MATTHEW S MESSIAH by Daniel Goepfrich. Given the chance to hear a few bars, many people could identify one of the most famous

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1 MATTHEW S MESSIAH by Daniel Goepfrich Given the chance to hear a few bars, many people could identify one of the most famous orchestral presentations of all time, Handel s Messiah. Some parts, like the Hallelujah Chorus heard often around Christmas, are so recognized that they can stand on their own, outside of the overall oratorio. The Gospel of Matthew is not so different. Probably the most often referenced of the Synoptics 1, Matthew stands well-known as the first book of the New Testament (probably the first or second New Testament book written), and the first to mention the name of Jesus. Like the Messiah, Matthew has certain movements that need no context to identify them: the Magi s visit, the Sermon on the Mount (especially the Beatitudes), and the Olivet Discourse. Matthew s Messiah can be divided into five major parts, each with several movements, plus two interludes. There are many different ways to outline this book, but for our purposes I will do it as follows: PART I: The Introduction of Messiah Movement 1: The argument of ancestry (1:1-17) Movement 2: The evidence of supernatural conception (1:18-25) Movement 3: The authentication of others Chorus 1: Magi (2:1-12) Chorus 2: Old Testament Prophets: Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and John the Baptizer (2:13 3:12) Chorus 3: God (3:13-17) Chorus 4: The devil (4:1-11) 1 Synoptic comes from a compound Greek word meaning to see together. In the Bible, the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because they are so similar. 1

2 PART II: The Presentation of the Kingdom Movement 1: Jesus begins his ministry (4:12-25) Movement 2: Kingdom teachings (5:1 7:29) Movement 3: Kingdom signs (8:1 9:38) Movement 4: The work expands (10:1 11:1) Movement 5: The Kingdom is offered and refused (11:2 12:50) Movement 6: The Kingdom is hidden (13:1-58) INTERLUDE: Miracles for the masses; warnings about religion (14:1 16:12) PART III: Preparation for the Next Phase Movement 1: Acknowledgement of Messiah; Prediction of the Church (16:13-20) Recitative 2 : Prediction of Jesus death and resurrection #1 (16:21-28) Movement 2: Presentation of Messiah to the disciples (17:1-20) Recitative: Prediction of Jesus death and resurrection #2 (17:22-23) Movement 3: Clarification of Messiah to the disciples (17:24 18:35) Movement 4: Final teachings before public presentation (19:1 20:16) Recitative: Prediction of Jesus death and resurrection #3 (20:17-19) Movement 5: Messiah s purpose revealed (20:20-28) Movement 6: Final miracle of authentication (20:29-34) PART IV: The Public Presentation of Messiah Movement 1: Entry into Jerusalem and Temple (21:1-22) Movement 2: Confrontation by the Priests (21:23-27) Movement 3: Teaching against the Pharisees (21:28 22:22) Movement 4: Teaching against the Sadducees (22:23-33) Movement 5: More teaching against the Pharisees (22:34 23:39) 2 A recitative is a part of a cantata, opera, or oratorio in which singers converse, describe action, or declaim. It moves the action forward between the high musical moments. Source: recitative. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, (accessed: March 4, 2011). 2

3 INTERLUDE: Prophecies about Jerusalem and Messiah (24:1 25:46) PART V: Messiah s Arrest, Crucifixion, and Resurrection Movement 1: Messiah betrayed and arrested (26:1 27:23) Movement 2: Messiah tortured and murdered (27:24-66) Movement 3: Messiah resurrected (28:1-20) It is obvious by looking at the flow of the Gospel that Matthew s primary goal in writing was to present Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One 3 for whom Israel had been waiting for 1,500 years. One of the early promises, found in Psalm 2, was that this Messiah would have royal authority from God. Why do the nations rebel? Why are the countries devising plots that will fail? The kings of the earth form a united front; the rulers collaborate against the LORD and his anointed king. Psalm 2:1-2 4 The anointed king promised by the psalmist (also called God s son in verse seven) would be the Messiah. What emotion that psalm must have stirred in the hearts of first century Jews, living in the land promised and delivered by God but under the tyranny of Rome. How they longed for the day when Messiah would storm the gates and save his people! The prophets had foretold it. How long did they have to wait? I don t know, was Matthew s reply. He was here, but you missed him. Let me tell you what happened. This is the Gospel of Matthew an eyewitness account to the coming and leaving again of Israel s hope. 3 Messiah comes from the Hebrew word meshiach which means anointed. In the New Testament, the corresponding Greek word is christos, Christ. 4 Unless otherwise indicated all Scripture quotations are from the NET Bible Copyright 2005 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. 3

4 Israel s Hope Notice, first, that the body of the Gospel is bookended by fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy. In the first three chapters there are no fewer than six direct quotes or allusions to Messianic prophecies, and the last three chapters (in reference to Jesus death, burial, and resurrection) contain at least another half-dozen. No first-century Jew reading or hearing Matthew s work could escape his blatant declaration that Jesus was their long-awaited Deliverer. What they would not expect was how the story unfolded. For the entire first half of the book, Matthew showed Jesus presenting not a coming kingdom, but one that was near 5 (4:17). This is what the people wanted to hear Messiah had come, deliverance from Roman occupation was imminent. Both John and our Lord began by proclaiming, The kingdom of heaven is at hand ; yet neither explained what that kingdom was. Why? Because their hearers knew, without need of explanation, that it meant the Messianic kingdom long-promised through the Old Testament prophets. 6 And for a dozen chapters or so, that was Jesus message: I am here. Watch me heal as Isaiah foretold. Listen to my teachings. Let me lead you back to the God of your fathers. And the crowds responded everywhere he went. Israel s hope had finally come! Yet deep in the body of the Gospel, we find a different reason that Jesus came. Assuming that the story is relatively chronological 7, we find a fascinating chiastic structure 8 in the book s 5 Most commentators understand near in this context to refer to time ( close at hand ). The Greek verb eggizo can mean time or proximity, based on context. Given that Jesus used the perfect tense ( has come near indicating a past event with results continuing into the present time), it makes sense to assume that Jesus meant time, that the coming of the kingdom was available and ready to commence. 6 J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Six volumes in one, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1960), 5: By relatively chronological I mean that the major storyline throughout the book is chronological, i.e., it continues to progress forward, even if each individual event is not necessarily in the exact order that it occurred. 4

5 layout, pointing us to the real focus of the story. Consider the same five parts above in this condensed outline (chapters given in parentheses): A Messiah s announcement from heaven, birth, and safety from harm (1-3) B Messiah publicly offers the Kingdom (4-15) C Messiah prepares for a non-kingdom phase (16-20) B Messiah publicly offers himself (21-25) A Messiah s torture, death, and resurrection to return to heaven (26-28) What is interesting is that in the middle focus section the non-kingdom phase 9 there is not a single Messianic prophecy quoted. In these five chapters we find three predictions of Jesus death and resurrection (16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19). We are introduced to something new called the church (16:18; 18:17). There is much forward-looking within Jesus interaction with people and teaching at this time, pointing to a phase when his followers will have to function without him present at all, much less reigning as king. But the Old Testament prophets are mostly silent when it comes to a Messiah who came for a reason other than to reign. 10 Then, right at the end of the section, Jesus made the statement that sums up the purpose of both his earthly ministry and the non-kingdom phase which was about to commence (20:28): 8 A chiasm is an outline format that, when the parts of the outline are nested, forms the left side of an X which looks like the Greek letter chi. The nested levels that line up with each other are often identified with the same letter (A, B, C, etc.) to show they are parallel. Matthew s chiastic outline is given above. 9 I am using the term non-kingdom phase in reference to the Church Age in which we currently live. At the end of the Church Age there will be a time of terrible judgment on all unbelieving Jews and Gentiles (also prophesied) before Jesus returns to fulfill the promise of a literal Kingdom. 10 One obvious exception is Isaiah 53 which describes with precision many of the events surrounding Jesus death. However, Matthew does not record Jesus pointing his disciples back to this passage for clarification. In fact, Isaiah 53 is quoted in the New Testament only six times: John 12:38; Romans 10:16; Matthew 8:17; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 2:22; and Luke 22:37. (Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and G. S. Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament [Chicago: Moody, 1983], BibleWorks, v.8.) 5

6 The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. It was to this end that Jesus came: to die on behalf of sinful mankind. In his Notes on this verse Constable writes: The Greek word lytron ( ransom ) was a term used frequently in nonbiblical Greek to describe the purchase price for freeing a slave. This word connotes a purchase price whenever it occurs in the New Testament. For (Gr. anti) indicates the substitute nature of Jesus death. This is one of the great Christological and soteriological verses in the Bible. It is also the first time that Jesus explained the reason He would die to His disciples. 11 It is no accident that Jesus mentioned the church (Gr. ekklesia, congregation, gathering ) twice before he made this statement. The prediction that Jesus would personally build his church (16:18) actually included two major points. First, it showed that Jesus congregation was not already in existence. This would have had a dramatic effect on his Jewish disciples and Matthew s readers because it eliminated national Israel, which did exist, from being Jesus congregation. Second, because it did not yet exist, it would be something new that they did not and were not yet ready to fully understand. Though Matthew never intended to write a theology of the Church in his Gospel, the seeds are certainly there, in both Jesus prediction and purpose statement. We find Paul explaining this concept in greater detail several years later in his letters to the Ephesians and the Romans (emphasis added in both). When reading this, you will be able to understand my insight into this secret of Christ. Now this secret was not disclosed to people in former generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, namely, that through the gospel the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel according to the gift of God s grace that was given to me by the exercise of his power. To me less than the least of all 11 Thomas Constable, Notes on Matthew, 2010 edition. (accessed March 10, 2011),

7 the saints this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten everyone about God s secret plan a secret that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things. The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord Ephesians 3:4-11 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was diligently seeking, but the elect obtained it. The rest were hardened, as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, to this very day. And David says, Let their table become a snare and trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and make their backs bend continually. I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous. Romans 11:7-11 Hope Deferred Matthew recorded Israel s official rejection of Messiah in chapter twelve, when the religious leaders decided to believe that Jesus was simply Satan s pawn (12:24), but we dare not think that this means that Israel s hope for a kingdom is over. In fact, there are five important events in the final eight chapters that argue strongly that the expected kingdom will yet come. The first happened probably the very same day that Jesus stated his ultimate purpose. On his way out of Jericho, as he headed toward Jerusalem, he healed two blind men who called out to him using the Messianic title Son of David. 12 Immediately afterward, with their voices of praise and thanks still in the air, Jesus initiated his final public campaign with his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (21:1-11). This event is important because by riding on that donkey, Jesus literally fulfilled another Messianic prophecy (Zechariah 9:9), showing that their rejection had 15: Matthew records only three instances before this that Jesus was referred to by this title 9:27; 12:23; 7

8 not voided the unfulfilled promises. The people s public cry of Hosanna to the Son of David! was also an acknowledgement of who he was and a reference to Psalm 118: The second event was also immediate. Upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus went straight for the Temple and quoted Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11, referring to the Temple as God s house. Had Israel s rejection of Messiah freed God of his obligation to fulfill his promises, the importance of the Temple would have been erased. Yet his zeal for God s house (Psalm 69:9) was no less after their rejection of him than before it (see John 2:12-17 for the description of the first time he did this). The third event pointing to a yet-to-come restoration of God s promises to Israel is found at the end of chapter 23. For the first 36 verses Jesus had verbally assaulted the Jewish religious leaders for their hypocrisy. They taught one thing but did another. They claimed to be the ones who would show the people the right way, yet when Messiah came, they missed him completely and actually led the people against him. After all of that, it seems that God would have absolute prerogative to write them off as a whole, 13 but a look at the last three verses of the chapter show otherwise. In a great public lament, Jesus cried out not against, but for, Israel culminating in a great three-fold prediction: Look, your house is left to you desolate! For I tell you, you will not see me from now on until you say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Matthew 23:38-39 In this short statement Jesus confirmed 1) that the Temple would be destroyed; 2) and that he would leave them for a while; 3) but that he would return upon their repentance. Notice that it will require an official welcoming, not just a public opinion poll like he had heard upon his Entry in chapter There is a surprisingly large number of Christians who think this is exactly what happened. They believe that the Church has come to totally replace Israel and receive all of the blessings originally promised to her. This is why it is so important to understand that neither Jesus nor the apostles believed or taught this at any time. 8

9 The fourth event is really an extended teaching time for the disciples called the Olivet Discourse. In chapters 24-25, in response to their question, Jesus laid out for them the sign of [his] coming and the end of the age (24:3). They understood that the end of the age would introduce Messiah s kingdom and Israel s final blessings. What did they mean by the end of the age? Jesus had used this phrase before (13:39, 40, 49; cf. 28:20). By the end of the age Jesus meant the end of the present age that will consummate in His second coming and a judgment of living unbelievers (cf. Jer. 29:22; 51:33; Dan. 3:6; Hos. 6:11; Joel 3:13; Zeph. 1:3). This will occur just before the messianic kingdom begins. The disciples used the phrase the end of the age as Jesus and the Old Testament prophets spoke of it. They understood that Jesus meant the present age, the one before the messianic age began, since in their question they associated it with Jesus return to the temple. 14 The fifth, and final, event that proves that Israel s rejection of Messiah did not mean the end of God s covenantal promises to the nation is found at Jesus last Passover meal with his disciples. In Matthew 26:28 Jesus told them, This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The statement would have told the disciples three things: 1. It was similar to God s covenant given through Moses. The phrase blood of the covenant would remind the disciples of what Moses said when he passed the Law from God to the people: This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words (Exodus 24:8). 2. It was different than the covenant through Moses. When Moses said it, he used bulls blood. Jesus said that this was would be ratified with his own blood, obviously later than that night, differentiating it from the one Moses had offered. 3. It was the ultimate spiritual covenant promised by God. Luke clarified that Jesus called this the new covenant in my blood (Luke 22:20). The disciples would have immediately remembered God s words to Jeremiah: Indeed, a time is coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I 14 Constable,

10 made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them, says the LORD. But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land, says the LORD. I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people. People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me, says the LORD. For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done. Jeremiah 31:31-34 Notice that the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah would be with the people of Israel and Judah with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land. It cannot be any clearer. Five times in eight chapters Jesus completely missed the chance to show God s rejection of Israel if that was intended. Instead, he affirmed it over and over. However, by claiming that there would be a new congregation, Jesus laid the groundwork in the apostles minds that everything they had hoped for in regard to the Messianic kingdom would be placed on hold for an unspecified time. Now, they didn t get it right away. Even after the great teaching in chapters on those events which must happen first (24:6), the disciples stood on the Mount of Olives with Jesus and asked, Lord, is this the time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6). Jesus did not correct their thinking and say that the physical kingdom they expected would never happen. He simply said that they were not allowed to know when. Although the kingdom has not yet arrived, it was announced at the Last Supper and ratified a few hours later on the cross. Until it comes, our job is to make disciples through the power and authority of Jesus himself (Matthew 28:18-20). Remember, says the Messiah, I am with you always, to the end of the age. 10

11 BIBLIOGRAPHY Archer, Jr., Gleason L. and G. S. Chirichigno. Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament. Chicago: Moody, BibleWorks, v.8. Baxter, J. Sidlow. Explore the Book, Six volumes in one. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, Cone, Christopher. The Promises of God: A Synthetic Bible Survey, 3 rd edition. Ft. Worth, TX: Exegetica Publishing and Biblical Resources, Constable, Thomas. Notes on Matthew, 2010 edition. (accessed March 10, 2011). Dictionary.com. The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, (accessed: March 4, 2011). Nicholes, Lou. The Bible in a Nutshell: Introduction to Sixty-Six of the Greatest Books Ever Written. Xulon Press, Scroggie, W. Graham. The Unfolding Drama of Redemption: An Inductive Study of Salvation in the Old and New Testaments (Three volumes complete and unabridged in one). Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, Originally published: Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,