooked the sacrifice. Jesus would not exercise the rule without the redemption.
The phrase Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord was taken from Psalm 118:26. Psalm 118 is a “psalm of ascent,” sung as the people ascended toward the temple in Jerusalem for worship, inviting others “with boughs in hand” to “join in the festal procession” (Ps. 118:27). Jesus was about to ascend to the temple on the highest point of the city. This psalm is also that from which Jesus would take his quote concerning “the stone the builders rejected” (Ps. 118:22-23; Matt. 22:42-44), predicting judgment on the “builders” or leaders of Israel.
This second expression of praise worshiped Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the one who comes representing Yahweh, in this case Yahweh himself. Jesus would put this same quotation to different use in 23:39.
This portion of the psalms of ascent (Pss. 113-118) was referred to as the Great Hallel, and it was sung by the people during the Passover season. A third shout from the crowd, Hosanna in the highest! implied praise to Yahweh, who is the highest and who dwells in highest heaven.
21:10-11. As the royal procession passed through the city gate, the whole city was stirred. Jesus had not frequented Jerusalem recently (none of his previous Jerusalem experiences are recorded in Matthew). While his fame must have been heard here, he was not as readily recognized as he would have been in the north. But his identity was made known wherever the procession traveled in the city. When city dwellers and merchants inquired about his identity, his enthusiastic followers made him known as Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus had spent most of his ministry in the northern province of Galilee. His hometown was Nazareth in that same province (2:22-23). Thus, he was known by his town of origin. At the mention of his name and origin, most people in Jerusalem probably perked up with recognition. Many more must have joined the procession on the way to the temple.
The King Reclaims His Place of Worship (21:12-17)SUPPORTING IDEA: The king is also the judge, guarding his honor.
The triumphal entry established Jesus as the Messiah-King, the Son of David, who was entering his city and ascending to his temple. It was the king who entered the temple and challenged the corruption he found.
21:12. The practice of selling sacrificial animals in Jerusalem originated as a good and helpful idea. Jews coming to worship from all over Israel and other parts of the known world needed animals to sacrifice (birds for the poor people, larger animals for those who could afford more). Most of them traveled days—some even weeks—and it was easier to carry money to buy a sacrifice at their destination than to herd an animal along and carry supplies for its upkeep on the journey.
But there was no reason to carry on any of this business inside the temple itself. We can also assume that the priesthood gained a healthy profit from sales in the temple and that Jesus' disruption was an attack on one of their sources of wealth. It is likely that financial corruption was the order of the day; animals were sold and the money exchanged at exorbitant prices. The Jewish leaders were misusing the house of prayer for worldly profit.
Jesus' actions did not put an end to this practice. Most of these merchants were probably back in place the next day, especially with the Passover approaching and the business it would bring. Jesus' confrontation had prophetic significance, warning of coming judgment.
21:13. The Messiah-King spoke to his subjects, who were misusing this place of worship. Not only was it written, but he himself had written, “My house will be called a house of prayer” (Isa. 56:7). The broader context of Isaiah 56:3-8 was especially significant in view of the temple cleansing. The Lord was reassuring both eunuchs (who were, by Mosaic Law, not permitted into the temple, Lev. 21:20) and Gentiles that, when all was set right, they would be gathered into the community of worship together with the faithful of Israel. In fact, the full quotation from Isaiah 56:7 is: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (emphasis mine). This emphasized the inclusion of Gentiles. Matthew shortened the quotation to draw attention to the contrast between the purpose of the temple for prayer and its use as a market.
In contrast, you (not only the merchants, but also the priests who endorsed their presence) had made the temple a den of robbers. We can assume the meaning of robber was drawn from the misuse of the temple for personal and commercial gain. Certainly, greed and profiteering had come to mark the temple area.
21:14. It was nothing new in Matthew to see Jesus performing healing miracles. But it was all the more fitting that the Messiah should fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 35:5-6 by healing the blind and the lame in his place of worship. This brief summary statement was another part of Matthew's presentation of the Messiah-King's advent in Jerusalem.
21:15-16. The Jewish leaders did not miss the implications of what was happening. They saw the triumphal entry, the messianic praise of the crowd, Jesus' authoritative cleansing of the temple, his pronouncement of judgment, and his healing miracles. Even the children Jesus had esteemed were proclaiming praise to the Messiah, the Son of David. It was too much for the hypocrites. They became indignant (also in 20:24; 26:8).
Their assumptions concerning Jesus' identity led the chief priests and scribes to believe that pointing out the children's “error” would cause Jesus to be horrified at their actions. Surely he would command the children to stop. Any Jewish teacher would have been horrified to be proclaimed “Son of David.” For anyone other than the Messiah to accept such acclaim was equivalent to blasphemy.
But the Son of David saw no problems with the children's praise. When his attention was drawn to it, he affirmed its appropriateness, supporting it with a quote from Psalm 8:2. His have you never read revealed his enemies' lack of understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures, on which they were supposed to be experts (cf. 12:3; 19:4; 21:42; 22:31). Jesus used the children's praise to show how obvious it should have been that he was the Son of David.
21:17. Having accomplished his grand entrance, the king left the priests and scribes. Matthew used the Greek verb kataleipo, meaning “to leave behind.” It is a stronger verb than leipo, implying a purposeful departure, possibly in disgust or righteous anger, after the confrontation. The same verb kataleipo was used in Matthew 16:4 when Jesus left his challengers to cross the Sea of Galilee, and in 19:5 of a man leaving his parents. There was calculated determination in Jesus' action. In the flow of Matthew's argument, this is most significant. Jesus (in light of the leaders' rejection and opposition) had now deliberately abandoned the chief priests, the scribes, the temple, Jerusalem, and everything else related to official Israel and its false religion.
Accommodations in Jerusalem were limited because of the influx of Passover pilgrims. Jesus had friends in Bethany (Mark 14:3; John 11:1) two miles east of Jerusalem (John 11:18), and he stayed with them that night.
The King Acts Out the Drama of the Fruitless Fig Tree (21:18-22)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus will judge those who put on a show of worship and obedience while revealing their true character through a lack of spiritual fruit.
According to Mark's chronology, Jesus cursed the fig tree on Monday morning while on his way to cleanse the temple. Then the disciples noticed the withered tree on Tuesday morning as they returned for the day of confrontation (21:23-23:39). Matthew arranged events in a different order than Mark to place the temple cleansing after the triumphal entry and to keep the story of the fig tree together. This practice was fully accepted in that culture, and it served Matthew's thematic development well.
21:18-19. Jesus returned to Jerusalem. Along the way he became hungry. As was the right of any Jew or sojourning alien under Mosaic Law, Jesus decided to eat figs for breakfast when he saw a fig tree growing by the road. Jesus assumed the tree had fruit when he saw its leaves. But the leaves had sent a false message. There was no fruit. The tree's promise was empty.
In anger, Jesus cursed the tree, proclaiming that it would never bear fruit again. The tree obeyed the word of its Creator, and it withered immediately. We might wonder if the pressure was beginning to get to Jesus. He cursed an inanimate object (this is the only destructive miracle attributed to Jesus, unless we count the drowning of the pigs in 8:32). But that was not the case. The scene makes perfect sense and takes on great significance when we put it into its context.
In the preceding passage, the king had pronounced judgment on Israel and its leaders for their idolatrous behavior (21:12-13). With the fig tree, Jesus acted out a parable or “mini-drama” to illustrate the reality of Israel's fruitlessness and its doom. Just as the leaves of the fig tree advertised fruit, so the Jewish leaders claimed to be fulfilling God's purpose. However, the advertising was a lie. Under the “leaves” of their showy religion (6:1-18; 15:8-9) their hearts were barren and unbelieving. They had missed their opportunity to repent and to bear true fruit, and so the king pronounced their judgment. There would be no more opportunities for these hypocrites—they would never bear fruit but would die through the judgment of God.
21:20-21.The disciples were amazed at seeing the fig tree wither before their eyes. Even at this stage of their training, they still were puzzled by Jesus' power. They asked how the fig tree could have withered so quickly.
This was a teachable moment, very similar to that in 17:19-20 (the exorcism the disciples could not perform). In fact, Jesus used some of the same imagery to teach the same lesson—that any believer with true faith can do great things by drawing on the power of God. Faith is the basis for answered prayer (21:22).
Jesus grabbed the disciples' attention, alerting them to the importance of what he was about to say: I tell you the truth. The necessary ingredient was faith (taking God at his word), which the disciples lacked. Jesus clarified his meaning by mentioning the opposite of faith—doubt.
With that kind of faith, the disciples would be able to wither fig trees and more. Jesus and his disciples were probably crossing the Mount of Olives as they approached Jerusalem. Jesus probably pointed to the mount when he said this mountain, giving the disciples a visual image that illustrated the power of God available to the person with true faith (cf. “this mountain” in 17:20). The disciples could envision the Mount of Olives being lifted and cast into the sea at the word of a faith-filled believer.
Jesus meant us to assume that mountain-moving faith should not be exercised in such frivolous ways as rearranging the earth. In fact, faith cannot be exercised in any way except according to God's will. It is not the faith which moves mountains, but the power of God in response to the expression of faith. True faith is always in keeping with God's will and is based on intimacy with God and an understanding of his heart and will.
21:22. Jesus' closing comment reinforced the power of God in response to faith. Prayer is an expression of our powerlessness and dependence on God. The weaker we realize we are, the greater the working of God's power through us (2 Cor. 12:7-10). The mature believer has strength that comes from God. The believer in humble dependence becomes a vessel for God's power. A person who asks in accordance with God's desire will have his requests granted.
The faith Jesus implied here is an attitude of submission to his will, confidence in his wisdom, and assurance of his love. This is faith that the Father can take our requests and sort them out according to our best interest and his glory. With such an attitude, we will gradually grow to share the mind of Christ, to desire his desires and to ask for his requests.
The King's Authority Is Questioned (21:23-27)SUPPORTING IDEA: The king's authority will threaten those who desire to usurp his authority for themselves.
With Jesus' return to Jerusalem and the temple (21:23), Matthew launched into the final verbal battle between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. This battle extended through Matthew 23. This first challenge to Jesus' authority would be met with a threefold answer and rebuttal in Jesus' three parables (21:28-22:14), turning the tables on the hypocrites.
Again, according to Mark's more detailed chronology, all of the conflict from this point through Matthew 23 seems to have occurred on Tuesday, after Palm Sunday and before the Passover and Christ's crucifixion. Matthew included several grammatical connecting devices to indicate the unity of this series of conflicts.
21:23. Jesus returned to the temple since this was the place in Jerusalem where people came to hear the Scriptures taught. And teach he did. But Jesus also returned to do battle, knowing that his opponents were waiting for him.
The chief priests and the elders of the people interrupted his teaching to challenge his authority. Both groups belonged to the Sanhedrin, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Jewish government. These things that Jesus was doing included his purging of the temple on the previous day, but they may also have included other events (the triumphal entry, his acceptance of praise as the “Son of David,” his teaching in the temple, and his miraculous healings). They asked him to state the authority by which he did these things and the source of his authority (who gave you this authority?).
21:24-26. Their request was similar to that of the two groups who had demanded an attesting sign from Jesus (12:38-45; 16:1-4). In all three instances, the minds of the challengers were closed to the truth. Jesus' response was the same in all three cases: he would not comply with their request. Even though they were asking for a verbal response, not a miraculous demonstration, Jesus knew they would not accept his answer. He would not give them fuel for the fire they were trying to build.
Instead, Jesus asked them a question, promising an answer for an answer. Suddenly the attackers were on the defensive. Jesus asked them, in front of the audience he had been teaching, to declare their opinion about the source of John the Baptizer's baptism (that is, his entire ministry)—Was it from heaven, or from men?
The religious leaders were smart enough not to answer immediately. They were skilled in the art of debate, and they knew the kinds of traps that could be set. So they went into deliberation privately. To acknowledge that the Messiah's forerunner had been sent by God (that his authority came from heaven) would be to admit that he had been right and that Jesus, whom John preceded, was indeed the Messiah. If they gave this answer, they would give Jesus an open door to ask them why they had not believed John as a prophet from God. To reject God's prophet was to reject God himself.
The answer they wanted to give was that John's authority was of human origin (from men). If the debate had not been in front of a crowd, they might have given this answer. But they were afraid of the crowd: for they all hold that John was a prophet. The people were smarter than their leaders; they saw the truth. The leaders had blinded themselves to John's authority and the identity and authority of the Messiah-King. If the leaders publicly rejected God's prophet, the people would recognize them as phonies and they would lose their influence.
21:27. So the chief priests and elders answered, We don't know, leaving Jesus with no compulsion to answer their question. Keep in mind that the events described in this passage took place after the turning point of 13:10-17. Jesus began at that point to create hurdles over which people had to jump to understand his teachings. Those who had ears to hear would make the leap and embrace his truth. Those whose hearts were hardened would remain ignorant.
This was the reason Jesus did not give the Jewish leaders a straight answer in 21:23-27. If they really wanted a truthful answer, they would have admitted to the authority of God behind Jesus' teachings and miracles. Jesus knew they were not open to the truth, so he placed a hurdle between them and the answer to their question. They had to acknowledge that John's authority came from heaven. Their refusal to answer was acknowledgment of their resistance to the truth—that Jesus' authority came from God.
The King Desires Obedient Deeds More Than Words (21:28-32)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus will accept those who obey him and reject those who only claim to obey him.
Jesus then turned the tables and went on the offensive, indicting the Jewish leaders on three counts with three parables.
First, while they claimed to be doing God's will and discharging their responsibilities, they were actually in blatant disobedience (21:28-32). A person's actions speak more convincingly than his or her words.
Second, the Jewish leaders had gone beyond neglect of their spiritual responsibility to the point of abuse and persecution of those sent by God, including God's own Son (21:33-46).
Third, in refusing their God-given responsibility, the Jewish leaders were also refusing to accept God's gracious blessing—the privilege and honor of serving as his instruments and the eternal reward to follow. This was the final insult to God. They were throwing his gift back into his face (22:1-14).
Each of the three parables also served to answer the question of Jesus' authority (21:23). Those with ears to hear could have heard Jesus' answer in the parables. In the first parable (21:28-32), Jesus was the unmentioned (third) Son who promised to obey and then followed through faithfully. In the second parable (21:33-46), Jesus was the Son sent by the landowner and killed by the stewards (21:37-39), as well as the capstone of God's people and his plan of redemption (21:42-44). In the third parable (22:1-14), Jesus was the Bridegroom, in whose honor the entire celebration was being held (22:2; cf. 9:15).
Jesus can be seen as a Son in all three parables: a Son who is obedient, a Son who is rejected, and a Son who is honored (cf. Phil. 2:5-11).
21:28-30. Jesus' main point was to show that those in the current Jewish leadership had disqualified themselves from being Israel's leaders. What do you think? was a common introduction by a teacher when he wanted the students to engage their minds in solving a problem.
Jesus would provide the interpretation of this parable in 21:31-32. Note that the father (representing God) gave both sons the same instructions. There was no prejudice or favoritism on the part of the father. Both sons started on a “level playing field,” having the same opportunity to obey or disobey. The two sons both ended up doing the opposite of what they said they would do. The emphasis is not on the initial statement of intention, but on the actual actions.
21:31-32. Jesus' question emphasized that God's bottom-line concern was not a person's verbal claims but what he actually did: Which of the two did what his father wanted?
Actions are more significant than words. This was so obvious that even Jesus' opponents answered correctly. It was the first son—the one who initially said no but who ultimately obeyed—who did the will of the father.
Jesus introduced the interpretation and application of his parable with I tell you the truth. Tax collectors were considered traitors by the Jews because they sold out to the Roman oppressors, collecting taxes from their fellow countrymen and usually demanding extra money to line their own pockets. This often left families destitute. Prostitutes were similarly despised. For Jesus to say that the tax collectors and the prostitutes would have greater claim on the kingdom of God than the religious elite must have been a shock. Sinners were being welcomed into the kingdom, while the hypocrites only pretended to know God.
As in his previous discussion (21:25), Jesus referred again to the ministry of John the Baptizer. In a sense, John served as the barometer by which Jesus judged the spiritual climate. Jesus used people's responses to John as a test of their spiritual receptiveness. These references by Jesus gave great significance to John's ministry.
In 21:32, Jesus made three statements. The first statement indicted the religious believers for their disbelief in God's prophet John. The second statement, by contrast, vindicated the tax collectors and prostitutes by their belief. The third statement returned to the religious leaders, indicting them again for not taking the second chance God had given them. The leaders should have been humbled by the example of faith in the tax collectors and prostitutes. They should have been shamed by the faithful response of the tax collectors and prostitutes. They should have repented or changed their minds regarding John (and Jesus). But pride won out over humility.
Jesus' wording made it clear that the religious leaders were left with no excuses. God had made the opportunity for faith available to them. John came to you; that is, God took the initiative in sending his prophet. And John came in the way of righteousness; he lived and taught righteousness. There were no grounds for rejecting him. He should have received a hearing from all who claimed Yahweh as their God. His message was the way to righteousness before a righteous God.
Jesus had struck the first of three blows against the credibility of the leaders of Israel—against their qualification to serve as the shepherds of God's people. In spite of the religious show they put on and their claims to be obedient to God, they had rejected the mission God had given them (see Ezek. 34). They were guilty of neglect and abuse of God's flock.
SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus, though rejected by the disobedient, will become the most valuable part of God's plan and will judge those who rejected him.
Jesus continued with his second blow against the credibility of Israel's leaders. Although they fancied themselves to be big-time leaders and rulers of Israel, he charged, they were actually only custodians of God's vineyard.
21:33. Listen to another parable was Jesus' way of tying this second parable into the series of three. As in earlier parables, he used the image of a landowner, a man responsible for his land, its crops, and the workers who worked it. The language of this verse makes a direct connection with the “Song of the Vineyard” in Isaiah 5:1-7 (see also Ps. 80:6-16). The details of the construction of the vineyard (the wall, the winepress, and the watchtower) are drawn from this Old Testament passage. Any Jewish listener would clearly see the connection.
In the Isaiah passage, Yahweh is “my loved one,” and the vineyard is Israel. Although Yahweh had provided everything necessary for Israel to obey him and produce good spiritual fruit, Israel had produced only bad fruit, going its own way time after time. The song served as the Lord's case against Israel, bringing the evidence before the world and inviting us to conclude for ourselves who was right and who deserved punishment. He would announce that punishment at the end of Matthew 23.
Jesus' parable provided the sequel to Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard. This was the same vineyard and the same landowner. But the new focus was on those to whom the vineyard had been rented, the custodians. In Jesus' parable, the vineyard was assumed to produce well, but the stewards of the vineyard were the problem.
The farmers (or tenants) represented Israel's first-century leaders, who had been entrusted by God with the task of shepherding his people. Ezekiel 34 provided a job description for a shepherd as well as God's indictment of that generation's leaders for neglecting their responsibilities and abusing the sheep. The landowner's journey represented the time until Christ's return at the end times. This was a period of stewardship, and a reckoning would come.
21:34-36. At harvest time (literally, “the fruit season”), the tenants were expected to send a portion of the harvest to the landowner as rent payment. This part of the parable represented the accountability of Israel's leaders before God, not only at the end of time but throughout their period of responsibility.
The landowner sent his servants (apparently three of them) as representatives to collect his portion of the harvest. The land and all it produced were his, and he had every right to collect. God also has the right to call his stewards to account at any time—to determine whether they have fulfilled their covenant commitment.
But the tenants failed to fulfill their agreement and refused to pay the rent. They mistreated the master's representatives; this was the same as mistreating the master himself. The servants represented God's prophets sent to Israel, whose job was to call Israel (especially its leaders) to account for their disobedience. The beating, killing, and stoning of the three messengers represented Israel's rejection of God's messengers (and God himself) over the centuries. One of the most recent examples of this rejection was their treatment of John the Baptizer (17:12-13).
The landowner persisted, sending an even larger group of servants, but with the same results. The tenants persisted in their rebellion, in spite of the landowner's repeated opportunities for them to respond as they should. God had provided multiple opportunities through many representatives to Israel, but Israel's leaders continued in rebellion.
21:37-39. Then the landowner sent his closest and best representative— his son. The mistreatment of his servants had been a slap in the face, which deserved punishment. But this final gesture by the landowner was a measure of the landowner's patience and grace toward the tenants. The thought that they might mistreat his own son was inconceivable.
But the tenants were so conceited that they fooled themselves into believing they could obtain the son's inheritance by killing him. Their mistreatment of the son was emphasized by the detail with which it is described (took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him).
The gravity of mistreating God's Son—his ultimate messenger (John 1:1,14,18)—heightened the foolishness and evil of the Jewish leaders. Jesus was deserving of highest respect, but the Jewish leaders took the art of self-deception to new heights. They thought they could get away with killing the Messiah to maintain their power and influence.
Implied here was another prediction of Jesus' sacrificial death. For months Jesus had been telling his disciples about his coming suffering at the hands of Israel's leaders. This was much closer than they realized, and Jesus was on a course with his mission.
21:40-41. Finally, the landowner himself decided he would go to his tenants. At this point, Jesus invited his critics to finish the story, asking what a landowner under these circumstances would do to those tenants. In their answer, the critics pronounced their own sentence—execution and replacement. Jesus' opponents were guilty of the worst kind of sin—leading God's flock astray and abusing them for personal gain and then killing God's messengers, his prophets, including his Son.
In their place, God would raise up stewards of his kingdom who would reap fruit and bring it to him; namely, his church (see comment on 21:43). In their greed, the hypocrites had thrown away the riches belonging to a faithful steward. They tried to play God and lost.
The leaders' response included a play on words by the use of wretches and wretched. A literal translation of the passage would be, “The bad ones, he will destroy them badly.” Destroy here is an amplified verb meaning “to destroy utterly.” The Jewish leaders were passing judgment on the tenants in the parable, stating that their evil character deserved severe punishment.
21:42. Jesus pointed out to the Jewish leaders that they had just pronounced judgment on themselves. Have you never read in the Scriptures was Jesus' way of telling the teachers of Israel that they should have known better. Jesus quoted Psalm 118:22-23. Although he changed metaphors, he continued to speak to the same topic—rejection of the Messiah by Israel's leaders.
Psalm 118:22 makes a surprising statement. The stone that the experts considered unusable ended up as the most important stone in the whole building plan: the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The phrase “the Lord had done this” emphasized the foolishness of the Jewish leaders. They had changed the blueprint that had been drawn up by the perfect, almighty architect. The way that God would carry out his plan would be awesome and surprising. God would allow observers to believe, for a time, that Jesus was successfully rejected by the Jewish leaders. But then the greatest of all reversals—the Resurrection and the founding of the church, the body of Christ—would provide the grounds for even greater amazement.
21:43. Jesus then confirmed the hypocrites' own unwitting self-condemnation (21:41). The kingdom would be taken from them and given to faithful stewards. In this statement, with the mention of fruit, Jesus returned briefly to the agricultural word picture, before turning again to the picture of a stone in 21:44.
These leaders would forfeit the kingdom, and the stewardship would be handed over to a people (literally, “a nation”) who will produce its fruit. The Jewish leaders were attempting to keep what was not theirs (power and control of the people, self-elevation, ill-gained wealth) instead of leading Israel according to the will of its master. Therefore, the kingdom would be taken away from them. Soon the church would take over operations (as announced in 16:18-19; 18:18-20), giving glory and service to God and producing spiritual fruit for him. Two thousand years of church history have proven that even the church does not do this perfectly. But the new covenant, sealed by Jesus' blood, allows God to work through the imperfect church to accomplish his perfect plan. His Spirit now lives in believers, planting his law directly in their hearts and unifying them in a way that was impossible before.
The stewardship would reside in the hands of the church. But God was not finished with Israel. He grafted the church into Israel's roots, but he will see to it that his covenant with Israel and his calling of the nation will be fully realized upon a day yet future (following Daniel's seventieth week and its tribulation). This is the Holy Spirit's argument in Romans 9-11 (esp. ch. 11).
21:44. Jesus then returned to the “stone” imagery of 21:42, using language from Isaiah 8:14-15. He had described himself as a potential “stumbling block” for those who did not believe in him (11:6). Such a skeptic who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. And if the skeptic's resistance is so deeply entrenched that God takes the initiative in bringing judgment and the stone falls on him (cf. Dan. 2:34-35,44-45), the judgment will be horrendous.
21:45-46. The chief priests and Pharisees were the same as “the chief priests and the elders of the people” who had challenged Jesus' authority in 21:23. Jesus had completed his second of three blows against their credibility and authority. Not only had the leaders neglected their mission, but they had also rejected God, killing his prophets and even God's own Son.
The hypocrites could take a hint. They knew Jesus was accusing them of mismanaging God's kingdom and that he was pronouncing judgment on them. They should have repented in the face of the truth, but instead they decided to remove the truth and continue in their denial. They were still thinking that if they could kill Jesus, they would win. They were tragically mistaken. How blind is the insanity of unbelief, especially when marked by hatred and bitterness.
They wanted to arrest Jesus, but the local farm hands were smarter than the “enlightened” Jewish leaders. The crowds recognized Jesus as the prophet whom he was. Jesus' popularity prevented the leaders from arresting him at that time because they were afraid of the crowd. Even though the Jewish leaders feared the crowds and decided to wait until after Passover to deal with Jesus (26:5), Jesus was still the king. He was the one who insisted that the leaders' evil work be done during Passover. In this way, the king himself guaranteed the actual fulfillment of the Passover. His death took place on the Passover since he was the true Passover Lamb of God (cf. Exod. 12; 1 Cor. 5:7).
The King Will Receive Honor from the Most Unlikely Subjects (22:1-14)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus will reject those who refuse his invitation into honor and privilege, replacing them with true worshipers—those restored from sin by his grace.
The hypocrites got the message, but Jesus was not finished. There was one more aspect of their disobedience that needed to be confronted. This is a poor place for a chapter division, as it falls in the midst of Jesus' threefold indictment of the religious leaders. Matthew 22:1-14 is the third of Jesus' trilogy of parables.
There are many parallels between this parable and the preceding parable of the tenants and the rejected son (21:33-46). However, the key difference is that the preceding parable dealt with the kingdom steward's rejection of his responsibility, while this parable dealt with the rejection of the privilege and honor of participation in the kingdom by those who had been called into it.
The latter may be considered an even worse offense against God than the former. The hypocritical Jewish leaders had not only rejected their responsibilities; they were turning their back on the privileges of their inheritance. This parable dealt with their deliberate choice to be disinherited.
22:1-2. Jesus proceeded to reveal one more truth about the kingdom of heaven and those who had mishandled it. The main character of this parable is a king, representing God the Father. His son represented Jesus the Messiah. Although not an active character in the parable itself, he is central to its meaning, serving as the reason for the wedding banquet. The feast represented the future (eschatological) union of the bridegroom (Jesus) with his bride (God's redeemed people).
For a person to participate in this celebration presupposed that he had placed his faith in the Messiah and become a part of his people, the Messiah's bride. The invitation to the feast was an invitation to discipleship and salvation. It was also an invitation to enjoy the king's blessing—the “food” of the feast as well as the honor of being invited.
22:3-4. As in 21:34-36, the king sent two groups of servants as messengers. The first group went out to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come. These people, representing Israel, God's chosen people (its leaders in particular), knew they were supposed to attend the celebration—they had already been invited. The messengers (representing God's prophets) informed them that it was time to attend. But the invitees refused to accept the invitation.
In this case, the invitation also carried the force of a command. To disregard this invitation or call was not an option; rejection of the call went beyond discourtesy to the point of rebellious disobedience. Israel had not been invited but commanded to pay the price and reap the blessing of kingdom citizenship.
The king was patient enough, even in the face of such discourtesy, to send a second group of messengers to the people. This group represented the Lord's patient pleading with his rebellious people over the centuries through prophet after prophet (see 21:34-37). The message they carried to the people was, “I have gone to a lot of trouble and great expense to prepare this banquet. Dinner is on the table. Come celebrate with us!” Participation in the feast, in honor of the king's son, was both a responsibility and a privilege. The king was appealing, “Come honor my son and enjoy the honor of my blessing.”
22:5-6. The second group of messengers received two responses—apathy and aggression. Some people invited to the wedding feast thought they had more important things to do. They chose to ignore the messengers and tend to their fields and businesses—the everyday pursuits that had taken possession of their hearts (6:19-24). God was just as displeased with those who ignored him as he was with those who opposed him.
The other wedding guests responded like the tenants in the previous parable, mistreating and killing the messengers. The one significant difference between the action of the wedding guests and that of the tenants in 21:36 was that the wedding guests had no motive for mistreating and killing the king's servants. The murder of the messengers and the message of rejection to the king and his son were irrational, since the king intended only good by his invitation.
God's offer of a covenant relationship with Israel carried a price for those who accepted it, but the blessing and honor that the kingdom citizen received would far outweigh the cost of discipleship. God offered redemption, forgiveness, salvation, and reward. Those who rejected God's grace were displaying blindness to the point of insanity. They returned a curse for God's blessing.
22:7. Because of their perverted attitude, the king sent a third messenger. In the previous parable, the third messenger was the landowner's son. In this story, the third messenger was the king's army. They would serve as messengers of judgment on the irrational rebellion of the original wedding guests. The armies destroyed the murderers and burned their cities. This signified God's judgment of those who reject his covenant relationship.
22:8-10. Meanwhile, the celebration was waiting; the son was yet to be honored. So the king sent out his messengers again—but to a different set of invitees this time. The original invitees did not deserve to come. Their self-absorption and irrationality had displaced their loyalty to the king and his son. The new guests were those who would be honored with such an invitation. These were the riffraff, the outcasts of society, that the messengers would find along the byways (the Gr. phrase is variously interpreted as street corners, “main highways,” or “forks in the road,” all of which would be places to find many people). Anyone you find was carefully worded with indefinite force to include every possible prostitute and tax collector (cf. 9:9-13; 21:31-32).
The messengers went out into the streets and invited all the people they could find, both good and bad. Whereas those who should have been “good” (Israel, God's chosen people) had shown themselves to be evil, the king treated all who were evil as though they were good. The impartiality of the king represented the impartial grace of God, inviting all people of all nations into the kingdom during the church age. By extension, we can identify the king's servants or messengers now as the believers in the New Testament church (esp. the apostles).
It was as shocking then as it is now that God accepts the worst of sinners unconditionally. As long as a sinner shows a willingness to accept God's grace by faith, God will transform him or her into a kingdom citizen. With such a group of people the king filled his wedding hall. It was a blend of good and evil, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, wealthy and poor. Truly, the Lord will fill his kingdom with “all nations” or all peoples.
22:11-12. Jesus had already made an important point, but he was about to clarify exactly who could take part in his celebration of faith. After the guests had gathered in the wedding hall, the king inspected them and discovered a man not dressed properly. The wedding clothes (sometimes supplied by the host) were not a particular style of garment. But they were the cleanest and best clothes each person had to wear (cf. Rev. 19:6-8).
This man was displaying disrespect by wearing less than the best available to him. The king addressed the man as Friend, implying that he was open to an explanation. But when questioned, the man had no answer. He was guilty of failure to honor the king's son in a proper manner. The garment probably referred to the righteousness of Christ provided through his death. To refuse it would be to refuse Christ's sacrifice. To refuse Christ is to refuse life.
22:13. This disrespectful man was recognized as ill-prepared as every imposter will be. At the king's command, he was bound (a vivid picture of the man's inability to participate) and thrown into the darkness. This represented exclusion from this celebration in the kingdom of light and truth. The weeping and gnashing of teeth indicated extreme pain and sorrow.
22:14. Jesus' closing statement had a proverbial tone. Note that he did not say that all men and women are called. But many are invited. God had issued to a wide audience his invitation (command) to join with him in covenant relationship. But few are chosen. Not everyone who is invited will be among the chosen. The adjective chosen suggests that the faith decision is not totally in our hands, but it is a response to God's sovereign election. In particular, the unbelieving religious leaders were among those called but not chosen.
The doctrine of election, taught throughout Scripture (e.g. Rom. 9), has already been mentioned briefly in Matthew (11:27). The word chosen (or “elect”) is a word Jesus would soon use to refer to his followers (24:22,24,31).
The parable's basic lessons are clear. The king issued a gracious invitation to people he wished to view as friends. They rejected the invitation. Their rejection sparked a severe judgment from the king. Their rejection caused the king to extend the invitation even further to anyone who would come. Participation was carefully screened. Israel was invited, but the nation refused the invitation. Its refusal served to open the gates wide. But though the gates were thrown wide open, those actually chosen were limited by specific criteria—the righteousness of Christ.
With this, Jesus rounded out his trilogy of parables which condemned the Jewish leaders for their rebellious disbelief. They had: (1) neglected their God-given trust (21:28-32); (2) tried to commandeer the kingdom for their own ends, persecuting and killing God's messengers the prophets, and even his Son (21:33-46); and (3) thrown away the honor and privilege of a covenant relationship with God, thereby dishonoring the Almighty and the Son.
Round 1: The King Validates Civil and Spiritual Government (22:15-22)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus proves his authority in the arena of political debate.
The diverse groups from among Jesus' opponents (i.e., Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians)—normally hostile toward each other—joined forces to plot against Jesus. They attempted one final series of verbal attacks, expecting to embarrass Jesus in public. This would show him to be a fraud. It was illegal for the Jews to perform an execution; they would have to appeal to Roman authorities on the grounds of an imperial offense in order to have Jesus executed.
We will see first a joint attack by the Pharisees (a religious sect that opposed Roman rule in Israel) and the Herodians (a political party that supported Roman rule through the Herods) in 22:15-22. Next, the Sadducees would join the effort, bringing their trickiest question to bear (22:23-33). Finally, the Pharisees would return with a final attempt (22:34-40). All of those tricks Jesus would turn back before taking the final offensive (22:41-23:39).
22:15-17. The Pharisees plotted to put together a verbal trap for Jesus (the verb “to ensnare, entrap,” is used only here in the New Testament). The Herodians and probably the Sadducees were involved in the plotting, for their threefold attack in 22:15-40 was carefully coordinated. The Pharisees and Herodians approached Jesus first, beginning with hypocritical flattery. They addressed him as Teacher, partly to gain favor with the crowd, and partly to catch Jesus off guard. They claimed to know that Jesus was a man of integrity and that he taught the way of God, when in reality they believed him to be a heretic.
They also pointed out Jesus' commitment to truth without consideration for the rank or social status of those who might agree or disagree with him. Jesus was known for being impartial toward all people and forthright in his teaching. They were hoping to coax Jesus into saying something politically incorrect.
Their statements about Jesus' impartiality were intended to force him to take one side or another, thereby showing partiality. The question was whether it was right under Old Testament Law to pay the poll tax (we presume) to Caesar, the Roman emperor. The two groups that asked the question were on opposite sides of the issue. If Jesus answered, “Yes, it is right,” then he would show partiality toward the Herodians, who supported Roman rule. Then the Pharisees would accuse Jesus of sympathizing with the Romans. This was not a crime, but it was not a popular position among the Jews.
If Jesus answered, “No, it is not right,” then he would show partiality toward the Pharisees, who opposed Roman rule and saw Roman taxation as robbing from God. Then the Herodians could arrest him and bring him before Herod Antipas on charges of treason against the Roman Empire.
In either case, they thought, Jesus would show himself to be partial. He would also alienate part of his following, and he might incriminate himself under Roman law.
22:18. Jesus revealed that they were not really interested in his answer— only in trapping him in public. Jesus was a student of people—particularly his enemies—and their motives were obvious, no matter how much flattery they lavished on him. They were hypocrites because they pretended to be sincere inquirers after truth, when they were actually trying to trap him. His question why? revealed their true motives to the crowd. It also showed that such testing was unnecessary and inappropriate. Jesus had displayed more than enough evidence about his identity.
22:19-21. Jesus asked for the coin used to pay the poll tax, a denarius. Then he answered their question with a question, Whose portrait is this? (Portrait is the Greek word eikon, from which we derive the English icon.) And whose inscription? The critics gave the obvious answer that the image and inscription were Caesar's.
Jesus answered by saying there was nothing wrong with giving to each authority what was rightfully his. That is, it was right to give to the Roman Empire what was rightfully theirs, as indicated by Caesar's image and inscription on the coin. Such payment of tax was not robbery from God.
On the other hand, we also have an obligation to give to God what he demands. The two claims by the two authorities were not in conflict with each other. Obedience to both was not contradictory. Both God and civil government were valid authorities (cf. Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17).
Jesus had remained impartial as well as committed to truth. He had sided with neither party in the debate over taxation, showing validity behind both sides.
22:22. Jesus' challengers were amazed at his answer, so they left him and went away.
Round 2: The King Validates the Resurrection (22:23-33)SUPPORTING IDEA: The king proves his authority in theological debate.
22:23-28. The phrase that same day showed the chronological flow and coordination of the first and second verbal attacks. This time the Sadducees, the majority sect in the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus with their own question. The fact that they say there is no resurrection was important in this context. It showed how far removed they were from their allies the Pharisees—normally their opponents—who questioned Jesus before and after this particular incident. More importantly, it explained the theological assumption behind their question.
The Sadducees began by addressing Jesus with a title of respect, Teacher, just as the Pharisees and Herodians had done earlier (22:16). The quote of the Sadducees in 22:24 was an accurate paraphrase of the Mosaic Law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. They applied this law to a hypothetical situation, taken to an extreme. Suppose seven brothers, each in turn, married the same woman and all died childless. Finally the woman also died. Whose wife would she be at the resurrection? They assumed there was no answer to this question, and that the resurrection was a myth.
22:29-30. Jesus answered their question by attacking their false assumptions about marriage and the resurrection. Then he pressed the attack by going deeper, revealing that their disbelief in the resurrection was faulty (22:31-32). Jesus pointed out that the Sadducees were in error. They did not understand the Scriptures. Their assumption that a resurrection would imply a continuation of marriages from this life was unsupported in Scripture. Jesus' clarification that at the resurrection men and women were no longer bound by marriage is found nowhere else in Scripture. But if Jesus' opponents had had “ears to hear,” then they would have recognized Jesus as the author of all, including marriage, the resurrection, and all truth. He had every right to proclaim the truth on any topic, whether it was supported by the Old Testament. Since there was no marriage in heaven, the Sadducees' question was invalid. The answer was that no one would be the woman's husband at the resurrection.
This, together with Ephesians 5:22-33, can lead us to the conclusion that God's primary purpose for marriage is to paint a picture on earth of the heavenly marriage between the Messiah and his bride. When the actual marriage of Christ and the church takes place in heaven, there will be no more need for human marriage. It will be displaced by the greater reality toward which it pointed while we were on earth.
Men and women in heaven will be like the angels, who do not marry or produce offspring. From evidence through the Bible, we may assume that angels are without gender. However, when they took physical form, they seemed always to appear in a male form.
The Sadducees were also in error because they did not understand the power of God. This related primarily to God's power to raise people from the dead. The Sadducees' denial of the resurrection was not merely a theological position. It was outright disbelief that God can do what he claims. What a rebuke Jesus delivered to these so-called religious leaders: You do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
22:31-32. Jesus then got down to the real issue—the reality of the resurrection of the dead. Have you not read? pointed out that the religious leaders—the shepherds and teachers of Israel—should have known better. The truth had been made plain in God's Word (cf. 21:42). In fact, Jesus heightened his challengers' accountability by saying that God spoke the truth to you, implying the corporate solidarity of all generations. The truths that God spoke centuries ago still speak to us today.
Jesus used a quotation from the Pentateuch to answer the Sadducees, knowing their high regard for the Pentateuch. His quote from Exodus 3:6 was taken from the words of God, speaking to Moses through the burning bush. This was centuries after the life and death of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yet, for God to be the God of these three men centuries after they had died implied that they were alive at the time God spoke to Moses. That is, they had been resurrected to new life: He is not the God of the dead but of the living.
22:33. As with the crowd at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (7:28-29), this crowd was also astonished at the authority with which Jesus dealt with his opponents. Not only did Jesus wield Old Testament Scripture accurately; he revealed new truth that the Old Testament had not revealed (22:30). Jesus had turned his challengers' trap into an embarrassment and an accusation against themselves.
Round 3: The King Elevates Love for God and People (22:34-40)SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus proves his authority in the debate over practical spirituality.
Now we come to the third and final verbal challenge from Jesus' opponents. After this, the Jewish leaders would fall back on their last resort— physical violence or conspiracy to have Jesus arrested and executed.
22:34-36. The Pharisees had regrouped after Jesus turned their first trap against them in 22:15-22. Seeing the same thing happen to the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together, seeking power and courage in numbers. The one expert in the law whom they chose to ask the testing question must have approached Jesus with some trepidation. For the third time in three challenges, the questioner addressed Jesus as Teacher.
This time the question was simple but profound: Which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Matthew used the simple adjective “great” (megas), but it carried superlative force (“greatest”) in this context. The question demonstrated the way the religious leaders looked at the law. In their tradition, they had reduced the law to 365 negative and 248 positive commandments. They spent much time trying to prioritize these innumerable technicalities. They thought they could trap the Lord of the law.
22:37-38. Jesus drew his answer from the most memorized and recited passage in all the Jewish Scriptures: Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:4-5).
Jesus quoted the Septuagint almost verbatim, but he substituted mind (dianoia) for the similar sounding “might” (dunameos). We are to take this list as an emphatic way of saying, “Love God with everything you are in every way possible.” But it was not without significance that our Lord deliberately substituted “mind” here rather than some other term. Christians need to take a lesson from this. We should learn to think critically and biblically.
Jesus emphasized his answer by identifying this commandment as the first and greatest commandment. This commandment was greatest because of the statement in Deuteronomy 6:4 which preceded it: “Yahweh is your God, Yahweh alone” (paraphrased). To honor Yahweh as the one true God is to love him exclusively, from among all others who claim to be gods.
22:39. But Jesus went beyond the critic's question and added a second command, which is like (homoios, “resembling”) the first, this time drawing from Leviticus 29:18 (cf. Matt. 19:19): love your neighbor as yourself. This commandment and the first complement each other, so Jesus mentioned them together. They are not to be separated. It is impossible to love God without loving people, for his law and heart's desire is to love others. The measure by which we know if we are truly loving people is if we love them as much as we love ourselves (cf. Eph. 5:28-31).
22:40. Finally, Jesus defended his choice of these two commandments by observing that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (or “depends” on them). Every Old Testament commandment and teaching fulfilled the commands to love God and to love people.
SUPPORTING IDEA: Jesus establishes himself as the Messiah—the Son of David and Son of God.
Jesus was not satisfied with having fended off his critics' three verbal attacks. It was time for him to take the offensive again, this time with decisive finality. In 22:41-46, Jesus put forth a defense of his own identity as Messiah, silencing his opponents (22:46). He then pressed forward into a final, climactic indictment of the hypocritical Jewish leaders in Matthew 23. Jesus' aim was not only to vindicate himself, but also to reveal the hypocrites for what they were.
Jesus was through dealing with silly questions. He went to the heart of the matter and the root of every question—the person of Christ—the Messiah. If people were wrong about Christ, they were wrong about everything.
22:41-42. The Pharisees were still together (22:34) after their final attempt to trap him. Before they could escape, Jesus asked them a question to reveal the depth of their denial and hypocrisy: What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? The Greek word Christ and the Hebrew word Messiah are synonyms, both meaning “anointed one” and referring to the promised prophet, priest, and king. The Pharisees answered, The son of David. It was common knowledge that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, so the Pharisees answered accordingly. (Old Testament passages identifying the Messiah as a descendant of David are Isa. 9:7; 11:1,10; Pss. 2;89;132; Jer. 23:5.)
22:43-45. Jesus then asked a follow-up question. He asked them to interpret Psalm 110:1 in light of the identity of the Christ as David's son. This verse describes Christ's posture in heaven until he comes to reign on the earth (Heb. 10:12-13). In the psalm, David says, “Yahweh said to my Lord” (literal translation of the Hebrew text). In the English translations of this verse, the first usage of the word “Lord” is usually printed in capital letters, to show that it translates the Hebrew name of God, Yahweh. The second usage has only the first letter capitalized, showing that it translates the Hebrew title Adonai, meaning “Master, Lord.”
Jesus was careful to point out that David's psalm was written under the inspiration of God's Spirit, so there was no mistake in what he had written. Jesus was drawing attention to the fact that by the phrase my Lord, David was referring to someone other than himself. He was referring to the Christ or Messiah, whom the Pharisees had just said was a son of David. Jesus' final question for the Pharisees was, “How can the Messiah be both David's Lord and David's son?”
Jesus' implication was clear: The Messiah, the Son of David, was more than a special person. He was also Yahweh the Almighty himself. It followed that Jesus himself was this Messiah. If the Pharisees answered his question, they would have to acknowledge his true identity. Once again, Jesus claimed deity for himself.
Jesus could have been content with quoting only the first line of Psalm 110:1, which shows David calling the Christ my Lord. But he had a purpose in going on to quote the next two lines of the psalm. In the New Testament, Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted Old Testament chapter. The entire psalm is a declaration of the supreme authority of the Messiah. Quoting this first verse of Psalm 110, Jesus highlighted both the Messiah's position of authority at Yahweh's right hand and his defeat of his enemies (until I put your enemies under your feet). The Pharisees had made themselves Jesus' enemies. To acknowledge him as Messiah by answering his question meant they would have to acknowledge his supreme authority and their own defeat “under his feet.”
22:46. Therefore, the Pharisees remained silent from that day on. Jesus had brought all verbal arguments to a close. He passed all their tests; they flunked his. But he was not yet finished. For the Pharisees, the worst was yet to come.
MAIN IDEA REVIEW: Jesus is indeed the Messiah-King, having absolute authority and deserving worship and submission from all his subjects.
Every instruction of the Bible—every expectation of the king regarding his subjects' conpuct—is a way of expressing love toward God and other people Loving God loving people is the believer's central purpose in life.
PRINCIPLES
APPLICATIONS
The word worship is a contraction of an old expression in the English language, “woerth-scipe,” denoting the ascription of reverence to an object of superlative worth. In short, worship is reverence, honor, praise, and service to God.
A more expanded theological definition of worship is given as follows: “An act by a redeemed man, the creature, toward God, his Creator, whereby his will, intellect and emotions gratefully respond to the revelation of God's person expressed in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, as the Holy Spirit illuminates the written Word to his heart.”
The hymn, “O Worship the King,” written and published in 1833 in a hymnal entitled Christian Psalmody, is one of the finest from the early nineteenth century Romantic Era. Some have referred to it as a model hymn for worship. It has few equals in expressive lyrics in the exaltation of the Almighty. Each of the epithets expressed in the hymn refer to God—King, Shield, Defender, Ancient of Days, Maker, Redeemer, and Friend.
When Jesus cleared the temple of the moneychangers, he was demonstrating his authority to do so. It was his place of worship, and the worship of God was being desecrated, taking a backseat to the greed and unethical dealings of men. Jesus made his own kind of change. He drove the moneychangers out of the temple.
To worship God is to recognize God's authority and obey him. The Jewish leaders had refused to acknowledge Jesus' authority as God's Son. They were more concerned in being obedient to their legal system than worshiping God. The heart of Christian worship is the power of Christ's presence. But here the leaders were allowing this corruption to take place in God's place of worship.
Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with saying, “If Socrates would enter the room we should rise and do him honor. But if Jesus Christ came into the room we should fall down on our knees and worship him.”
In the life of faith, the believer must submit to the authority of Jesus and worship him. Does Jesus have a rightful place of worship in your heart?
Lord God, I desire to be a true worshiper of the king. Purge my life of all pride and hypocrisy as I bow before him in love and adoration. Amen.
A. Zechariah's Prophecy (vv. 4-5)
Zechariah 9 begins an oracle predicting the destruction of all Israel's enemies and the ensuing peace in Jerusalem. All of Israel's chariots, war horses, and battle instruments would be taken away (Zech. 9:10), and Jerusalem's king would enter peacefully, “righteous and having salvation” (Zech. 9:9). The king would be gentle, since there was no longer any need for war, and he would arrive by the humble means of a donkey and her foal (Zech. 9:9).
It was common practice for a king to ride a donkey rather than a war horse in times of peace (e.g., 1 Kgs. 1:33). In that same context, Yahweh told of “the blood of my covenant with you” providing the means for the freeing of Israel's prisoners and their restoration to hope and prosperity (Zech. 9:11-12).
This Jesus was the deliverer of God's people in a threefold way. He would ultimately rescue them from their national enemies. But in the meantime, he would rescue them from their sin and from the abuse of their evil shepherds (the religious leaders).
Jesus' humility has been taught and displayed throughout Matthew 18-20, and now Matthew said that his humility showed him to be the king. This first coming as the sacrificial Son of Abraham (the Lamb of God) was on the back of a humble donkey. At his second coming, as the sovereign Son of David (Lion of Judah) he would ride a war horse (cf. Rev. 19:11).
B. Den of Robbers (v. 13)
Den of robbers is a quote from Jeremiah 7:11. Jeremiah 7-9 was a judgment oracle against Judah, after the fall of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) to Assyria. The focus of the warning was on Judah's idolatry and misuse of the temple (among other sins, such as injustice and oppression of aliens and the needy). Judah had been committing idolatry, then coming hypocritically to the temple, assuming its presence to be some kind of validation of their actions. They found false security and safety in the temple, even as they went through the motions of worship to Yahweh.
But Yahweh warned, as he had often done before (Jer. 7:21-26), that judgment was on its way. He foretold the ruin of Jerusalem and the surrounding region and the scattering of the Jews into other nations. Both of those events would happen to first-century Israel in A.D. 70—a judgment to which Jesus alluded in Matthew 11:12; 24:2. This reference to the temple as “a den of robbers,” along with Jesus' disruption of the merchants' tables and chairs, was an ominous warning of coming judgment.
C. Sadducees and Pharisees on the Resurrection
The Sadducees held that only the Pentateuch was inspired Scripture. Therefore, since the resurrection was not explicitly taught in those five books, resurrection was not possible. They felt that the Old Testament teaching regarding Levirate marriage (all within the Pentateuch) made the idea of a resurrection ridiculous. The Pharisees (and Jesus) based their belief in the resurrection on Isaiah 26:19, Daniel 12:2, and other passages outside the Pentateuch (cf. Job 19:25-27).
For the argument of the Sadducees to make sense, we must understand the practice of Levirate marriage. In Israel, it was important that every man's name be carried on through male offspring. This was tied to the importance of the Promised Land. Only male heirs could inherit a portion of the land. Daughters assumed a new identity through marriage, and they shared in the inheritance of their husbands. In families where there were only female offspring, the father's name could be carried on through the daughter's families. If there were no children, the inheritance went to the nearest male relative (Num. 27:1-11; Josh. 17:3-5).
According to Deuteronomy 25:5-10 (see also Gen. 38:8), if a man with a brother died without a son, the brother was obligated to marry his widowed sister-in-law to give her and her deceased husband a son. This son would carry on the deceased husband's name and receive his inheritance. Any brother who neglected this duty was despised throughout Israel.
D. Summary
The months and years of preparatory ministry were, completed. There was no longer any reason for Jesus to keep his identity and his authority out of the spotlight. In fact, he boldly stepped into the spotlight, stating through his actions and his words that he was indeed the Messiah-King.
This claim could not go unchallenged by the religious establishment. Their authority was threatened by the advent of the Messiah. Jesus welcomed every attack from the religious leaders, publicly revealing their foolishness, malice, and disqualification. This set the stage for their final desperate action—to find any reason, whether true or false, to arrest and execute Jesus.
A. INTRODUCTION
The spiritual battle with Satan, introduced in 4:1-11, was rejoined with full vigor in these chapters. Matthew may have intended the threefold attack of the Jewish leaders in 22:15-40 to remind us of Satan's threefold attack at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. We will understand these later battles in a new light if we see Satan as the mastermind behind them.
B. COMMENTARY
